Calls grow for release of Gaza hospital’s director after violent raid

Calls are growing for the immediate release of the Kamal Adwan Hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was forcibly detained by Israeli forces following his heroic resistance in the face of the regime’s aggression.

Israeli forces have violently detained and interrogated the medical staff of Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last functioning health centers in Gaza amid the Israeli regime’s ongoing onslaught in Gaza.

The Gaza Health Ministry said an estimated 50 people, including medical staff, were killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday and the rest were abducted by the occupation forces.

The remaining patients, some of them critically ill, along with caregivers and health workers were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Dr. Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was among those taken for questioning by the Israeli military over alleged links to the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

The Israeli regime acknowledged that it raided the area of the hospital and detained at least 240 staffers, claiming that the facility was being used as a “Hamas terror stronghold.”

The whereabouts of Abu Safiya and other hospital staff are unclear.

As calls grow for information on Abu Safiya’s fate, a picture has circulated on social media depicting him as “one of the most honorable examples of resilience.”

“Dr. Hussam Abu Safia stands as one of the most honorable examples of resilience, embodying its noblest form. Like the roots of Palestine’s olive trees, older than Israel’s entire existence, Dr. Hussam represents steadfastness,” Martyrs of Gaza wrote in a post on X.

“Abducting doctors is a war crime, and silence in the face of such crimes is an even greater offense.”

“You will find no words to describe this scene and no hero in the history of humanity who walks towards death in such a way. My body shuddered, my eyes wept, and my heart shattered when I saw this image,” said Omar Hamad, a pharmacist and writer.

“It is Dr. Hossam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was arrested by the filthiest, dirtiest, and most despicable army since the beginning of creation.”

“Dr Hussem Abu Safiyeh was arrested by the Israeli military soon after this photo was taken.  His whereabouts are not known. He was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza until it was forcibly evacuated by Israel,” wrote Agnes Callamard, a UN special rapporteur.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupying entity in response to its intensified violence against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed 45,484 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 108,038 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

Israel’s war on Gaza health system ‘death sentence’ for tens of thousands: WHO

The World Health Organization strongly warns about the dire consequences of the Israeli regime’s war efforts targeting the health infrastructures in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas calls for international protection of Gaza hospitals

In a statement Saturday, Hamas called on the United Nations and all relevant international institutions to “urgently intervene,” and protect medical facilities in the Gaza Strip from Israel’s relentless aggression.

“We demand sending UN observers to Gaza hospitals to refute the [Israeli] occupation’s lies and allegations about their use for military purposes,” Hamas said in the statement.

“We call on the United Nations and international institutions to intervene urgently to protect the remaining hospitals and medical facilities in northern Gaza,” it added.

“The [Israeli] occupation’s systematic destruction of medical facilities places a historical responsibility on the international system for its failure to stop the war of extermination.”

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