Dr Angy Skuce
Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine
IN October 2024 I wrote an article for this paper, in which I mentioned the Medical Director of Kamal Adwan hospital in the North of Gaza – “who received his own child’s body into the hospital.
“Still, he stays on, doing his best, with grace and dignity, to care for his patients,” I said.
On November 25 we got news that this man, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya had been injured.
A quadcopter had flown into the hospital, and detonated a bomb in one of the wards.
It sprayed tiny shards of metal everywhere – big and sharp enough to slice through human flesh, but small enough to be very difficult for a surgeon to find and remove – especially when there are lots of them and you have no x-ray or CT facilities because the Israeli military have blown them up, and the spare parts have been waiting at the border for 2 months and the Israeli border control won’t let them through.
We held our breath, hoping that the Israelis would allow a surgical team from a hospital to the south to go to Kamal Adwan to treat him, or allow the World Health Organisation to send medical supplies including antibiotics in, so that he wouldn’t die from sepsis.
While we waited, Dr Abu Safiya got up from his hospital bed and hobbled around the wards on a crutch, dispensing reassurance and hope to the patients, holding his team together while they tried to provide care with no resources.
The surgical team were not allowed in.
The hospital was bombed while the WHO team were there.
The oxygen supply was bombed again, the windows and doors were blown out so the cold winds and dust from rubble blew in.
We saw photos of the view from the windows of Kamal Adwan hospital – rubble, burnt out buildings, armoured drones flying, huge crates of explosives marked ‘danger’ placed around the hospital.
We looked out the windows of our own hospitals and saw green fields and misty rain and our cars waiting to take us home to family and comfort.
On December 27, after 84 days of siege and attack, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya was abducted by the Israeli army.
He tried to negotiate with the attackers, to protect his patients – and the photograph of him walking through the rubble in his white coat towards a tank will stay with me for ever.
The hospital was ordered to evacuate all staff and patients, and then set on fire.
There are eyewitness reports of him having been stripped to his underwear in freezing temperatures that have resulted in the deaths of 6 newborn babies; of him being beaten with a wire, of him being seen in the infamous Sde Teinem prison in Israel, bloodied and bruised – but in breach of the Geneva convention, no-one really knows where he is.
His family , who are already mourning the death of his son Ibrahim, are now terrified that the same fate awaits him as was suffered by Dr Adnan Al Bursh. Dr Al Bursh was an orthopaedic surgeon from Gaza, who was abducted and illegally detained by the Israeli military, and who died as a result of torture while in detention.
Israel tortured Dr Al Bursh to death.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiyah is a man who has had greatness thrust upon him.
He is a paediatrician who just wanted to develop a neonatal unit that would care for critically ill newborn babies in the north of Gaza – and he succeeded.
Then Israel came for him, because he is a doctor.
A screenshot of a video broadcast by Al Jazeera showing Dr. Abu Safiya leaving Kamal Adwan hospital before being arrested. Screenshot: Al Jazeera
Day after day he stood in his hospital as it was destroyed around him, calling for the international community to help – to stop the killing, to save his hospital, to force Israel to allow food and water and medicine in.
We failed him.
We allowed Israel to extinguish the lights in the last hospital in northern Gaza, and we allowed Israel to take this man who has become an icon to healthcare workers across the world who believe in ethical principles – in Justice, Atonomy, Beneficience and non Maleficence – and in standing by your patients come what may.
Healthcare workers across the world are calling for the release of Dr Hussam Abu Safiyah – join with us, call for his safe release, and restore humanity to the world.