‘Global silence and abandonment’ as Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital destroyed
The sound of tanks rumbling through the streets outside of Kamal Adwan Hospital woke everyone up. They were already on edge after enduring months of direct Israeli attacks. Then came the loudspeakers ordering everyone to evacuate – the sick, the wounded, medical staff and displaced people seeking shelter – early on Friday morning.
Izzat al-Aswad, a patient at the hospital, told Al Jazeera that he heard Israeli forces summoning Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the hospital director, over their loudspeakers. Dr Abu Safia came back and told people in the hospital they had been ordered to evacuate. A little later, al-Aswad said Israeli soldiers demanded that all the men strip down to their underwear to be allowed to leave.
Shivering, frightened, many of them injured, the men were ordered to walk to a checkpoint the Israelis had set up about two hours away, al-Aswad recounted by phone. At the checkpoint, they gave their full names and had their photographs taken. Then a number was scrawled on their chest and neck by a soldier, indicating they had been searched.
Some of the men were taken for interrogation.
“They beat me and the men around me,” al-Aswad said. “They hit the injured people like me directly on our injuries.”
Activists fear Abu Safia may meet same fate as Adnan al-Bursh, the Palestinian surgeon who died in Israeli custody
As we’ve been reporting, doctors and activists across the world are demanding that Israel release the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital who was arrested along with hundreds of others in a raid on the medical facility last week.
Many on social media are worried that Abu Safia may meet the same fate as Dr Adnan al-Bursh, the director of al-Shifa Hospital, whose death at the Israeli Ofer Prison triggered allegations of torture.
Al-Bursh, one of Gaza’s most prominent doctors, was arrested during an Israeli raid last December and died four months later. Witnesses told the Israeli human rights organisation, HaMoked, that they saw Ofer Prison guards dragging al-Bursh and dumping him in the prison yard.
He was naked from the waist down, bleeding and unable to stand. He died moments later.
At the time, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, said al-Bursh may have been “raped to death”.
Now, activists are calling on the world to save Abu Safia from a similar fate.
“After Dr. Adnan al-Bursh died in Israeli prisons, amid reports suggesting he may have been raped to death, and with every medical professional subjected to torture for no apparent reason other than their commitment to duty in Gaza’s hospitals, is the world waiting for another story about the death of Dr. Adnan Abu Safiya in Israeli prisons?” asked Maha Hussaini, a Palestinian activist.
After Dr. Adnan al-Bursh died in Israeli prisons, amid reports suggesting he may have been raped to death, and with every medical professional subjected to torture for no apparent reason other than their commitment to duty in Gaza’s hospitals, is the world waiting for another… pic.twitter.com/8J0Rsq8eR9
— Maha Hussaini (@MahaGaza) December 29, 2024
Hiba Zayadin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote:
“The world stood by as Dr. Hussam appealed day in and day out for it to intervene, to stop Israel’s brutality in Gaza. Today, as he disappears into its torturous detention, we must do all that is in our power to prevent a fate similar to that of Dr. Adnan Al Bursh and others.”
Doctor’s son calls on international community to secure release ‘before it’s too late’
Idris Abu Safia, the son of detained Dr Hussam Abu Safia, has issued an urgent appeal for the international community to “intervene and secure his release before it’s too late”.
“We urgently appeal to the international community to act for his release as he is detained by the occupation forces while performing his humanitarian duty,” he said in a video appeal.
“He now suffers severe mistreatment in the Sde Teiman detention centre, including humiliation, exposure to freezing cold and denial of medical care.”
Despite losing a son and being injured during this war, Abu Safia said his father “continued to treat his people with unwavering dedication”.
He added that the entire family holds Kazakh passports and called on Kazakhstan, as well as the UN health agency WHO and all foreign governments, to pressure Israel to release him.
Israel again requests delay of Supreme Court hearing on Red Cross prisoner visits
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the government has requested a delay of this hearing for the sixth time.
The hearing would address a petition by the Red Cross requesting that it be allowed to visit Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and that it be allowed to transfer information on these prisoners.
