Calls were made for the release of Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was arrested by the Israeli army on Saturday along with dozens of others during a raid on the facility in the northern Gaza Strip.
Concerns are growing for the safety of Abu Sufiya, whose whereabouts remain unknown since he was arrested from the last barely functioning medical facility in northern Gaza, which was destroyed by sustained Israeli bombing during the weeks-long military siege of the area.
MedGlobal, a humanitarian NGO that provides healthcare in disaster zones, called for Abu Safiya’s immediate release, while the World Health Organization said it was “appalled” by the raid on the hospital.
The last photo of Abu Safiya, which was widely circulated on social media, showed him walking towards an Israeli tank near Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was burned by Israeli forces during the violent raid on Friday.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that Abu Safiya was being held for questioning on suspicion of being a “Hamas terrorist operative.” They arrested more than 240 people from the hospital building.
Since October 6, Israeli operations in Gaza have focused on the north, where the army says its ground and air offensive is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.
Location unknown
Zaher Sahloul, president of MedGlobal, said in a statement that Abu Safiya’s arrest was “unjust and a violation of international humanitarian law.”
“His detention is not only unjust, it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which guarantees the protection of medical personnel in conflict areas. MedGlobal urgently calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu (Safiya).
Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said Abu Safiyya is considered a human rights defender by Front Line Defenders, an Ireland-based organization that works to protect people “at risk because of their peaceful and legitimate human rights work.”
The raid was also the latest on a hospital during the war in which Israel has targeted healthcare complexes.
The United Nations World Health Organization said in a statement that “the systematic dismantling of the health system and the siege that has been ongoing for more than 80 days on northern Gaza puts the lives of 75,000 Palestinians still in the region at risk.”
Dr. Ali Al-Aidi, an orthopedic surgeon originally from Gaza, says that the Israeli raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arrest of Dr. Abu Safiya aims to empty the northern Gaza Strip of its population.
“It deprives all residents of northern Gaza of any sustainable medical care. I think this is really intentional to force people out of northern Gaza,” Al-Aidi told Al Jazeera from the US city of Dallas.
“It is systematic. (The Israelis) decided that without medical care, they (the Palestinians in northern Gaza) would have to evacuate.”
“It’s a warning to every other doctor not to talk about their patients.”
Hamas on Friday rejected Israel’s assertion that its fighters had performed surgeries from the hospital throughout the 15-month-old Gaza war, saying there were no fighters in the hospital.
The World Health Organization said that 15 critically ill patients, 50 caregivers and 20 health workers at Kamal Adwan Hospital were transferred on Friday to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which it described as “destroyed and inoperable.”
She added that the World Health Organization will conduct an urgent mission to the Indonesian hospital on Sunday, in part to transport critically ill patients to Gaza City.
The killing of Adnan Al-Barash
Abu Safiya, a pediatrician, refused several Israeli orders to evacuate Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He was briefly detained and then released when Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan in late October.
During the same operation, Israeli forces killed Abu Safiya’s son, Ibrahim, in a drone attack on the hospital gate.
Abu Safiya was wounded by shrapnel from another Israeli attack on the hospital on November 23, but he continued his work to inform the world of developments at the hospital.
This is not the first time that Israeli forces have attacked a hospital and medical workers. Adnan Al-Barash, a prominent Palestinian orthopedic surgeon and head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza before its destruction, was reportedly killed by torture in an Israeli prison.
He was working at Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in December when the Israeli army arrested him and other medics.
