The annihilation of the health system in Gaza: a constituent element of the ongoing genocide
On December 27, 2024, the Israeli occupation army destroyed the last hospital in North Gaza, humiliated the healthcare staff and patients and arrested the director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahyia was brutally attacked, with patients and medical staff forced to evacuate ” in 15 minutes » before the soldiers set it on fire. 240 people were arrested. This is the 24th hospital completely destroyed since October 7, 2023. The most fragile patients were transferred to the Indonesian hospital which is no longer functional, effectively condemning them to death.
This attack is part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza where Israeli authorities are razing four towns: Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, Jabaliya camp and Beit Lahya. They forced nearly 200,000 people to leave their homes by force, bombings and massacres.
The occupying army is methodically continuing the destruction of all medical facilities in Gaza. The human toll is terrible with the death of 1,100 doctors, nurses and health professionals and 3,000 others injured.
UNRWA and international NGO centers are daily targets. For MSF “ This is purely and simply collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s all-out war on Gaza seems endless “.
This way of systematically attacking the caregivers and patients of a people who are attacked, hungry, without water or medicine and without the slightest safe place to take refuge, is indeed one of the aspects of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and a proof of the genocidal intent of the Israeli government!
Since October 2023, Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including 230 doctors. The fate of many of them remains unknown, including now that of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
In the days before the attack on his hospital, he had desperately called on the international community to intervene ” before it’s too late “. His calls for help, although relayed on social networks and in the media, were not heard.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya refused to abandon his patients. He was sent to Sde Teiman prison, a torture center located in the Negev desert. According to some detainee testimonies, he was brutally beaten naked by the soldiers.
More worrying, a week after his arrest, the Israeli army has just officially and cynically declared that it has no indication of his arrest or detention and knows nothing of what may have happened to him. The fear that he will be tortured to death as happened to several other doctors before him and that his jailers will decide to make him disappear is great.
In France, voices are beginning to be raised, notably those of parliamentarians, to demand that the French authorities intervene. Many health professionals from around the world are speaking out on social networks behind the slogan “ Free Dr Hussam Abu Safiya “.
Responding to the call of his son Idris, the France Palestine Solidarity Association naturally supports this movement and launched a call for action to secure the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has crossed all the red lines and no longer has any limits! Its allies, including France and the European Union, bear responsibility for what is happening in Gaza: occasional protests do not detract from their de facto complicity with Israeli crimes.
The National Office of the AFPS,
Photo: The Israeli army shared photos documenting the kidnapping of 240 Palestinian civilians during the Kamal Adwan Hospital raid on December 27 © Quds News Network
