Because the Israeli army continues to dam entry to a high-profile Palestinian doctor they kidnapped last month, medical staff and assist teams say that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s ongoing detention and the dearth 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. In response to the World Well being Group, it was one in every of dozens of assaults in a monthslong bombardment that has subjected hundreds of patients and health care workers to compelled 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 army has but to launch info 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 assist the declare. Authorities say the physician is banned from assembly with a lawyer till no less than Friday and refused to answer a authorized submitting by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel difficult that ban.
Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
“We don’t know wherein facility, we don’t know if he’s protected or not. He isn’t allowed to fulfill a health care provider but,” Naji Abbas, director of PHRI’s prisoners and detainees division, mentioned 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 straight that they don’t seem to be accused or charged with something, however they’ll 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 circumstances, based on Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of medical assist 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 mentioned on Wednesday, including that she “died out of shock and unhappiness for what occurred to her son.” Abu Safiya doesn’t but find out about his mom, he mentioned.
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 12 months has killed more than 1,000 medical professionals and detained about 230 — more than 70 of whom have already died in prison, based on 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 focusing on of medical staff mixed with Israel’s bombing of hospitals and blocking of humanitarian assist has led to the systematic destruction of Gaza’s health care system – main injured and sick Palestinians to go with out mandatory remedy and change into contaminated, creating “untold morbidities and struggling and dying that aren’t counted as victims of battle,” Sahloul mentioned.
“Put your self within the sneakers of a affected person in the US who will get injured, say, in a automotive accident,” mentioned Dr. Syed Sayeed, who returned final week from a medical mission in Gaza. “An ambulance picks them up, they journey on a street, they get to the hospital, they’re triaged by the suitable physicians, they’re operated on in an acceptable state of affairs, they’ve enough diet and anti-sepsis measures so that they heal, after which they’ve a rehabilitation part the place they reintegrate into society. Possibly they get their employment again.”
“Each one in every of these steps is totally and completely destroyed all through Gaza,” he continued. “So well being care includes not simply the constructing and the physicians, but it surely’s an entire and utter destruction of the determinants of well being.”
Celal Gunes/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
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Abu Safiya’s family members and caseworkers have requested the worldwide neighborhood 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 neighborhood, 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 neighborhood, others both don’t know or just don’t care. Staff in some instances will outright encourage the violence, Abbas mentioned – recounting situations of medical doctors demanding the Israeli military raid Al-Shifa Hospital, of a health care provider 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, much like a Palestinian youngster 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.”
