Please join us today, Friday the 3rd of January! SAJFP will be joining the South Africa Health Care Workers for Palestine, and other solidarity organisations from 5pm to 6pm:
Johannesburg: Rivonia Road between Discovery and the US Consulate.
Cape Town: Corner of Klipfontein and Milner Roads, Rondebosch, outside Red Cross Children’s Hospital
Durban: outside St Augustine Hospital
We call on Israel to release Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and to desist from its attacks on the hospitals in Gaza.
1. Cease all attacks on Kamal Adwan and all other Gazan hospitals.
2. Release all detained health workers and patients including Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and his colleagues.
3. Protect all health workers in Gaza.
4. An immediate ceasefire in Gaza with unimpeded entry of aid.
Dr. Abu Safiya, a respected Gazan physician, was abducted at the Kamal Adwan Hospital by Israeli forces. He has not been heard from since but is rumoured to be held in Sde Teiman, a prison where torture has been well documented and is notorious for its brutality. Dr Abu Safiya was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in 1973; in the northern Gaza Strip after his family was displaced from Hamama, a Palestinian town in the Ashkelon district in 1948. His dedication to patients is renowned – even in the most harrowing of circumstances. On the 25th of October his 15-year-old son, Ibrahim Hussam Idris Abu Safiya, was killed in an Israeli drone strike at the gate of the hospital. And on the 23rd of November he himself was wounded by shrapnel from another drone attack on the hospital. In response to these incidents he has said: ‘My blood is no more precious than that of my colleagues or the people we serve.’ Neither devastating personal experience nor injury prevented him from continuing to treat patients. On the 27th of December, together with several colleagues, Dr. Abu Safiya, was forcibly taken from Kamal Adwan Hospital by Israeli forces. This is a contravention of the Geneva conventions which extend special protection to medical personnel – including immunity from arrest and detention while performing their duties. Israel is a signatory to these conventions. It is worth noting that both Physicians for Human Rights and the Israeli Medical Association have called for the protection of medical institutions and health workers.
On the 31st of December The United Nations Human Rights Office released a report highlighting the pattern of Israel’s attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers in Gaza. The report covers the attacks over an eight-month period from 7 October 2023 to 30 June 2024. Just in this period 500 healthcare workers were killed. There were at least 136 attacks on 38 hospitals with 22 of them being rendered non functional. We know that since the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital more recently that there are no more functioning hospitals in Northern Gaza.
In Judaism few principles are as important as pikuach nefesh, but the conduct of the State of Israel is in flagrant violation of this sacred duty – to preserve life. War is being waged on the very structures that have been set up – and the very experts who are trained – to heal. It is hard to imagine something less Jewish than destroying hospitals and terrorising medical staff. Once again we point to our tradition which commits us to tzedeck (justice), chesed (kindness) and to tikkun olam (repair of the world).