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u.s. state department
US Pediatricians Ask Blinken to Intervene as Israel Extends Detention of Gaza Doctor
An Israeli court has ordered Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya—whose distressed mother reportedly died earlier this week—to be held without charge until February 13.
Jan 10, 2025
The largest professional association of U.S. pediatricians is asking the State Department to intervene on behalf of a Gaza hospital director detained by Israel, where a court on Thursday ordered an extension of his imprisonment until mid-February.
The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said Friday that the Ashkelon Magistrates' Court extended the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a 51-year-old pediatrician who is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, without charges until February 13, and without access to legal counsel until January 22.
Israeli troops forcibly detained Abu Safiya on December 28 amid a prolonged siege and assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, from which he refused to evacuate as long as patients were there. Former detainees recently released from the Sde Teiman torture prison in southern Israel said they met Abu Safiya there. According to testimonies gathered by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Abu Safiya was tortured before his arrival at Sde Teiman and inside the notorious lockup.
Al Mezan said that Abu Safiya's attorney believes he is now being jailed at Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Palestinian media reported earlier this week that Abu Safiya's mother died of a heart attack. MedGlobal, the Ilinois-based nonprofit for which Abu Safiya works as lead Gaza physician, said she died from "severe sadness" over her son's plight.
Dr. Sue Kressley, president of the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "seek the assistance of the U.S. government to inquire about the whereabouts and well-being" of Abu Safiya, and to voice concern "for the children who are now without access to pediatric emergency care in northern Gaza," where 15 months of relentless Israeli attacks and siege have obliterated the healthcare system.
As Common Dreams has reported, children in northern Gaza are being killed not only by Israeli bombs and bullets, but also by exposure to cold weather after Israeli troops forcibly expelled their families from homes and other places of shelter while "cleansing" the area.
Kressley's letter asks Blinken to explain what the Biden administration is doing to determine Abu Safiya's whereabouts and why he is being held, what condition he is in, a status report on northern Gaza's hospitals and their capacity for care, and what the U.S. is doing to "improve access to pediatric care in Gaza."
On Friday, the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR) welcomed the AAP letter in a statement asserting that "Secretary Blinken could pick up the phone and demand" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—"release Dr. Abu Safiya and all those illegally detained and facing torture and abuse at the hands of Israeli forces."
"The Biden administration's silence on the kidnapping of Dr. Abu Safiya, and on the torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, sends the message that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim lives and dignity are of no consequence to U.S. officials," CAIR added.
In the United Kingdom, the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) on Thursday demanded that the U.K. government "take urgent action to protect healthcare workers and patients and ensure the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained medical staff."
"The Israeli military has escalated their systematic targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers, with hundreds currently arbitrarily detained under inhuman conditions," MAP said. "These detentions are part of Israel's systematic dismantling of Gaza's health system, which is making Palestinian survival impossible."
MAP Gaza director Fikr Shalltoot said in a statement: "We at MAP are extremely concerned for the life and safety of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israeli forces. These detentions, alongside systematic assaults on hospitals in North Gaza, have left tens of thousands of people without access to healthcare and forced them to flee southwards."
"Dr. Abu Safiya spent weeks and months sending distress calls about Israeli military attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and the dangers posed to his colleagues and patients," Shalltoot added. "His warnings were met with deafening silence from the international community. It is long overdue for the U.K. and other nations to act decisively to protect Palestinians from ethnic cleansing, ensure the safety of healthcare workers, and hold Israel accountable."
Back in the U.S.—where healthcare professionals staged a nationwide "SickFromGenocide" protest earlier this week—members of medical advocacy groups including Doctors Against Genocide, Jewish Voice for Peace-Health Advisory Council, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Chicago who recently returned from volunteering in Gaza held a press conference Friday in Chicago demanding the release of Abu Safiya and the "protection of hospitals and healthcare workers" in the embattled enclave.
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US Declares Genocide in Sudan But Refuses to Acknowledge Genocide in Gaza
One journalist told the secretary of state that all the crimes cited for Sudan are "being committed by Israel in Gaza; the very genocide YOU have been proudly funding, arming, and covering up."
Jan 07, 2025
While welcoming the United States' recognition that paramilitaries in Sudan have committed genocidal acts during the country's devastating civil war since 2023, human rights advocates on Tuesday said the declaration underscored the Biden administration's refusal to acknowledge what experts said is also clearly taking place in Gaza at the hands of the U.S.-backed Israel Defense Forces.
Both the mass killing of civilians in Sudan and Palestinians in Gaza "should be recognized and stopped," said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch.
Biden administration officials reportedly hesitated to move forward with the declaration that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is fighting Sudan's military in a bloody civil war, is committing genocide, saying it could intensify criticism of continued U.S. support for Israel.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on the declaration on Monday, saying the RSF's acts of genocide include systemic violence against the Masalit, a non-Arab ethnic group, between April-November 2023 in the western region of Darfur.
Humanitarian workers reported that they counted 2,000 bodies in a single day during that attack, while the United Nations estimated as many as 15,000 people were killed in one city.
Hundreds of thousands of Masalit people have fled to overcrowded camps in neighboring Chad.
The RSF, said Blinken on Tuesday, has "targeted fleeing civilians, [murdered] innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies."
The paramilitary group has also blocked aid from getting to some areas, contributing to what the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) identified as famine in at least five districts in Sudan last month.
Palestine-based journalist Muhammad Shehada demanded to know how the Biden administration could determine genocide is taking place in Sudan while repeatedly denying the same in Gaza—even as the International Court of Justice has found Israel placed at risk Palestinians' right to be protected from genocide and numerous human rights groups have accused Israel of acts of genocide.
"Literally every single one of the crimes you [cite] to conclude a genocide is happening in Sudan are all being committed by Israel in Gaza; the very genocide YOU have been proudly funding, arming, and covering up," said Shehada.
More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the IDF began bombarding the enclave in October 2023, with hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and residential buildings among the places targeted. A majority of those killed have been women and children, according to the U.N., even as Israel and the U.S.—the largest international funder of the IDF—have insisted they are targeting Hamas fighters.
Israel's near-total blockade on aid has also pushed parts of the enclave into famine, according to experts.
"Blinken finds genocide in Sudan but not in Gaza," said Mark Seddon, director of the Center for United Nations Studies. "Really, you can't make this crap up."
Along with the State Department's determination, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it was sanctioning RSF leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, and seven companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the main international funder of the paramilitary group.
Roth pointed out that while private companies in the UAE were sanctioned, the U.S. did not name the government of the Middle Eastern country.
Last January, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) led a push to block a U.S. sale of $85 million in military equipment to the UAE, warning the country had "been violating the U.N. arms embargo in Darfur to support the RSF."
"Good to see the U.S. officially determine that the brutal RSF militia is committing genocide in Sudan," said journalist Nicholas Kristof. "But accountability is impaired when the U.S. fails to publicly call out the RSF's backer, the UAE, which enables the genocide."
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Lawsuit Claims State Department Illegally Arming Israel via Leahy Law 'Loophole'
"This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces," said one advocate.
Dec 17, 2024
Palestinians and Palestinian Americans on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. State Department of creating a "loophole" allowing Israel to skirt federal legislation barring American military aid to foreign militaries that violate human rights law.
The lawsuit, which was filed by five individuals and supported by the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), accuses the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken of violating the Leahy Law, legislation passed in two parts in the late 1990s that built on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961's proscription of U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.
According to DAWN, the suit "documents how the State Department has created unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units, despite overwhelming evidence of their human rights violations" including "torture, prolonged detention without charge, forced disappearance, and flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and security, such as genocide, indiscriminate and deliberate killings, and deprivation of items essential to survival, including food, water, fuel, and medicine."
Case plaintiff Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American from the southern Gazan city of Rafah who has lost numerous relatives in Israeli attacks, toldZeteo's Prem Thakker, "I'm hoping, through this action, through this lawsuit, that we can just call out the federal government to begin to enforce American laws."
The State Department has sparked international outrage by repeatedly finding that Israel is using U.S.-supplied arms in compliance with domestic human rights law, citing the key ally's right to defend itself and the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. However, Israel's 438-day retaliation has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Thousands more have been killed or maimed in the West Bank.
South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Both men have been warmly welcomed in Washington, D.C.. Congress and the Biden administration have approved tens of billions of dollars in arms transfers to Israel. U.S.-supplied bombs have been used in some of Israel's most notorious airstrikes. The U.S. has also vetoed numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a Gaza cease-fire.
Today, the White House welcomed Yoav Gallant, charged by the ICC with the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. What a disgrace.
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— Adil Haque ( @adhaque.bsky.social) December 10, 2024 at 12:21 PM
"This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces," DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement on Tuesday. "For too long, the State Department has acted as if there's an 'Israel exemption' from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world. As a result, millions of Palestinians have suffered unimaginable, horrific abuses by Israeli forces using U.S. weapons."
Stephen Rickard, a former U.S. official who helped pass the landmark legislation, said that "long-standing concerns that the State Department was not cutting off aid to specific Israel units as required by the Leahy Law... have been given dramatic urgency by the tragic ongoing crisis in Gaza."
"If the State Department will not comply with the law, then it is time for the courts to vindicate the rule of law and order it to do so," Rickard added.
The new lawsuit came a day after relatives of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi—the Turkish American woman who, according to witnesses, was deliberately shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in September—met with Blinken in search of justice and accountability for the activist's killing.
Referring to another American activist killed by Israeli forces while defending Palestinian homes, Hamid Ali, Eygi's widower, said that Blinken "was attentive in listening to us, but unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we've been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie's killing."
Ali called Blinken "very deferential to the Israelis," adding that "it felt like he was saying his hands were tied and they weren't able to really do much."
A journalist asked State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a Tuesday press conference why the U.S. has not suspended arms transfers to Israel by invoking the Leahy Law and citing the cases of victims like Eygi or Shireen Abu Akleh—the Palestinian American Al Jazeera correspondent who, according to witnesses and several independent probes, was deliberately shot dead by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank in May 2022.
"We have taken those cases extremely seriously," Miller claimed. Referring to Eygi, he added that he made it clear to Israel that "her death was unacceptable, that it should have been avoided, it should have never happened in the first place, that we want to see the results of their investigation, and we want to see them change their rules of engagement."
In October, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin threatened to cut off weapons to Israel if it did not dramatically improve human rights conditions in Gaza within 30 days. Thirty days came and went with no discernible improvements, yet the arms flow continued.
On Tuesday, 20 progressive lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives led by Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas) sent Blinken and Austin a letter arguing that "the United States government must suspend offensive weapons" shipments to Israel due to its violation of federal and international law.
"U.S. law is clear: If the Netanyahu government does not allow sufficient food and medicine to enter Gaza, then the U.S. cannot send weapons," Casar wrote on social media.
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