Gaza (Quds News Network)- Zaher Sahloul, president of MedGlobal, has called for the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, after his abduction by Israeli forces following a raid on the last remaining medical facility in the area.
In a statement on his arrest, Sahloul said Dr. Abu Safiya “has dedicated his life to protecting the health and lives of children in Gaza, providing care under conditions no medical professional should have to endure.”
“His arrest is not only unjust — it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones. MedGlobal urgently calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu [Safiya].”
On Friday morning, the hospital was stormed by Israeli forces, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and their vicinity.
The bombing caused several departments to catch fire, killing and wounding Palestinian medical workers and patients, according to Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
All remaining medical staff, patients and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear and transferred to an unknown location.
At the time of the raid, there were 350 people in the hospital, including 180 medical workers and 75 wounded people, according to the Gaza-based Government Media Office.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said dozens of doctors were taken to detention centres for interrogation.
On Saturday, it confirmed that Abu Safiya had been arrested.
Israeli forces violently beat him before his arrest, Bursh told Al Jazeera.
Over the past three months, Abu Safiya, a paediatrician, has published dozens of videos and sent out pleas to the international community to act against the Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He repeatedly warned that the lives of patients and medical staff were in danger amid constant Israeli bombings and a siege preventing the entry of aid and food.
In late October, Abu Safiya’s son died as a result of an earlier Israeli raid on the hospital, according to health officials.
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A month later, he was wounded in an Israeli air strike on the hospital complex.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was running out of any meaningful medical care, given the hardship and the fact the past two months have been very strict in terms of what can enter the northern part of Gaza as there is a complete siege, military siege, on the area with no humanitarian aid – medical supplies, water, or life-sustaining resources – available to people there because of the ongoing deliberate prevention by the Israeli military.
