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dr. hussam abu safiya
Doctors Are Trained to Save Lives, Not Count the Dead
We are in absolutely no doubt, both from a medical and societal perspective, that a genocide is exactly what is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.
Aug 16, 2025
As medical doctors, we are bound by an oath to do no harm. That oath compels us to speak out and act against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, now in its 22nd month, a genocide marked by deliberate starvation, medical extermination, and mass civilian casualties. And we are equally compelled to expose the failure of institutions and governments who could stop it but have chosen silence and complicity.
We called the organization we founded in November 2023 Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) because despite the debate around the word’s precise legal definition, we are in absolutely no doubt, both from a medical and societal perspective, that a genocide is exactly what is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.
We are in touch daily with our medical colleagues in Gaza, like their patients now suffering from starvation themselves and working in almost impossible conditions. Israel routinely cuts or limits access to electricity, putting ICU and other patients at dire risk and forcing surgeons to operate using the flashlights on their phones. Some have fainted during 48-hours shifts. Their patients are lying in corridors or being turned away due to overcrowding. Doctors in Gaza have been deliberately targeted by Israeli forces, abducted, tortured, imprisoned, and even murdered.
Because of the high prevalence of extreme malnutrition, patients who might otherwise recover from wounds and injuries inflicted by Israeli gunfire and bombings fail to survive. Put simply, a starving body cannot heal and a starving mother cannot nurse her child. Yet, Israel has blocked infant formula from entering Gaza, even confiscating it from our international colleagues when they volunteer for medical missions there.
After more than 600 days of atrocities, the prevention of a genocide is no longer possible. But it can still be stopped.
The fuel shortages also drive the water shortages, as pumps that draw up clean water from the depths of the water table are unable to function. This has left the population dependent on lower quality water sources, leading to enterovirus outbreaks.
Now we are seeing outbreaks of meningitis, measles, hepatitis, and polio. These are diseases either eradicated or extremely rare, resurging now due to the intentional denial of food, water, and medicine. Meanwhile, Israel has blocked lifesaving aid, bombed hospitals, and abducted doctors. Our colleague, pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was abducted in December 2024. He has reportedly lost nearly 90 pounds and remains in Israeli custody, tortured, starved, and held without charge.
We have done everything we can. Members of our organization have made countless trips to Capitol Hill, held press conferences, called their senators and representatives and even the White House, all to no avail. We educated our colleagues and our elected officials. We have even faced arrest for demanding “bread not bombs.”
But with each passing day, the bombs continue, and the medical annihilation worsens. Only 27 U.S. senators voted last month to stop a shipment of 20,000 assault rifles to Israel. Just 24 voted against sending more bombs. Few have even acknowledged this as genocide.
Disgracefully, our major US medical institutions, most notably, the American Medical Association, remain silent, abandoning their ethical obligations and forfeiting moral leadership. We no longer seek change from these bodies.
Because we built strong relationships with trusted local actors, we were able to quickly pivot. In late July, DAG began sending funds directly to aid groups across Gaza to deliver hot meals, fresh produce, clean water, and bread to those in immediate need. Prices are astronomical, but the time for perfect solutions is long gone. People are starving now. We chose to act.
The funds we are sending will help offset the financial strain for local aid groups on the ground who must get food to people now, saving them from having to enter the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s brutal distribution points, which have become killing zones.
Among those we’re helping are more than 1,200 people who became newly blind from direct eye injuries during Israeli attacks, and another 4,000 who have lost partial vision. We are also supporting a broader disabled community that cannot reach distant or militarized aid sites.
Our organization is also raising funds to build an urgently needed field hospital on the grounds of the partially ruined Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, once the largest hospital serving the Palestinian population there. Plans have been drawn up for a 140-bed hospital housed outdoors in sturdy tents, along with two operating theaters, two recovery rooms, and communal space for employees. We know it may be targeted, like all of Gaza’s hospitals. But doing nothing is not an option.
After more than 600 days of atrocities, the prevention of a genocide is no longer possible. But it can still be stopped. One phone call from US President Donald Trump could end it. We urge him to make that call, and we urge our colleagues around the world to act with the urgency this moment demands.
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My Medical Colleagues Are Held Captive in Israeli Prisons—They Deserve Their Freedom
Detaining and harming these dedicated health workers, without justification or explanation, is inhumane and illegal.
Jul 01, 2025
bIsrael’s ongoing offensive and devastating siege on Gaza have brought its entire population of over 2 million people to the brink of famine. The people of Gaza desperately need medical and humanitarian care, and courageous health workers are doing everything possible to provide it. Yet just when they are needed most, hundreds of Palestinian health workers are unable to help, illegally and arbitrarily held in Israeli prisons without charge or justification.
Those detained include six of my MedGlobal colleagues. Despite our co nsistent inquiries and protests, Israeli authorities have so far failed to provide basic information regarding their detention: no legal justification or formal charges; no updates on their health or conditions of captivity.
These healthcare workers are not combatants, they are not criminals, and they are not mere statistics. They have families and they play lifesaving roles in their communities. Or they did until their arbitrary arrests. They have now been detained for months, some since October of last year.
Every day that my colleagues remain detained without charge or due process sends a reverberating message that warring parties need not show restraint or proportionality, and that civilian medics are legitimate targets.
The notorious case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital and MedGlobal’s lead physician in Gaza, is emblematic of this crisis. Dr. Abu Safiya is one of the most renowned and revered physicians in Gaza. He bravely kept the North Gaza hospital’s operations running as well as possible even as it was bombed, besieged, and attacked by drones—and even as he himself was wounded in an Israeli strike and his own son killed in an attack just outside the hospital. He documented the increasingly desperate situation with social media posts, media interviews, and two op-eds published in The New York Times.
In his last message to me in late December 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya said that the previous night’s “bombardment directly targeted the entrance to the emergency and reception area [resulting] in 12 injuries among doctors, nurses, and administrative staff.” He then appealed for “international protection for our health system and staff in the north, so we can preserve the lives of patients and injured individuals who require humanitarian assistance around the clock.” On December 27, Dr Abu Safya was detained by Israeli forces without charge. He has been classified by Israel as an “unlawful combatant,” stripping him of due process and prolonging his detention indefinitely. His attorney has reported that Dr. Abu Safiya has suffered torture, including beatings, starvation, humiliation, and severe physical abuse resulting in serious injuries.
Between October and December 2024, dozens of Palestinian doctors, nurses, paramedics, and aid workers working in Kamal Adwan Hospital were detained by Israeli forces. Dr. Abu Safiya and his MedGlobal colleagues are among more than 300 health workers estimated to have been detained across Gaza since October 2023.
Echoing Dr. Abu Safiya’s treatment, released health workers have shared harrowing accounts of abuse and indignity, including physical beatings and inhumane conditions. Some of my own colleagues released from detention reported being allowed just four hours of sleep in a crowded cell, before being forced to stand for hours and endure interrogations lasting up to 11 hours. They received little water and sometimes had to resort to drinking water from a shower or toilet to survive.
Doctors and medical workers in Gaza are striving to provide care under grim and terrifying conditions. They are treating the wounded amid airstrikes, working in bombed-out hospitals and makeshift clinics with little to no electricity, clean water, or medical supplies. They are risking their own lives to ensure newborns and malnourished toddlers have a chance to survive.
They’re the kind of caregivers you hope your child would see in a crisis. Many of my MedGlobal colleagues have shown up to work despite losing their homes in airstrikes, being repeatedly forced to evacuate their living and working locations, and grieving the deaths of their family members including children. Since the near total blockade imposed in March, some colleagues have rapidly lost weight as they struggle to find enough food.
Detaining and harming these dedicated health workers, without justification or explanation, is inhumane and illegal.
International Humanitarian Law requires the protection of civilians in conflict, with explicit protections for medical workers and facilities. Nearly a decade ago, following the devastating bombardment of a hospital in northeastern Afghanistan, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2286 unambiguously reaffirming the protection of medical personnel and facilities in conflict situations. Hospitals must be healing sanctuaries not targets, and doctors must never be treated as enemy combatants for delivering healthcare.
Every day that my colleagues remain detained without charge or due process sends a reverberating message that warring parties need not show restraint or proportionality, and that civilian medics are legitimate targets. As a humanitarian, I am deeply disturbed by that message. The horrors of previous wars led to the foundational norms that protect noncombatants and carve out safe spaces for medical care. If our world leaders hold any desire to preserve those norms, they must put an end to what is happening in Gaza.
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Health Workers Plan Global Day of Action to Demand 'End to the Genocide in Gaza'
"After witnessing 15 months of relentless violence and destruction in Gaza, we can no longer carry on as if everything is normal," said organizer Doctors Against Genocide.
Jan 03, 2025
As Israel's 15-month annihilation of Gaza continues with intensified attacks on medical infrastructure and workers, an international coalition of advocacy groups is planning a
#SickFromGenocide global day of action on Monday "to take a stand against the targeted attacks on healthcare."
Organizer Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) and co-sponsors including Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Do No Harm Coalition, Labor for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council, and others are calling on healthcare workers around the world to take a day of mental health leave "to reflect on the immense moral injury of funding a genocide and engage the most important aspect of treatment: publicly demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza."
Monday's day of action is set to include a "Sick From Genocide" global vigil and pop-up clinics in cities across the United States, whose government gives Israel billions of dollars in weapons support each year.
"For 15 months, we have watched in horror as children and families have been obliterated by unrelenting attacks," DAG said in a statement Friday. "Hospitals, the bedrock of lifesaving care, have been turned into death traps. The recent bombing and burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arrest of our colleague, the pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, exemplify the deliberate targeting of healthcare workers and facilities—tactics designed to accelerate the annihilation and forced displacement of the Palestinian people in Gaza."
DAG member Dr. Rupa Marya—a University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine who's currently on paid suspension after questioning how to manage students coming to U.S. schools from a zone with an active genocide where military service is mandatory—told Common Dreams this week that healthcare professionals should "take a mental health break to grieve and take care of ourselves. Let's call in sick on January 6th. We are sick from genocide."
"We are burned out from 15 months of these images and our humanity being denied in our places of work, where we are being silenced, we are being framed as 'haters' for standing against a genocide," she advised.
"What we're asking people to do, is get your friends together, and start a pop-up clinic, set up a free clinic in the street," Marya continued. "Are other people sick from genocide? Come, we'll take care of you. Do people need free healthcare? Come, we'll take care of you."
"We need to demand that our institutions of care cut off relationships with a nation that is actively committing genocide," she asserted. "We need to demand that the United States stop sending arms to Israel. We send billions and billions of dollars to Israel to arm itself while we have people not getting healthcare in the United States."
"We have record numbers of people in the streets, many of them who have lost their homes because the most common cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is medical debt," Marya noted. "So we can't even fund our own healthcare here, while we're sending money to Israel, where they have universal healthcare."
"Let's start showing people what a different healthcare system would look like based in a moral commitment to care, based on our love for our communities, and based on justice," she said. "That is the healthcare system that we need."
"Why are we spending our money destroying another people's healthcare when we can use that money to be taking care of our own here?"
Referring to last month's assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, Marya added: "And if you don't believe me, look what happened to that CEO. We don't want to see political violence here. We don't want people to have to get murdered for us to understand how desperate people are for healthcare."
"So," she asked, "why are we spending our money destroying another people's healthcare when we can use that money to be taking care of our own here?"
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