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physicians for human rights
Brutality Against Anti-ICE Protests Caused Blindings and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Medical Experts
"The high number of head injuries... suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head. Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines."
Jul 14, 2026
Federal, state, and local law enforcement agents' brutal attacks on protesters across the US have caused blindings, traumatic brain injuries, permanent disabilities, and other maladies, according to a report released Monday by researchers at Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
In an examination of actions taken by authorities in response to demonstrations against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions over the span of a year, the report documents 412 instances of misuse of force against protesters, journalists, and bystanders.
Just over half of the misuses of force were directed at demonstrators, while 43% were directed at journalists, the report finds.
This misuse of force led to 203 documented injuries affecting 119 individuals, including 44 incidents of laceration, 19 traumatic brain injuries, 10 ocular injuries, seven permanent disabilities, and one instance each of amputation and hearing loss.
The report adds that the actual number of injuries inflicted upon anti-ICE demonstrators "is likely far greater" given researchers' limitations in documenting "invisible injuries" such as chronic pain or hearing loss.
What is particularly troubling, the report emphasizes, is the number of injuries impacting people's heads.
"The high number of head injuries (19 brain, 10 eye, 1 hearing loss) suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head," the researchers write. "Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines and results in significant harm."
The report documents 97 incidents of law enforcement officials shooting crowd control projectiles at people's heads, making it the second-most frequent type of improper force used, following shots taken at close range.
Dr. Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report, said in an interview with The Guardian that she started tracking misuse of force in response to anti-ICE protests after a federal agent shot a pastor in the face at close range during a demonstration in Oakland last year.
"Those weapons can cause harm,” said Haar, who for years has been researching the health impacts of crowd control weapons. "It’s just when they’re used, how they’re used, and if they’re used."
Tactics used by ICE and other law enforcement agencies have come back into focus over the last week after the fatal ICE shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine over the span of less than a week.
Salgado Araujo, 52, was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the US for more than three decades and ran a small construction business. Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was a Colombian national who was authorized to work in the US and was shot and killed by ICE in front of his three-year-old daughter.
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Rights Group Sounds Alarm After Israel Sends Gaza’s Dr. Abu Safiya to Solitary Confinement
“The international community cannot remain silent while a respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh conditions, denied adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside world."
Jun 05, 2026
A prominent human rights group on Friday sounded alarms upon learning that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, has been sent to solitary confinement.
As reported by Haaretz, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said it learned on Thursday that Abu Safiya was moved to solitary confinement this week without any explanation.
According to a report from The Palestine Chronicle, an attorney representing Abu Safiya claimed that his client was placed into solitary confinement in retaliation for appealing his continued detention.
Abu Safiya was first taken into custody by Israeli forces in December 2024 and has been held since then without being charged with any criminal offenses.
In a Friday statement, the Council of American-Islamic Relations said news of Abu Safiya's solitary confinement was "deeply disturbing" and raised "even more urgent concerns about his welfare and basic human rights."
"Congress must demand his immediate release and insist that Israel end the arbitrary detention, abuse, and mistreatment of Palestinian medical professionals and civilians," CAIR added. “The international community cannot remain silent while a respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh conditions, denied adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside world without any legal justification. Dr. Abu Safiya must be released immediately."
PHRI has for months been raising concerns about Abu Safiya's detention, long before he was transferred to solitary confinement.
While demanding the physician's release in April, for instance, PHRI said Abu Safiya was being held "in harsh conditions, without access to medication or medical care, as his health continues to deteriorate."
A 2025 report from Amnesty International, which has also called for Abu Safiya’s release, said that the Gaza-based physician “was detained in the course of caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties.”
Amnesty also noted that, prior to his detention, Abu Safiya and other colleagues at the Kamal Adwan Hospital had “provided human rights and humanitarian organizations with reliable information about the health situation” in Gaza, which has been left devastated by years of Israeli attacks that have killed at least 72,000 Palestinians.
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At Least 98 Palestinians Died in Israeli Custody Since October 7, 2023
"Israel has become one of the worst systematic abusers of human rights in the world," said one human rights advocate.
Nov 17, 2025
A report released on Monday by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel claims that nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed while being held in detention by Israel since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
The report, which PHRI said was based on "testimonies, official records, and extensive evidence" collected by the organization, shows that at least 98 Palestinians died in Israeli custody.
The report says that the deaths were part of a "deeply concerning pattern of systemic human rights violations committed against Palestinians," and that people who died while in custody included "the young and elderly, the healthy and the sick alike." PHRI also emphasized that the records in its report are far from complete, and indicated that the full death toll of Palestinians who died in custody is even higher.
Breaking things down further, the organization said it found that 42 Palestinians died while in custody of the Israel Prison Service (IPS), including Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and even Palestinians who held Israeli citizenship. A further 52 Palestinians from Gaza died while in Israeli military custody.
The report shows a mixture of deaths from medical neglect, from physical abuse, or some combination of the two causes.
Witness testimony given to PHRI from both Palestinian detainees and Israeli physicians depicted military detention facilities as "sites of systematic torture and abuse, where dozens of Palestinians from Gaza died while in military custody."
Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at human rights organization DAWN, said the PHRI report was more evidence that "Israel has become one of the worst systematic abusers of human rights in the world," and he pointed the finger at the US for continuing to fund and enable such abuses.
"Despite overwhelming evidence of these crimes and grave violations of human rights, documented even by the State Department's own watchdog, not a single Israeli unit has been deemed ineligible for US weapons, making the United States complicit in Israel's systematic torture regime," said Jarrar.
In addition to the Palestinians killed in Israeli custody, more than 69,000 Palestinians have died during Israel's war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas launched an attack inside Israel that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis.
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'Unequivocal': Israeli Human Rights Orgs Describe Gaza Assault as 'Genocide' for the First Time
"Genocide is never supposed to happen," said the executive director of B'Tselem, one of Israel's leading human rights groups. "Not here. Not anywhere. Not at all."
Jul 28, 2025
As Israel's military campaign in Gaza inflicts unprecedented levels of human destruction, two leading Israeli human rights organizations have at last called their nation's actions in the enclave a "genocide."
Many international human rights groups—such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have long described Israel's 22-month assault on Gaza in such grave terms, as have several bodies within the United Nations.
In two reports released Monday, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel became the first within the country to reach the same conclusion.
"We never thought we'd write this report," said Yuli Novak, the executive director of B'Tselem. "But we also never believed this would be our reality."
The U.N.'s 1948 Convention on the Crime of Genocide defines it as the intent to destroy—in whole or in part—a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
As Dr. Shmuel Lederman, a genocide researcher for B'Tselem, describes it, "The victims of genocide are not only the individual members, but the group as a group."
Following the examination of 20 months of data, the group wrote that Israel's "military onslaught on Gaza" has "included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives."
Over 59,000 Palestinians have been directly killed—the overwhelming majority uninvolved civilians—since October 2023, according to official estimates. However, indirect deaths due to hunger and disease likely put the death toll much higher.
B'Tselem's report states that "Israel is destroying Gaza's food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people."
A blockade on food entering the strip has contributed to mass starvation that has resulted in at least 127 deaths, including 85 children since, October 2023. Half of those deaths have occurred over the past month.
According to a statement from UNICEF on Sunday: "The entire population of over two million people in Gaza is severely food insecure. One out of every three people has not eaten for days, and 80% of all reported deaths by starvation are children."
Virtually all of Gaza's population of 2 million has been displaced, with 92% of residential buildings destroyed or damaged. The people of Gaza overwhelmingly live without water and electricity as infrastructure has been destroyed.
"Soldiers who served in the Strip have testified that the systematic demolition of homes, public buildings, infrastructure, and farmland...has become a goal in and of itself," the report said.
Meanwhile, Gaza's health infrastructure lies in ruin. "In the very first weeks of the assault," B'Tselem's report said, "most hospitals and clinics in Gaza could no longer provide even basic medical care."
The report from Physicians for Human Rights expands upon these findings.
"Over the past 22 months, Israel has systematically targeted medical infrastructure across the Gaza Strip, attacking 33 of 36 of Gaza's hospitals and clinics, depriving them of fuel and water," the report states. "More than 1,800 of Gaza's medical staff have been killed or detained."
The report concludes:
This is not a temporary crisis. It is a strategy to eliminate the conditions needed for life. Even if Israel stops the offensive today, the destruction it has inflicted guarantees that preventable deaths—from starvation, infection, and chronic illness—will continue for years.
This is not collateral damage. This is not a side effect of war. It is the systematic creation of unlivable conditions. It is the denial of survivability. It is a genocide.
B'Tselem's report cites statements from the highest levels of the Israeli government to demonstrate that these acts were carried out not incidentally, but as part of a plan to force the permanent removal of Palestinians from Gaza.
Israeli leaders have openly endorsed this plan, which was first floated publicly in February by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suggested permanently removing the Palestinians from Gaza in order to turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
The report cites evidence of intent from Israel's leaders to use mass destruction to hasten the removal of Palestinians, saying that "Beginning in May 2025, senior Israeli officials explicitly declared Gaza's ethnic cleansing as a central objective of the war, stating that the destruction of the Strip and Israel's control over humanitarian aid were means of realizing this goal."
The report quotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in early May: "We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip."
It also quotes Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also an official in Israel's defense ministry, who last week hosted a gathering in the Israeli parliament to discuss the forced transfer of Palestinians from Gaza in order to make room for Israeli settlers.
"Gaza will be completely destroyed," Smotrich said in May. "Its civilians will be concentrated... and from there, they'll depart in large numbers to third countries."
Earlier this month, Israel's defense minister Israel Katz revealed plans to corral more than 600,000 Palestinians into a so-called "humanitarian city"—a tent city built on the ruins of Rafah—which they would not be allowed to leave except to go to other countries. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has described it as "a concentration camp."
"An examination of Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip," B'Tselem's report says. "In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
The report comes as a small but growing number of Israelis have come out in opposition to the war, including the atrocities against Palestinians, according to The New York Times. However, they still appear to represent a vocal minority.
According to a June survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Jerusalem, three-quarters of Jewish Israelis thought that Israel's military planning should not take into account the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, or should do so only minimally.
Over the years, B'Tselem has been one of relatively few voices in Israel to advocate for equal treatment of Palestinians, previously decrying Israel as a practitioner of "apartheid" and a "regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
"For decades, Gaza has been built up as a black hole in Israelis' minds," Novak said. "The people who live there can be blockaded and indiscriminately bombed."
As the report says, the past 22 months have only hardened that instinct further:
The widespread public support in Israel for this initiative made it clear that the practice of forced displacement, or expulsion, is now perceived as a legitimate and desirable solution to the "Palestinian problem," that problem being the very presence of Palestinians in areas under Israeli control.
B'Tselem urged the international community to take swift action, using all available mechanisms of international law to intervene to stop the genocide.
"This isn't the first time the world has stood by while genocide is happening," said Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem's international advocacy director. "World leaders are well aware. But they still have not demanded from the government of Israel: Stop!"
"Preventing genocide is not just a moral duty. It's also a legal obligation," she continued. "So the leaders cooperating with Israel's policies are accomplices to this crime."
"Genocide is never supposed to happen," Novak said. "Not here, not anywhere, not at all."
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Communities Vow Resistance as Trump Unleashes ICE to Raid Previously Protected Spaces
One Texas bishop said the new policy "strikes fear into the heart of our community... when they are worshipping God, seeking healthcare, and dropping off and picking up children at school."
Jan 22, 2025
School districts, healthcare professionals, and religious institutions across the United States are in fight-back mode Wednesday after Republican President Donald Trump revoked a rule prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting undocumented immigrants in or around "sensitive" locations like schools, places of worship, hospitals, and shelters.
"Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest," acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement issued Tuesday. "The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense."
The unleashing of ICE agents for raids on previously protected spaces—which are refuges for children,
domestic violence victims, and other vulnerable people—is part of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda that includes "the largest mass deportation operation" in U.S. history, according to one administration official.
Religious leaders were among those condemning the move, with Mark Seitz, the Roman Catholic bishop of El Paso, Texas and chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, lamenting that the new policy "strikes fear into the heart of our community, cynically layering a blanket of anxiety on families when they are worshipping God, seeking healthcare, and dropping off and picking up children at school."
BREAKING: Trump has revoked a rule prohibiting ICE from arresting undocumented immigrants at or near "sensitive locations," like schools, places of worship, hospitals, & shelters." We need to act I list 7 tangible actions you can take to help protect immigrants: www.qasimrashid.com/p/trumps-mas...
[image or embed]
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@qasimrashid.com) January 21, 2025 at 12:43 PM
However, communities across the nation also met Trump's escalation with renewed determination to protect their immigrant neighbors.
Dr. Katherine Peeler, medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday that "no one should have to hesitate to seek lifesaving treatment because they fear detention, deportation, or being torn from their families."
"Eliminating protections for sensitive locations like hospitals will deter people from seeking essential medical care, putting their individual health at risk and jeopardizing public health," Peeler added. "This is part and parcel of the Trump administration's strategy to create a climate of fear that promotes discrimination and unnecessary suffering."
Some school districts in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Palm Springs and many others had already established policies to preemptively protect undocumented students by declaring safe spaces or refusing to cooperate with federal agencies. Others are now acting in the wake of Tuesday's policy shift.
School officials in Bridgeport, Connecticut said Tuesday that they are reaffirming their "commitment to protecting the safety and privacy of all students and families," partly by blocking ICE agents from entering buildings without permission from Superintendent Royce Avery.
"We will not tolerate any threats to the safety or dignity of our students," Avery said. "Every student in Bridgeport, regardless of their immigration status, has the right to feel secure and supported in our schools. I became an educator to advocate for all students, and I will ensure their rights and privacy are upheld. Our schools will remain a safe space where all students can learn, grow, and succeed without fear or discrimination."
The Saint Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) in Minnesota's capital city is calling on its members to resist what it called Trump's efforts to establish an "authoritarian dictatorship."
"It is our turn to face down the authoritarian Republicans ruling our government," SPFE president Leah VanDassor said in a statement Tuesday. "Joining together, we can resist authoritarian efforts to divide us, refuse to comply with their agenda, and reclaim our birthright: making America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all—no exceptions."
"There will be those in the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and the Minnesota Legislature that will support [Trump's] orders, because they support replacing our democracy with an authoritarian dictatorship," VanDassor continued. "There will be temptation to ignore the role that white supremacy, sexism, transphobia, and xenophobia play in these actions."
"Some may have that option," VanDassor added. "But we don't."
Denver Public Schools (DPS) was among the districts that offered community guidance on what to do if government officials show up. School employees are advised to deny federal agents entry to buildings, alert occupants to impending raids, demand warrants from ICE officers, and seek legal counsel.
DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero explained in a statement last week that the district "is committed to providing equitable and inclusive environments where all our students feel safe and socially and emotionally supported" as "students, families, and staff who are undocumented are experiencing unease and uncertainty regarding potential mass deportation."
Even some MAGA Republicans are opposed to allowing federal agents to raid schools.
"If they do that, less kids will come to school," Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told Phoenix New Times on Tuesday, adding that it's not a child's fault if "their parents came here illegally."
Among those offering advice to her community on what to do if faced with an ICE raid was Detroit City Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero, who said in a video posted on Instagram: "If you are a resident and ICE comes to your property, you do not have to open the door. The only way you have to open the door to ICE is if they have a warrant signed by a judge."
Others noted that Trump's new policy only applies to public spaces and that ICE agents need both a judicial search warrant and arrest warrant to enter private spaces and arrest people.
While some U.S. clergy have expressed trepidation about offering sanctuary to migrants in light of the new Department of Homeland Security policy, other said they will protect community members in need.
"It is really important to be present to let people know, we will be there wherever we can to support them," Father Larry Dowling, a Catholic priest in Chicago, told ABC 7 on Sunday.
Trump
lashed out against Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde on his Truth Social platform early Wednesday, calling the spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. "nasty" after she implored him during Tuesday's inaugural interfaith service to "have mercy" on "those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away" and who may not "have the proper documentation"—saying the vast majority of them are "good neighbors" and "not criminals."
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'Where the Hell Is Doctor Hussam?' Israel Gives Mixed Messages on Gaza Hospital Director
"To suggest he isn't in custody is an insult to the public's intelligence," said Dr. Muhammad Brika, his colleague at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Jan 03, 2025
Israeli officials this week have given a human rights group and news media conflicting messages about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza who was detained when Israel's troops attacked the facility a week ago.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) contacted Mashlat—the Israeli body responsible for coordinating with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regarding the location of detainees from the Gaza Strip—on behalf of Abu Safiya's family.
On Thursday, PHRI shared on social media a screenshot of Mashlat's email claiming to have "no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question," which contradicts the IDF's Friday statement to CNN.
"On December 27, 2024, military forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, surrounded the building, and arrested Dr. Abu Safiya," PHRI
detailed in the social media thread. "In a video recording, the senior doctor is seen walking toward an armored military vehicle and is taken from there for interrogation."
That same day, an Israeli spokesperson "confirmed that he was arrested and transferred for questioning, but since then, his whereabouts have entirely vanished," the group noted. "Unfortunately, the court gave the state one week to respond regarding the hospital director's location."
Following the email to PHRI, CNN reported Friday:
The IDF has since told CNN that Dr. Abu Safiya "was apprehended for suspected involvement in terrorist activities, and for holding a rank in the Hamas terror organization, while hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were hiding inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital under his management. He is currently being investigated by Israeli security forces."
It made similar allegations about the hospital and its director around the time of the raid on the facility, without providing evidence for the claims.
While decimating Gaza hospitals and other civilian infrastructure—and killing at least 45,658 Palestinians—since October 2023, the IDF has repeatedly accused those killed and detained of ties to militant groups, often without sharing any evidence.
Citing recently released former detainees,
CNN reported Monday that Abu Safiya was among the medical professionals being held at Israel's notorious Sde Teiman military base in the Negev Desert, but his location has not been publicly confirmed as of Friday.
PHRI on Friday
circulated comments from Dr. Muhammad Brika, Abu Safiya's colleague at Kamal Adwan Hospital, who said: "To suggest he isn't in custody is an insult to the public's intelligence. The events we experienced were very clear."
"We remained at Kamal Adwan until the very end, until the military invaded the hospital," Brika continued, recalling the attack. "Dr. Abu Safiya was there the entire time. The image shown in the media, where he appears to be led towards the tank, does not reflect the reality of his arrest... Many details haven't been made public, and the truth is far different from the narrative they've tried to create."
"That same day, around 10:00 pm, we were forcibly transported to Al-Fakhoora school, with Dr. Abu Safiya up front," the doctor explained. "Upon arrival, we were treated horribly—forced to strip down to our underwear and left standing in the freezing cold. This continued until 1:30 am, during which Dr. Abu Safiya was taken into the school, either for interrogation or to give testimony. It's unclear what exactly was happening."
Abu Safiya was then brought back to the rest of the hospital workers, according to Brika. Israeli officers "told us one group would be arrested while the other would be allowed to leave the school," the doctor said. "At the last moment, they called Dr. Abu Safiya back and dressed him in white prison clothes in front of the entire medical staff. He was then formally arrested and taken into their custody, while the rest of us were allowed to leave."
People worldwide have sounded the alarm over officials' mixed messages about the missing hospital director—including Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard, who on Thursday urged Israeli authorities to "urgently disclose" his location and said that he should be considered a victim of enforced disappearance, "and as such at great risk of torture and ill-treatment."
Following CNN's Friday reporting, Callamard reiterated her call for Abu Safiya's release. She also highlighted how, under his leadership, the Gaza hospital "played an indispensable role in treating children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration-related issues," and "received those wounded from a series of Israeli attacks on starving people as they waited for flour trucks, known as flour massacres.
From last February to October, Callamard said, "Dr. Abu Safiya was the go-to source for human rights and humanitarian organizations investigating the situation of the healthcare sector in north Gaza and the impact of the mixture of disease and hunger on children in particular, providing accurate, nonsensationalist, and credible information, coordinating with international health organizations, providing media briefings, all whilst obviously working as a dedicated pediatrician."
The human rights leader further emphasized that the IDF's unsubstantiated allegations about the hospital director and Hamas are relatively recent. She asserted that "Dr. Abu Safiya's unlawful detention is emblematic of the broader attacks on the healthcare sector in Gaza and Israel's attempts to annihilate it. It is part and parcel of Israel's genocidal intent and genocidal acts—meant to inflict conditions of life CALCULATED TO BRING ABOUT DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINIANS."
"Dr. Abu Safiya has been acting as a leading voice for the healthcare sector in the north of Gaza since October 2024 and refusing to abandon the hospital and his patients," Callamard noted. "He has stood against Israel's genocidal act and his arrest along with that of [hundreds] of Palestinian medical staff further provides evidence of genocidal intent."
"None of the medical staff abducted by Israeli forces since November 2023 from Gaza during raids on hospitals and clinics has been charged or put before a trial; those released after enduring unimaginable torture were never charged and did not stand trial," she added. "Those still detained remain held without charges or trial under inhumane conditions and at risk of torture."
According to PHRI, "Since October 2023, Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including 230 doctors."
"The whereabouts and fate of many remain unknown, and requests for their location remain unanswered for many months," the group said Thursday. "In some cases, only thanks to the persistence of human rights organizations, information has been provided regarding the whereabouts of some of the missing. In some cases, it was revealed that the missing individuals died while in military or prison service custody."
Drop Site News reported Friday that the IDF ordered the "evacuation of al-Awda Hospital in north Gaza, warning that those who remain by 3:00 pm will face death or bombing," and pointed out that "around 65 healthcare workers and 30 patients are currently at the hospital."
In a Friday statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, demanded action from the U.S. government, which has given Israel billions of dollars in weapons support as it has waged an assault on Gaza that's led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
"The Biden administration, which is a full partner in Israel's genocide, must act to secure the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and to end the far-right Israeli government's systematic assault on hospitals and medical personnel in Gaza," said CAIR. "Israeli attacks on medical facilities, its daily slaughter of Palestinian civilians, and its forced starvation of an entire population are clearly part of the overall genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza."
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'Not Sick Enough Yet': Report Details Harms of Florida Abortion Ban
For one patient, doctors "had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail" before they could even offer her abortion care.
Sep 17, 2024
As new reporting on Amber Nicole Thurman's death highlights the dangers of Georgia Republicans' six-week abortion ban, a human rights group on Tuesday released a research brief about how a similar policy in a neighboring state "harms the health and safety of Florida patients while obstructing clinicians from providing basic reproductive and maternal medical care."
The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) report, Delayed and Denied: How Florida's Abortion Ban Criminalizes Medical Care, focuses on the prohibition that was signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year but didn't take effect until May, following a state Supreme Court ruling.
The PHR brief follows late May reporting on how wait times soared at abortion clinics in the states closest to Florida after its ban took effect and the Guttmacher Institute's findings from last week that the law led to a "substantial drop" in clinician-provided abortions across the state, in part because many people don't even know they are pregnant until after six weeks.
"Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
This summer, PHR interviewed 25 of Florida's reproductive healthcare providers about their experiences caring for pregnant patients under the six-week ban. Brief co-author Dr. Michele Heisler said in a Tuesday statement that "Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
"Not only abortion care but miscarriage and broader maternal healthcare have suffered gravely due to the state's ban," noted Heisler, PHR's medical director and a professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan.
"Our research brief sheds new light on the health and rights crisis fueled by Florida's abortion ban—on patients, providers, and the medical system as a whole," she said. "Under the state's abortion ban, Floridians have lost their reproductive autonomy."
One Florida doctor in private practice told PHR that "with the six-week ban, I would say it is more like the inability to really offer anything at all now. I mean, we see patients for their new obstetrician-gynecologist visits usually around eight weeks, and sometimes we see them earlier, if they are having bleeding or other issues where we end up scanning them earlier."
"But I do not think I have ever had a viable pregnancy that was less than six weeks that I could offer a termination," the OB-GYN said. "They are never less than six weeks, so it is essentially impossible. By the time we see them for their first visit, that option is already gone."
Florida's ban technically allows some abortions after six weeks—in cases of rape and incest, or to protect the health of the pregnant person—though medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates often point out that many patients are still denied legal care even with the limited "exceptions" in place.
Before the current law, Floridians were living under a 15-week ban, which took effect in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversing Roe v. Wade with its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling.
One doctor who spoke with PHR recalled a story from that period: "I strongly remember a patient who had severe kidney disease and was admitted to the hospital and was teetering on the edge of that 15 weeks. I think she was 14 weeks or so, and she got admitted, and we were trying to figure out how best to help her. She was getting sicker and sicker."
"[We] had to bring it to the head people of the hospital and be like, 'What are we allowed to do?' And they were like, 'She is not sick enough yet.' And we had to wait for her to get sicker before we were even allowed to offer her termination. And she was past 15 weeks at that point," the OB-GYN explained.
"I think it took over two weeks for us to get an answer from the hospital administrators," the doctor added. "So that hit very strongly, because it was kind of insane that we had to wait for her to become sicker. We had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail before we were allowed to even offer her [termination]. Then we had to jump through so many hoops to be able to do it. It really changed everything that we did in our practice."
The report features several other stories of patient and provider frustrations and the dangers created by the six-week ban.
"The findings of PHR's research brief demonstrate the need to remove Florida's extreme abortion ban and restore access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in the state," argued Payal Shah, brief co-author and the group's director of advocacy, legal, and research. "Both patients and providers are trapped in an unworkable legal landscape."
"Despite state health agency statements to the contrary, the state's abortion ban is an egregious intrusion on patient autonomy that is causing medical harm," Shah added. "The ban's criminal penalties and narrow, vague exceptions have compelled clinicians to deviate from established standards of care and medical ethics. These impacts constitute violations of Floridians' human rights."
Florida voters will soon have an opportunity to restore much broader access to abortion care. This November, they can vote "yes" on Amendment 4, a state constitutional amendment backed by Floridians Protecting Freedom that would enshrine the right to abortion before viability in Florida.
Former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident and the Republican nominee facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the battle for the White House, confirmed last month that he plans to vote "no" on the ballot measure. In response, Harris said that "I trust women to make their own healthcare decisions and believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor... The choice in this election is clear."
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WHO Chief Demands Swift Medical Evacuations for 9,000 Injured, Sick Patients in Gaza
Israel is currently attempting to send several patients back to the besieged enclave from East Jerusalem, where they have been receiving cancer treatment.
Mar 30, 2024
The head of the World Health Organization on Saturday demanded that Israel speed up approvals for medical evacuations from Gaza as the number of people who urgently need life-saving healthcare reached roughly 9,000—and as Israeli officials threatened to send several Palestinian patients back to the besieged enclave from the East Jerusalem hospital where they've received cancer treatment.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, warned that with only 10 of Gaza's 36 hospitals "minimally functional" following repeated attacks on the enclave's healthcare system, "thousands of patients continue to be deprived of healthcare."
At the beginning of March, WHO assessed that about 8,000 patients needed to be immediately evacuated from Gaza to receive treatment for cancer, kidney failure, and other chronic diseases as well as injuries from Israel's relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure.
That number has grown by about 1,000 in recent weeks, Tedros said.
More than 3,400 sick and injured people have been taken abroad via the southern border town of Rafah since Israel began its bombardment on October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
"But many more need to be evacuated," said Tedros. "We urge Israel to speed up approvals for evacuations, so that critical patients can be treated. Every moment matters."
As Tedros called on Israel to swiftly approve medical evacuations, human rights advocates condemned Israeli authorities who aim to deport patients with cancer back to Gaza from an East Jerusalem hospital where they've been receiving advanced treatment since before the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
"Returning residents to Gaza during a military conflict and a humanitarian crisis is against international law and poses a deliberate risk to innocent lives," Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a statement. "All the more so when it concerns patients who may face a death sentence due to unsanitary conditions and hunger, along with the unlikely availability of medical care."
At least 22 patients from Gaza, including several children, have been receiving treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital, having received authorization from Israel prior to the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) current escalation.
"I arrived here in Jerusalem with my son Hamza on September 27 last year," Qamar Abu Zoar told The Guardian on Saturday. "Hamza, who is four and a half years old, has a brain tumor and needs treatment that he couldn't receive in Gaza. While we were here, the war broke out. And since then, we have been stranded in this hospital, while my other two younger children are in the north of Gaza with my husband."
The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, has urged hospital officials to provide a list of patients who could be sent back to Gaza, where patients in the remaining hospitals are suffering from infections due to the use of improvised and unsterilized medical equipment, as well as from worsening malnutrition.
Israel's near-total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has affected food and medicines, and CNN reported earlier this month that anesthetics, anesthesia machines, oxygen tanks, and ventilators are frequently rejected by Israeli inspectors who examine aid trucks.
Last week, the Israeli High Court of Justice halted an effort by COGAT to send 10 patients from Augusta Victoria Hospital back to Gaza, where in many cases their homes and hometowns have been decimated by Israeli bombing and shelling.
COGAT claimed the patients had finished their treatment and said it would work with aid agencies if they had a need for more medical care, coordinating "their stay with the hospitals to safeguard their health."
But as Tedros warned Saturday, the vast majority of hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating.
Israel's High Court has until April 21 to issue a final ruling on whether officials can deport patients to Gaza.
"The hospitals and the medical staff must strongly oppose the release of the patients from their custody," said PHR, "unless a guarantee is given that they will not be returned to Gaza where their lives are in danger."
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30 Israeli Groups Urge Global Community to Help Stop Surging West Bank Settler Violence
"Unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop this violence."
Oct 29, 2023
With international focus on the horrors of Israel's assault on Gaza, 30 Israeli human rights and anti-occupation organizations on Sunday aimed to draw attention to a surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.
The coalition of groups—including B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and the Israeli arms of Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights—released a joint statement calling on the international community "to act urgently to stop the state-backed wave of settler violence which has led, and is leading to, the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities in the West Bank."
In retaliation for a Hamas-led attack earlier this month—in which over 1,400 Israelis were killed and around 200 others were taken hostage—Israel has waged what some legal scholars are calling a genocidal war, killing more than 8,000 people in Gaza.
"Settlers have been exploiting the lack of public attention to the West Bank, as well as the general atmosphere of rage against Palestinians, to escalate their campaign of violent attacks in an attempt to forcibly transfer Palestinian communities," the coalition noted. "During this period, no fewer than 13 herding communities have been displaced. Many more are in danger of being forced to flee in the coming days if immediate action is not taken."
"Palestinian farmers are particularly vulnerable at this time, during the annual olive harvest season, because if they are unable to pick their olives they will lose a year's income," the groups explained. "Yesterday Bilal Muhammed Saleh from the village of As-Sawiya south of Nablus was murdered while tending to his olive trees. He was the seventh Palestinian to have been killed by settlers since the current war began."
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Saturday that 111 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed since October 7.
Jewish settlers have recently tried to scare Palestinians into fleeing the West Bank by displaying dolls covered in blood or a substance meant to mimic it and distributing leaflets with messages like "Run to Jordan before we kill our enemies and expel you from our Holy Land, promised to us by God."
The coalition said Sunday that "unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop this violence. On the contrary: government ministers and other officials are backing the violence and in many cases the military is present or even participates in the violence, including in incidents where settlers have killed Palestinians."
Over the past three weeks, Israeli forces fatal violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has included raids and an airstrike on a mosque in the densely populated Jenin refugee camp.
"Moreover, since the war has begun there has been a growing number of incidents in which violent settlers have been documented attacking nearby Palestinian communities while wearing military uniform and using government-issued weapons," the coalition continued. "With grave concern and with a clear understanding of the political landscape, we recognize that the only way to stop this forcible transfer in the West Bank is a clear, strong, and direct intervention by the international community."
In response to the statement, Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said on social media that the "world must act."
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli forces have moved to a "second stage" of the war with ground operations, despite global demands for a cease-fire—though notably not from the U.S. government, which provides Israel with billions of dollars in annual military support.
"Israel's major ground offensive in Gaza, following weeks of bombardment that have reduced large parts of neighborhoods to rubble, raises grave concerns for the safety of all civilians caught in the fighting," HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement Sunday. "Thousands of children and other civilians have already been killed."
"Palestinian armed groups are continuing to indiscriminately launch rockets at Israeli communities," she added. "All civilians, including the many who cannot or do not want to leave their homes in northern Gaza, retain their protections under the laws of war against deliberate, indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks."
Over objections from Israel and the United States, the U.N. General Assembly on Friday adopted a nonbinding resolution demanding that "all parties immediately and fully comply with their obligations under international law," and calling for "an immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities."
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'Horrific Milestone': Russian Attacks on Healthcare in Ukraine Top 1,000
"These deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on Ukraine's health system show how Russian forces use these vicious, illegal tactics to control, coerce, and punish civilians," said an expert at Physicians for Human Rights.
Aug 10, 2023
A global coalition on Thursday announced what it called a "horrific milestone" for Russian attacks on Ukrainian health workers, hospitals, and other medical infrastructure since the February 2022 invasion.
"For nearly 1.5 years, we have been witnessing the escalation of attacks on healthcare in Ukraine, reaching a terrifying milestone of over 1,000 incidents since the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion," said Ukrainian Healthcare Center analyst Diana Rusnak in a statement.
"These acts are not collateral damage, but a calculated means of warfare approved by Russia's higher political and military leadership," Rusnak added. "The consequences are profound, causing not only immediate devastation but also impairing the capacity to provide lifesaving care for people. Unless accountability prevails, these crimes will persist unabated."
Lyubov Smachylo, an analyst at the Media Initiative for Human Rights, similarly stressed that "Ukraine's healthcare system is severely affected by Russia's attacks," including combat medics targeted on the battlefield and "held captive in Russian places of detention as prisoners of war, where they are beaten and tortured."
"These actions are a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and are occurring regularly," Smachylo said. "It's important that those responsible for these crimes are held accountable to prevent future violations."
Both of those groups—along with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Insecurity Insight, and eyeWitness to Atrocities—have tracked attacks on Ukraine's healthcare system throughout the war and in February published a report and interactive map.
The coalition on Thursday released findings of 1,014 attacks through mid-July, including 414 that damaged or destroyed hospitals; 79 on ambulances; 57 affecting children's hospitals; and 40 affecting maternal health facilities. Additionally, at least 148 health workers have been killed and another 106 injured.
One hospital in Donetsk Oblast has ensured repeated shelling, most recently in June. An administrative worker there told researchers that "the missile was aimed at destroying our surgical department. There were no military [troops] there."
The hospital worker continued:
The entire infrastructure in the city was destroyed, there are no schools, no kindergartens. We had a hospital, and it had to be destroyed [by Russian forces] as well. The maternity ward was the first to be hit.
When our accounting department and the blood transfusion center caught fire, [Russian forces] started hitting that area on purpose... [They] burned down.
Carrie Bowker, director at eyeWitness to Atrocities, said that the coalition data "urgently warrants further investigation by prosecutors, and provides strong evidence upon which to pursue accountability for these devastating attacks."
PHR's director of research and investigations, Christian De Vos, agreed, saying that "these deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on Ukraine's health system show how Russian forces use these vicious, illegal tactics to control, coerce, and punish civilians."
"We call on the International Criminal Court as well as other international and domestic prosecutors to urgently prioritize the investigation of attacks on health facilities as both war crimes and crimes against humanity," De Vos declared.
Uliana Poltavets, Ukraine emergency response coordinator at PHR, said that "Russia is also obligated to make reparations, including payment for reconstruction and rehabilitation, for its breaches of international law, and compensate the Ukrainian state and individual Ukrainians for loss of life and injury. International actors should hold Russia to account in this process."
Insecurity Insight director Christina Wille highlighted the need for accountability and justice for similar violence around the world—with armed attacks on schools and hospitals in conflict zones up 112% last year, according to a June United Nations report.
"I have been analyzing attacks on healthcare for many years. These figures are truly staggering," Wille said of conditions in Ukraine.
"At this grim milestone, we should reflect on the horrific consequences of such attacks in Ukraine and in many other countries and territories around the globe, such as Myanmar, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory where health facilities and workers continue to suffer dire levels of violence," she added. "We hope that this marks an inflection point to galvanize concerted action to protect healthcare globally and bring an end to these tragic attacks."
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