The Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, said that there is a fear that the Israeli occupation will liquidate the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, after denying the existence of any detainee with that name.
Al-Barsh explained – in an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune – that the occupation denied the existence of a detainee with that name, in response to an official request submitted by the Ministry of Health through Physicians for Human Rights to reveal the whereabouts of Abu Safiya.
He pointed out that the occupation celebrates Christmas with pictures of its arrest of staff from Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The Israeli occupation army broadcast a video documenting the moment of arrest of Dr. Abu Safiya, the medical staff, and the patients, after storming and burning Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
The American CNN network quoted Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip – who were recently released by the occupation army – as saying that Abu Safiya is being held at the notorious “Sde Teman” military base that Israel uses as a detention center.
However, Abu Safiya’s son later denied to Tel Aviv Tribune the validity of the rumor that his father was in Ofer or “Sidi Timan” prison, stressing that they do not know the whereabouts and fate of his father yet.
A few days ago, Al-Barsh revealed to Tel Aviv Tribune that Abu Safiya was severely beaten with batons and sticks by the occupation forces, who forced him to take off his clothes and dress him like detainees, indicating that the occupation used him as a human shield.
The Israeli army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital on December 27, before setting it on fire and putting it completely out of service.
The occupation army detained more than 350 people inside the hospital, including 180 medical personnel and 75 wounded and sick people and their companions, and took them to an unknown destination, according to a statement by the government media office in Gaza.
UN and human rights organizations called for the immediate release of Hussam Abu Safiya and the medical staff accompanying him, and described the Gaza Strip hospitals as a death trap.
UN experts said that the Israeli army has so far killed more than 1,057 Palestinian medical and health workers, and has also arbitrarily arrested many.
Since the start of the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the Israeli army has been targeting the health sector in the Gaza Strip, bombing and besieging hospitals, threatening to evacuate them, and preventing the entry of medical supplies, especially in the areas north of the Gaza Strip.
In turn, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the closure of Kamal Adwan Hospital “is part of an Israeli strategy aimed at completely evacuating the northern Gaza Strip area of civilians,” and quoted the army as confirming that it would not allow the hospital to reopen.