Action a must as Gaza doctor faces death in Israeli jail

Israel must immediately release Gazan doctor Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, UN experts stated in unequivocal terms in a statement last week. Safiya had been “subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment,” they said, adding that his health condition was “dire.”

Many are already familiar with the iconic Palestinian doctor from Gaza. But the deserved and urgent focus on his case should not end with him. Rather, it should illuminate the broader catastrophe afflicting Gaza’s health sector, which has been dismantled as part of the ongoing genocide that began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Palestinians and others continue to refer to the genocide as “ongoing.” This is not hyperbole. Though the rate of killing by bombs has decreased, the genocide remains in effect because the destruction of Gaza and of all civilian infrastructure necessary for survival continues to produce the same outcome: Palestinians are dying as a direct result of the same policies.

As the number of victims grows, there is a corresponding number of those meant to save them who have also been killed

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

This has affected every aspect of Palestinian life in Gaza that guarantees survival — from water and food to medical care.

Speaking at a press briefing in Cairo last October, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s top regional official, laid it all on the table. Though she spoke in institutional terms, outlining Gaza’s urgent healthcare needs, her account confirmed the scale of devastation caused by Israel’s genocide.

More than 1,700 health workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the genocide, she said. The majority of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed or rendered nonfunctional, with only a few partially operating. At least 455 Palestinians had died due to hunger, including 151 children, in the nine months preceding her briefing.

For all the grim numbers the Gaza genocide has produced — and continues to produce — one constant stands out: as the number of victims grows, there is a corresponding number of those meant to save them who have also been killed.

Thousands of doctors, health workers, humanitarian workers, civil defense personnel, emergency responders, volunteers, charity workers and municipal officials have been swept into the same cycle of destruction.

It could be argued that these numbers correspond to the overall scale of death in Gaza. Official figures state that more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 172,000 wounded, while independent research, including estimates published in The Lancet, suggests the true death toll may be far higher.

This argument may appear defensible. But the targeting of hospitals, the killing and wounding of doctors and the unlawful detention and torture of health workers cannot be dismissed as a mere reflection of mass killing.

From the earliest days of the genocide, Israel placed Gaza’s hospitals at the center of its assault. On Oct. 17, 2023, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was struck in one of the most horrific early massacres. This was followed by systematic assaults on other major medical facilities, including Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex.

Abu Safiya is the face of a medical community that refused to abandon its people, even as the system around it collapsed

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

But why hospitals? Because hospitals are not only places of treatment. They are places of refuge. As tens of thousands of Palestinians sought shelter within their walls, hospitals became the last spaces where survival was still possible. To destroy them was to sever that final lifeline.

The killing of doctors, the bombing of hospitals and the detention of medical personnel are not incidental. They form part of a broader strategy: to render Gaza uninhabitable by dismantling the systems that sustain life.

Deprived of care, stripped of infrastructure and denied the means to survive, Palestinians were left with few options in those early months of genocide — first to flee south and, ultimately, to be pushed beyond the borders of Gaza altogether.

This is why Abu Safiya has become so vital to this story.

Every Gazan doctor who refused to leave his or her post during the genocide is a hero. Every health worker who risked his or her life to save others represents a model of courage that should be emulated everywhere. And every doctor killed, wounded or detained deserves to be remembered as the highest expression of human commitment to life.

Abu Safiya embodies all of these.

He is not unique — and that is precisely the point. He is the face of a collective medical community that refused to abandon its people, even as the system around it collapsed.

At Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Abu Safiya remained at his post as Israeli forces advanced on the facility, already overwhelmed by waves of wounded and displaced civilians. Despite shortages of fuel, medicine and staff, he continued to treat patients while helping to protect those sheltering inside the hospital compound.

In the final days before his detention on Dec. 27, 2024, he was among the last senior doctors still operating in the hospital, overseeing care under conditions that defied any conventional understanding of medical practice.

One image came to define him. Standing amid the ruins outside Kamal Adwan Hospital, surrounded by destruction, he walked alone in his white coat toward advancing Israeli armored vehicles — a lone doctor facing a war machine. The image circulated widely because it captured, in a single frame, the reality of Gaza: those who heal standing unarmed before those who destroy.

That destruction remains in effect today, even as global attention has shifted elsewhere, compounding the dangers a besieged Gaza faces. “Israel must release Dr. Abu Safiya and all healthcare workers,” said the UN experts. Israel should also release all other Palestinian prisoners, lift the siege and end the genocide in its entirety.

“States have the power to end his torment,” they said. They are not wrong — and there can be no moral or legal justification for their inaction.

• Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, “Before the Flood,” was published by Seven Stories Press. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net. X: @RamzyBaroud