
For the last 16 months, campaigners around the world have, understandably, been highlighting the case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the brave director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, who kept the hospital operational for three months, from October to December 2024, when it was besieged and attacked remorselessly by Israeli forces during what was known as “the Generals’ Plan.”
This was the “genocide within a genocide”, when the whole of northern Gaza was placed under a violent siege, and everyone still living there, who had failed to cooperate with previous evacuation orders — either because they were unwilling or unable to leave — was told in no uncertain terms that, if they stayed, they would be regarded as “enemy combatants” who could be summarily executed.
During the siege, Dr. Abu Safiya survived the death of his son, and was wounded himself, and he only finally surrendered on December 27, 2024, when it was no longer possible to keep the hospital running. He subsequently disappeared into Israel’s brutal prisons for Palestinians, where he is held under Israel’s blatantly illegal “Unlawful Combatants Law”, introduced in 2002, around the same time that George W. Bush was setting up his “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay and defining those held there as “unlawful enemy combatants.”

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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