JANUARY 2 — The ongoing genocide in Gaza is not simply a human crisis. It is a tale of paradoxes — of black and white, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil. In Gaza, there is unspeakable cruelty facing incredible courage, ugly betrayals in the midst of relentless sacrifice, constant lies opposed by glaring truths, and the worst forms of oppression against limitless resilience.
The genocide has brought about what is unimaginable to the ordinary mind: infants freezing to death, children bombed to pieces, cats eating human corpses, and surgeries carried out without anaesthesia or pain killers. But the greatest oddity is this: every physician is an offender, and every healthcare worker is a villain. This is because they heal and save lives, and healing in Gaza is a crime.
The recent raids and attacks on the Kamal Adwan Hospital is a continuation of the systematic Israeli aggression against Palestinian healthcare facilities and workers, which has been ongoing for years. Hospitals across Gaza, including Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital, and the Nasser Children's Hospital, have been repeatedly targeted, disrupting critical medical services and killing medics and patients alike. These attacks are not merely acts of aggression; they are acts of medical apartheid, designed to deny Palestinians their right to health. With every raid and bombardment, Israeli forces kidnap and imprison health care workers. Some are tortured to death, some are released at a later time with severe injuries and psychological trauma, and some remain missing, their fate unknown.
Before the people of conscience around the globe have fully mourned the brutal killing of the prominent Palestinian surgeon Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, who succumbed to his injuries in Israeli custody in early May 2024, we are met by another shocking news. Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital — the last partially functioning hospital in Northern Gaza — was arrested after Israeli forces set fire to the facility and raided it on December 28, 2024. He is said to be detained in a notorious Israeli military centre known for its brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
As narrated in an article published in Al-Jazeera on December 29, 2024, Dr Abu Safia “was severely beaten with batons and sticks by Israeli forces, who forced him to strip and put on clothes meant for prisoners.” Let’s not forget that this man had courageously refused multiple orders from Israel to leave the hospital earlier. He chose to remain with his patients and continue telling the world about the suffering of Gazans. To punish Dr Abu Safia, Israeli forces killed his 8-year-old son with a drone strike at the hospital gate.
Arresting, beating, and humiliating a physician and hospital director who stood by his patients in the most difficult circumstances is an insult to humanity rarely witnessed in today’s so-called civilized world. This arrest is not an attack on a single individual. It is an assault on every health care provider, an act of defiance of the very fundamental principles that underpin the medical profession, and an outright violation of the international law. It is disrespect and mockery of physicians, as their duty to heal and the supposed safe zones where they operate are no longer sacred nor safeguarded.
To the global health and medical community, we cannot remain silent and sit idly while our colleagues in Gaza are brutalized, “stripped naked”, imprisoned, and tortured for saving lives. We cannot be bystanders when hospitals in Palestine are burned and bombarded, and its whole population denied access to care. The death toll among Gaza’s health care workers since October 2023 has now surpassed 1000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as reported in the Middle East Eye. How many more doctors and nurses have to give their lives before we wake up to our conscience?
We must demand that the international community hold Israel accountable for its blatant violence against Palestinian health care providers and disregard for international law. We must also demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr Abu Safia and all other Palestinian medical personnel languishing in Israeli dungeons. In addition, we must redouble our efforts to support Palestinian healthcare systems and ensure that they have the resources and protection they need to continue serving their communities.
The act of healing and saving lives is not, and should never be treated as, a crime. Collective silence on Israeli assaults on medical facilities and health care providers in Gaza is equal to complicity with such human rights violations. We must say it loud and clear: We are all Hussam Abu Safiya.
* Raudah M Yunus is a physician and public health specialist currently pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
