NAZARETH: The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital who was detained by Israeli forces in December is being held in “inhumane” conditions by Israel and subjected to “physical and psychological intimidation,” his lawyer told AFP.
Hussam Abu Safiya, a 52-year-old paediatrician, rose to prominence last year by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.
On December 27, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility which they labelled a Hamas “terrorist center,” and arrested dozens of medical staff including Abu Safiya.
The military accused him of being a “Hamas operative.”
Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Gheed Qassem, was able to visit the doctor on March 19 in Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.
“He is suffering greatly, he is exhausted from the torture, the pressure and the humiliation he has endured to force him to confess to acts he did not commit,” said Qassem who met an AFP correspondent in Nazareth.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from AFP about the conditions in which Abu Safiya is being held.
After initially spending two weeks in the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel’s Negev desert, Abu Safiya was transferred to Ofer, where Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
In Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations “involving beatings, mistreatment and torture,” Qassem said, before he was transferred to a cramped cell in Ofer for 25 days, where he was also subjected to questioning.
The Israeli authorities have designated the medic an “illegal combatant” for an “unlimited period of time,” Qassem said, and his case has been designated confidential by the military, meaning Abu Safiya’s defense cannot access the files.
She denounced what she said were restrictions imposed on legal visits, which have prevented lawyers from informing detainees about “the war, the date, the time or their geographic location.”
Her meeting with Abu Safiya, which took place under tight surveillance, lasted for only 17 minutes, she said.
Adopted in 2002, Israel’s law concerning “illegal combatants” permits the detention of suspected members of “hostile forces” outside of normal legal frameworks.
In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons, where Palestinian detainees are subjected to “systematic acts of torture and other mistreatment.”
A social media campaign using the hashtag #FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya has brought together health care organizations, celebrities and UN leaders.
That includes the director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who demanded Abu Safiya’s release in a post on X.
Qassem warned that her client’s health was “very worrying.”
“He is suffering from arterial tension, cardiac arrhythmia and vision problems,” she said, adding “he has lost 20 kilos in two months and fractured four ribs during interrogations, without receiving proper medical care.”
The doctor remains calm, she said, but “wonders what crime he has committed” to be subjected to “such inhumane conditions.”
According to the lawyer, Abu Safiya’s jailers are demanding that he confess to having operated on members of Hamas or Israeli hostages held in Gaza, but he has refused to do so and denies the accusations.
The doctor insists that he is just a paediatrician, “and everything he did was out of a moral, professional and human duty toward the patients and the wounded,” Qassem said.
Since October 7, 2023, around 5,000 Gazans have been arrested by Israel, and some were subsequently released in exchange for hostages held in Gaza.
In general, they are accused of “belonging to a terrorist organization” or of posing “a threat to Israel’s security,” the lawyer said.
Qassem said that a number of detainees are being held without charge or trial and that their lawyers often did not know where their clients were during the first months of the war.
Gaza hospital chief held in ‘inhumane’ conditions by Israel: lawyer
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Gaza hospital chief held in ‘inhumane’ conditions by Israel: lawyer
- Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations involving beatings, mistreatment and torture.
- In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons.
UN blasts new US-backed aid distribution system in Gaza
- The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis in the territory
- Intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in Gaza
The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis coupled with intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
According to the UN, 47 people were injured in the mayhem that erupted on Tuesday when thousands of Palestinians desperate for food rushed into a GHF aid distribution site, while a Palestinian medical source said at least one had died.
Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said most of the wounded had been hurt by gunfire, and based on the information he had, “it was shooting from the IDF” — the Israeli military.
The Israeli military rejected the accusation, with Col. Olivier Rafowicz telling AFP that Israeli soldiers “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the center managed by the GHF, and “in no case toward the people.”
With the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel entering its 600th day on Wednesday, Palestinians in Gaza felt there was no reason to hope for a better future.
In Israel, the relatives of people held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attack longed for the return of their loved ones, with hundreds gathering in their name in Tel Aviv.
“Six hundred days have passed and nothing has changed. Death continues, and Israeli bombing does not stop,” said Bassam Daloul, 40, adding that “even hoping for a ceasefire feels like a dream and a nightmare.”
The UN has repeatedly hit out against the GHF, which faces accusations of failing to fulfil the principles of humanitarian work, and Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, on Wednesday reiterated the criticism.
“I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities. We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose,” he said during a visit in Japan.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes killed 16 people since dawn Wednesday.
Heba Jabr, 29, who sleeps in a tent in southern Gaza with her husband and their two children, was struggling to find food.
“Dying by bombing is much better than dying from the humiliation of hunger and being unable to provide bread and water for your children,” she said.
Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza for over two months, before allowing supplies in at a trickle last week.
A medical source in southern Gaza said that after Tuesday’s stampede at the GHF site “more than 40 injured people arrived at Nasser Hospital, the majority of them wounded by Israeli gunfire,” adding that at least one had died since.
The source added that “a number of other civilians also arrived at the hospital with various bruises.”
On Tuesday, the GHF said around “8,000 food boxes have been distributed so far... totaling 462,000 meals.”
UN agencies and aid groups have argued that the GHF’s designation of so-called secure distribution sites contravenes the principle of humanity because it would force already displaced people to move again in order to stay alive.
Israel stepped up its military offensive in Gaza earlier this month, while mediators push for a ceasefire that remains elusive.
In Israel, hundreds of people gathered to call for a ceasefire that would allow for the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza since their 2023 attack.
Protesters gathered along the country’s roads and on the main highway running through the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv at 6:29 am, the exact time the unprecedented October 7 attack began.
Most Israeli media headlines read “600 days,” and focused on the hostage families’ struggle to get their relatives home.
Other events were planned across Israel to make the 600th day of captivity for the 57 remaining hostages still in Gaza.
Some 1,218 people were killed in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 3,924 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,084, mostly civilians.
Pope Leo appeals for Gaza ceasefire, laments deaths of children
- ‘The intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers,’ he said
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo appealed on Wednesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, and called on Israel and Hamas militants to “completely respect” international humanitarian law.
“In the Gaza Strip, the intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers who hold tightly to the bodies of their dead children,” the pontiff said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“To those responsible, I renew my appeal: stop the fighting,” said the pope. “Liberate all the hostages. Completely respect humanitarian law.”
Leo, elected on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, also appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine.
Italy demands Israel stops strikes, blasts expulsions of Gazans
- Antonion Tajani: ‘The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored’
ROME: Italy’s foreign minister on Wednesday again urged Israel to stop its strikes on Gaza, while warning that expelling Palestinians from the territory “is not and never will be an acceptable option.”
“The legitimate reaction of the Israeli government to a terrible and senseless terrorist act has unfortunately taken on absolutely tragic and unacceptable forms, that we ask Israel to stop immediately,” Antonion Tajani told parliament, referring also to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored,” he said.
“Hamas must immediately free all the hostages which are still today in its in hands, and who have the right to return to their homes.”
Tajani also condemned US President Donald Trump’s plan for US control of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Palestinians living there.
“I want to reiterate today in this chamber with the utmost clarity – the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza is not and will never be an acceptable option,” Tajani said.
“This is why we wholeheartedly support the Arab plan led by Egypt for the recovery and reconstruction of the (Gaza) Strip, which is incompatible with any hypothesis of forced displacement.”
Israel hits Houthi targets including last plane at Sanaa airport
- The strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport
- Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month
JERUSALEM/ADEN: Israel said it had struck Houthi targets including the last remaining plane used by the group at Sanaa international airport, after the Yemeni militants launched missiles toward Israel a day earlier.
The General Director of Sanaa International Airport, Khaled Al-Shaief, said in a post on his X account that the strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport.
The airport is the largest in Yemen and came back into service last week after temporary repairs and runway restoration following previous Israeli strikes.
It was mainly being used by UN aircraft and the plane destroyed in the latest Israeli strikes. Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month.
“This is a clear message and a direct continuation of the policy we have established: whoever fires at the State of Israel will pay a heavy price,” Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement.
The Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” a regional alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis control territory where about 60 percent of Yemen’s population resides.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the group has fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The US also launched intensified strikes against the Houthis this year, before halting the campaign after the Houthis agreed to stop attacks on US ships.
In a statement on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any harm directed at Israel will be met with greater force.
“But, as I have said more than once, the Houthis are only the symptom. The main driving force behind them is Iran, which is responsible for the aggression emanating from Yemen,” Netanyahu said.
At least 47 wounded, mostly by gunfire, as Palestinians crowd aid hub in Gaza
- The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people
GENEVA: A UN official says 47 Palestinians were wounded, mostly by gunfire, when crowd overran Gaza aid hub.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva that it appeared Israeli army fire had caused most of the injuries.
On Tuesday, crowds of Palestinians overwhelmed a new aid distribution hub set up by an Israeli and US-backed foundation. The crowd broke through fences and an Associated Press journalist heard Israeli tank and gun fire, and saw a military helicopter firing flares.
The distribution hub outside Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah was opened the day before by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.
The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population. They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.
Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli blockade pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.
