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Gaza Hospital Director’s Family Pleads for His Release

Ambulances transport wounded Palestinians from the Kamal Adwan Hospital to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on December 28, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Ambulances transport wounded Palestinians from the Kamal Adwan Hospital to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on December 28, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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Gaza Hospital Director’s Family Pleads for His Release

Ambulances transport wounded Palestinians from the Kamal Adwan Hospital to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on December 28, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Ambulances transport wounded Palestinians from the Kamal Adwan Hospital to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on December 28, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

The family of a hospital director in northern Gaza is pleading with the international community and the Israeli military for his release, after soldiers detained Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya over the weekend.

Abu Safiya's family says he's being denied medical care and kept in the freezing cold in Sde Teiman, an Israeli detention center that been sharply criticized for its inhuman conditions.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Abu Safiya “is currently being questioned regarding his potential involvement in terrorist activity.”

Over the weekend, Israeli soldiers expelled staff and patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital, where it detained 240 people who it said were militants and took them for interrogation in Israel. The military said some fighters attempted to pose as patients and hid in ambulances, without providing evidence.

Israel alleged that Hamas had been using the facility, which hospital officials have denied.

Israel’s latest military offensive in northern Gaza has largely isolated the area, with little medical or other aid allowed to reach hospitals there.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Israeli operations have “obliterated the health care system in northern Gaza,” noting that Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals are now “completely inoperable.”

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49 Killed by Israeli Strikes in Gaza over 24 Hours, as Mediators Scramble to Restart Ceasefire

Palestinians inspect the damage at Al Farabi school following an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 25 April 2025. (EPA)
Palestinians inspect the damage at Al Farabi school following an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 25 April 2025. (EPA)
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49 Killed by Israeli Strikes in Gaza over 24 Hours, as Mediators Scramble to Restart Ceasefire

Palestinians inspect the damage at Al Farabi school following an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 25 April 2025. (EPA)
Palestinians inspect the damage at Al Farabi school following an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, 25 April 2025. (EPA)

 

At least 49 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours, according to health officials, as Arab mediators scrambled to restart a ceasefire.
An airstrike in a neighborhood in western Gaza City early Saturday morning, flattened a three-story house, killing 10 people, according to a cameraman cooperating with The Associated Press. The number was confirmed by Gaza’s Health Ministry, along with three more people who were killed in the Shati refugee camp along the city's shoreline.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the strikes.
The attacks come as Hamas said on Saturday that it sent a high-level delegation to Cairo to try and get the stalled ceasefire back on track.
Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas last month and has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed, or disarmed and sent into exile. It says it will hold parts of Gaza indefinitely and implement President Donald Trump’s proposal for the resettlement of the population in other countries, which has been widely rejected internationally.
Hamas has said it will only release the dozens of hostages it holds in return for Palestinian prisoners, a complete Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire, as called for in the now-defunct agreement reached in January.
Hamas said Saturday that the delegation will discuss with Egyptian officials the group's vision to end the war, which includes the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and reconstruction.
Earlier this week, other Hamas officials arrived in Cairo to discuss a proposal that would include a five-to-seven year truce and the release of all remaining hostages, officials said.
Egypt and Qatar are still developing the proposal, which would include the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners, according to an Egyptian official and a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued its nearly two-month blockade on Gaza even as aid groups warn that supplies are dwindling.
On Friday, the World Food Program said its food stocks in Gaza had run out, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory. The WFP said in a statement that it delivered the last of its stocks to charity kitchens that it supports around Gaza. It said those kitchens are expected to run out of food in the coming days.
About 80% of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million relies primarily on charity kitchens for food, because other sources have shut down under Israel’s blockade, according to the UN The WFP has been supporting 47 kitchens that distribute 644,000 hot meals a day, WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told The Associated Press.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were fighters or civilians. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 of the Hamas group, without providing evidence.
The war began when the Hamas-led group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. The militants still have 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.