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Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, has lost about 55 pounds since Israeli forces abducted him in December, and is suffering from a serious case of scabies, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), which visited him last week. The renowned pediatrician was given a new pair of clothes for the first time on September 25, the morning of his visit with PHRI, the group reported.
Abu Safiya’s request to see a doctor for the scabies and heart problems have been ignored, according to PHRI.
“Dr. Abu Safiya described the violence perpetrated by prison guards during frequent cell searches,” PHRI posted on X. “According to him, detainees receive very small amounts of food, many of them have lost a significant amount of weight, and they have been held in dirty clothes for months.”
“Six months have passed since the publishing of our report, which documented the arbitrary detention of more than 100 medical personnel from Gaza,” the group continued. “Since the report’s publication, our organization has visited more than 25 of them and gathered additional testimonies about ongoing physical violence, repeated cell raids, lack of food and medical treatment, and months of detention in dirty clothes.”
All detained health care workers are “currently being held without charge, some for more than a year,” according to the group, which called for their immediate release.
Israeli forces targeted Kamal Adwan Hospital long before the military abducted Abu Safiya in December. A year before his abduction, in December of 2023, Israeli forces conducted their first raid on the hospital and abducted its then-director, Dr. Ahmed Kahlout, according to a new documentary, “The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya,” produced by Al Jazeera Fault Lines.
Israeli intelligence contacted Abu Safiya numerous times to try to get him to leave the hospital, as per the documentary. But the beloved pediatrician was undeterred. He spoke out about Israel’s genocide, the miltiary’s attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and pleaded for help from the international community.
On October 25, 2024, Israeli forces raided the hospital again, and beat and interrogated more than 40 staff members, including Abu Safiya, according to DropSite News. The soldiers told him not to speak with journalists. During the attack, Israel killed the doctor’s son at the hospital gates.
On December 27, Israeli forces raided the hospital for the last time, and burned it to the ground.
“Everyone in the hospital,” the Israeli military said on a loudspeaker, as per footage in the documentary. “The army surrounds you. You are surrounded.”
“A big tank entered and stood by reception,” a nurse told Al Jazeera. “And it started firing. It was firing forward, firing and turning. And then they pointed the muzzle through the reception door and it was [pointing at] patients.”
At about 6 a.m., Israeli forces demanded to see Abu Safiya. Video captured him walking over rubble to the tank, wearing his white coat. The military ordered him to get everyone out of the hospital; with no other choice, he complied. At the time, about 350 patients, caregivers, and health care workers were in the hospital.
That night, the army stripped, shackled, blindfolded, and beat the male members of the medical staff, including Abu Safiya, as per the documentary.
Abu Safiya has been detained in Israel’s torture camps without charge ever since. Numerous human rights groups have demanded his release.
Israel has launched a yearslong assault on Gaza’s hospitals, health care workers, and patients. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,700 medical staff, attacked close to 40 hospitals, and abducted hundreds of health care workers. Israel’s blockade has deprived doctors of necessary medical supplies, forcing them to perform operations, including amputations, without anesthesia.
Those held in Israel’s prisons, where soldiers routinely torture Palestinians, have included “irreplaceable consultants and specialists in essential specialities like General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Orthopaedics Surgery, Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care, Cardiology, Paediatrics, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology,” according to a report released last year by Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), an organization that tracks Israel’s systematic and brutal attacks on Gaza’s health care system.
“Every healthcare worker who was interviewed by HWW following their release from detention in Israel described being subjected to severe pain and suffering while detained, in acts that amounted to inhumane treatment and torture,” the group wrote.
Health care workers told HWW that they had been beaten; subjected to deafening music, sleep deprivation, and extreme cold; sexually assaulted with foreign objects; sexually humiliated; threatened with rape; and hung from ceilings.
One nurse said that they were taken to a “10 x 6 metre room with four large loudspeakers and an air conditioner blasting extremely cold air, along with large fans.” (Truthout is using they/them pronouns to identify the individual victim as their gender is not shared in the report.)
“We were so cold and in so much pain that we couldn’t stop moaning, but every time we made a sound, the soldiers would beat us,” the nurse said.
A paramedic told HWW when soldiers removed their blindfold, they saw at least 20 people in diapers, hanging from a warehouse ceiling.
“[A]ll the detained had their heads down while they were hanging by their hands,” the paramedic said. “There were more than 10 more than 20, the whole warehouse had people hanged, everywhere I looked on the right, on the left, in front, in the back, it was an overwhelming number. From the screams it indicated dozens. He wanted me to see the torture and pain, he said this was only the first phase.”
Another paramedic said he was hung from the ceiling and electrocuted.
“They put me in an overall that had electricity wires around it and put, like a headband with wires on my head,” they said. “I swear, it was so degrading, it was unbelievable. I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”
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