Because the Israeli navy continues to dam entry to a high-profile Palestinian doctor they kidnapped last month, medical staff and support teams say that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s ongoing detention and the shortage of transparency round it underscores Israel’s bigger marketing campaign of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
Israeli forces kidnapped Abu Safiya on Dec. 27 throughout an assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital. Based on the World Well being Group, it was considered one of dozens of assaults in a monthslong bombardment that has subjected hundreds of patients and health care workers to pressured evacuations, detentions and typically dying inside what was successfully the final functioning hospital in walled-off North Gaza.
Practically two weeks after the kidnapping, the Israeli navy has but to launch data on Abu Safiya’s whereabouts and standing — and can solely say that he’s in custody and is considered a terror “suspect” with out offering proof to help the declare. Authorities say the physician is banned from assembly with a lawyer till a minimum of Friday and refused to reply to a authorized submitting by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel difficult that ban.
Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu through Getty Photos
“We don’t know by which facility, we don’t know if he’s secure or not. He isn’t allowed to fulfill a physician but,” Naji Abbas, director of PHRI’s prisoners and detainees division, stated on Wednesday. PHRI has been combating on behalf of Palestinians the group says are facing human rights violations in Israeli custody, and took on Abu Safiya’s authorized case.
“We don’t know what he’s being charged [with]. We assume that they don’t have something in opposition to him,” Abbas continued. “As a result of from the 26 testimonies that we collected from [detained] well being care staff, most of them have been informed instantly that they don’t seem to be accused or charged with something, however they may keep in detention. That’s unlawful. That’s unlawful detention, it’s an unlawful arrest.”
Lately launched prisoners have informed the pediatrician’s family members and caseworkers that he’s being held at alleged torture camp Sde Teiman, the so-called “Israeli Guantanamo” the place detained Palestinians — together with well being care staff — face inhumane treatment and living conditions. Israeli authorities would not confirm that Abu Safiya is being held at Sde Teiman, although launched prisoners described the physician exhibiting indicators of torture.
On Tuesday, Abu Safiya’s household introduced that the doctor’s mother had died of a heart attack simply months after an Israeli strike had killed his 19-year-old son, Ibrahim. Safiya’s mom had no prior cardiac points or medical situations, in line with Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of medical support group MedGlobal. Abu Safiya serves because the group’s lead doctor in Gaza.
“I spoke along with her grandson … and he informed me she was crying final night time and she or he felt that her son is in misery – and she or he went to sleep, and she or he didn’t get up,” Sahloul stated on Wednesday, including that she “died out of shock and unhappiness for what occurred to her son.” Abu Safiya doesn’t but learn about his mom, he stated.
The physician’s detention has made worldwide headlines on account of his frequent audio and video messages on-line documenting Israel’s bombing campaign at Kamal Adwan Hospital. However his imprisonment is hardly an anomaly in the territory, the place Israel up to now yr has killed more than 1,000 medical professionals and detained about 230 — more than 70 of whom have already died in prison, in line with PHRI and the Ministry of Well being.
Regardless of it being a global human rights violation to focus on well being care staff, Israel legally does not recognize detained Palestinians as prisoners of war — solely “illegal combatants,” says PHRI. Abbas cited a case the place Israeli authorities detained a lady in her 80s with Alzheimer’s for 2 months and prevented her entry to a lawyer as a result of she was allegedly an “illegal combatant.”
The concentrating on of medical staff mixed with Israel’s bombing of hospitals and blocking of humanitarian support has led to the systematic destruction of Gaza’s health care system – main injured and sick Palestinians to go with out crucial therapy and turn out to be contaminated, creating “untold morbidities and struggling and dying that aren’t counted as victims of struggle,” Sahloul stated.
“Put your self within the footwear of a affected person in america who will get injured, say, in a automobile accident,” stated Dr. Syed Sayeed, who returned final week from a medical mission in Gaza. “An ambulance picks them up, they journey on a highway, they get to the hospital, they’re triaged by the suitable physicians, they’re operated on in an applicable state of affairs, they’ve enough vitamin and anti-sepsis measures so that they heal, after which they’ve a rehabilitation section the place they reintegrate into society. Possibly they get their employment again.”
“Each considered one of these steps is totally and completely destroyed all through Gaza,” he continued. “So well being care entails not simply the constructing and the physicians, however it’s an entire and utter destruction of the determinants of well being.”
Celal Gunes/Anadolu through Getty Photos
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Abu Safiya’s family members and caseworkers have requested the worldwide group and medical professionals world wide to not solely demand the physician’s launch however to additionally speak out against Israel’s campaign to destroy Gaza’s well being care system. Medical workers across the globe have been staging protests since his arrest, and medical doctors within the West who volunteered in Gaza plan to speak on Friday concerning the plight of Palestinian well being care staff like Abu Safiya.
Israel’s medical group, nevertheless, has been largely silent on Gaza’s well being care disaster. Whereas some Israeli physicians have beforehand described to HuffPost a sort of fear-based code of silence among the many medical group, others both don’t know or just don’t care. Employees in some instances will outright encourage the violence, Abbas stated – recounting cases of medical doctors demanding the Israeli military raid Al-Shifa Hospital, of a physician bragging about withholding painkillers from a wounded Palestinian affected person, and of Well being Minister Uriel Busso blocking Israel’s civilian hospitals from treating patients from Gaza.
Abu Safiya “informed me one time that he’ll present the identical care to an injured Israeli soldier, just like a Palestinian baby who ended up in his hospital,” Sahloul informed HuffPost simply days after the pediatrician’s arrest. “He’s the essence of being a doctor and humanitarian, and he deserves to have the Nobel Peace Prize. To not be detained and injured.”
