A Doctor Vowed To Stand Against Israel’s War On Hospitals. Its Military Just Detained Him.
HuffPost
People are demanding that Israel release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Kamal Adwan Hospital director who's become the voice for Gaza's health sector.
For the past 14 months, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has faced Israel’s war on Gaza’s health care system head-on, documenting to the world his fight as a physician to treat patients and keep his hospital in the north afloat despite constant bombardment, depleted humanitarian aid, a painful shrapnel injury and the killing of his own son.
On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces arrested him.
After nearly three months of daily Israeli attacks, soldiers stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, killing dozens of people and detaining more than 240 others, including patients and medics. Captives were forced to strip and wait outside in winter temperatures before soldiers took them to Israeli prisons and interrogation centers, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Among them was Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and hospital director and Gaza’s lead physician for the U.S.-based medical aid group MedGlobal.
Kamal Adwan was the last functioning hospital in North Gaza, as Israel continues to wall the region off from the rest of the Palestinian territory and from any kind of outside humanitarian assistance. Still, despite the resulting lack of resources and the increasing casualties, Abu Safiya managed to keep the hospital in Beit Lahia at least partially running ― expanding its bed capacity from 120 to 200, and regularly posting updates online to show the world what Kamal Adwan, its patients and its staff were enduring at the hands of the Israeli military.
