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3 days ago
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One of the few doctors still working in northern Gaza has been taken to an Israeli prison and his hospital shut down, his family believe.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, was initially taken to the Sde Teiman detention camp, according to his son, who has been told that the doctor’s leg was badly injured during a raid on the hospital by Israeli soldiers.
“We are so worried, we haven’t been able to sleep for three days because we didn’t know until today where he is,” said his son, Idrees Abu Safiya.
Dr Munir al-Boursh, director of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, said that according to several witness accounts, Abu Safiya had been seen in detention at the prison and with several injuries.
Abu Safiya had kept the hospital running through more than 80 days of siege and attacks by Israeli forces amid an intensive military operation in the surrounding refugee camp.
Eid Sabbah, head of the hospital’s nurses, said many medical staff had been detained and initially taken to different locations, including a nearby wedding hall and a school, but their current whereabouts were not known.
Israel has not said where Abu Safiya or the hospital’s other missing medical personnel are being held but claimed that the hospital was being used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
An Israeli military spokesman, Avichay Adraee, claimed 240 fighters had been arrested in the raid, alongside pictures on X of groups of men bound and blindfolded.
The World Health Organization said it was “appalled” by the Israel raid, which has put the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza out of service.
It said patients and some staff had been transferred to the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, despite it being non-functional and lacking essential services, and efforts were being made to move patients on to another location.
The UN said reports of torture and sexual violence at Sde Teiman, where health workers detained during raids on other hospitals have been taken, were “grossly illegal and revolting”.
Amnesty International called on Israel to release all healthcare workers. “Israel has detained hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers from Gaza without charge or trial. Health workers have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and been held in incommunicado detention,” the human rights organisation said in a statement.
Idrees Abu Safiya said he hoped humanitarian and rights groups would work together to try to secure his father’s release.
At least 1,057 health workers in Gaza have been killed since 7 October 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The Palestinian advocacy group Healthcare Workers Watch says 300 workers have been detained.
