SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
united nations
UN Experts Urge Israel to Free Gaza Doctor, Citing Reports of 'Severe Torture'
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya's imprisonment appears "to be flagrantly arbitrary and manifestly inconsistent with the Mandela Rules, which establish the obligation of states to ensure prisoners have access to healthcare.”
Mar 24, 2026
A pair of United Nations human rights experts on Tuesday called on Israel to immediately release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian physician and hospital director who has been imprisoned for more than 450 days and allegedly tortured by his captors.
Israel must ensure Abu Safiya "is granted access to medical examination and treatment," UN Special Rapporteurs Tlaleng Mofokeng and Ben Saul said, adding that the doctor reportedly suffered "severe torture."
“We have received reports that Dr. Abu Safiya has been subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment, and that his health condition remains dire,” the experts continued. “The conditions of his detention appear to be flagrantly arbitrary and manifestly inconsistent with the Mandela Rules, which establish the obligation of states to ensure prisoners have access to healthcare.”
“He has been systematically denied critical medical examination and treatment, and deprived of essential care to such an extent that his life, health, and well-being have been gravely endangered,” the pair added.
Israeli troops detained Abu Safiya, who is now 52 years old, on December 28, 2024 amid a prolonged siege and assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, where he served as director. Abu Safiya which refused to evacuate the facility as long as patients were still being treated.
Former detainees released from the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison in southern Israel said they met Abu Safiya there. According to testimonies gathered by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Abu Safiya was tortured before his arrival at Sde Teiman and inside the facility.
Abu Safiya was subsequently transferred to Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine, where another renowned Gaza physician, Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, died after reportedly enduring torture. UN Palestine expert Francesca Albanese cited reports that al-Bursh was “likely raped to death."
During a previous Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital, Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son was killed in a drone strike. Abu Safiya was seriously wounded in a separate drone attack that left six pieces of shrapnel in his leg.
Shortly after Abu Safiya's detention, his mother died of a heart attack attributed to "severe sadness" by the medical charity for which the doctor worked.
A UN commission concluded in 2024 that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza—are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
"Violence against healthcare workers, destruction of health facilities, and underlying determinants of health continue unabated despite a so-called ceasefire in Gaza,” the UN experts said Tuesday. More than 650 Palestinian civilians, including medical professionals, have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire took effect last October, according to Gaza officials.
Overall, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded over 899 days of Israel's US-backed war, which UN experts, human rights groups, and many others argue is a genocide. Since South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in late 2023, nearly 20 countries have formally intervened to support the proceedings.
Most of Gaza's over 2 million people have also been forcibly displaced—many of them multiple times—and many have suffered starvation and sickness.
The UN experts asserted that countries "have the power to end [Abu Safiya's] torment, and we call on them to use it."
"It is incumbent upon states with influence on Israel and the international community to use all avenues to ensure prevention, recourse, and justice," they added. "Israel must release Dr. Abu Safiya and all healthcare workers, and ensure they have access to appropriate medical care.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hidden 'Beneath the Surface,' Freshwater Fish Migrations Collapsing Worldwide
“Rivers don't recognize borders—and neither do the fish that depend on them," said one researcher. "The crisis unfolding beneath our waterways is far more severe than most people realize, and we are running out of time."
Mar 24, 2026
More than 300 species of migratory freshwater fish are in dire need of "urgent coordinated cross-border collaboration" amid a crisis of rapid collapse, according to a report released Tuesday at a key United Nations conservation conference in Brazil.
"Some of the longest, most important migrations of species on Earth are happening beneath the surface of the world’s rivers and many are rapidly collapsing," the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals' (CMS) annual "Global Assessment of Migratory Freshwater Fishes" report states.
Released at CMS' 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Campo Grande, Brazil the report details how freshwater fish—which are vital for the health of riparian ecosystems and provide food for hundreds of millions of people around the world—"are among the most imperiled wildlife on the planet."
"Many migratory species now face declines driven by loss of connectivity, flow alteration, habitat degradation, exploitation, pollution, and interacting pressures across borders," the report notes. "Recognizing these trends and their transboundary nature, [CMS] has sought stronger coordinated action for inland fishes that move across national jurisdictions."
📣 MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 Out now at #CMSCOP15: the Global Assessment of Migratory Freshwater Fishes, the most comprehensive overview yet on the conservation needs of migratory freshwater fish. 🌍🐟Download the #CMSFreshwaterFishes in English, Spanish and French: www.cms.int/news/un-vita...
[image or embed]
— Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) (@cms.int) March 24, 2026 at 5:28 AM
The report's authors—Zeb Hogan, Zach Bess, Michele Thieme, and Twan Stoffers—identified 325 species of freshwater fish as candidates for international conservation efforts. River basins the report says should be prioritized include the Amazon and La Plata–Paraná in South America, the Danube in Europe, the Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra in Asia, and the Nile in Africa.
According to the report:
Many migratory fish rely on long, uninterrupted river corridors connecting spawning grounds, feeding areas, and floodplain nurseries, often across multiple countries. When dams, altered flows, or habitat degradation interrupt those pathways, populations can decline rapidly...
Migratory freshwater fish populations worldwide have declined by roughly 81% since 1970 and nearly all (97%) of the 58 CMS-listed migratory fish species (including fresh and salt-water species) are threatened with extinction.
CMS recommends governments take steps to safeguard migratory fish and their habitats, including protecting migration corridors, devising basin-scale action plans and transboundary monitoring, and international coordination of seasonal fisheries.
“Many of the world’s great wildlife migrations take place underwater," Hogan, the report's lead author, said in a statement. "This assessment shows that migratory freshwater fish are in serious trouble, and that protecting them will require countries to work together to keep rivers connected, productive, and full of life.”
Thieme, who is vice president of World Wildlife Fund-US, said that “rivers don't recognize borders—and neither do the fish that depend on them."
"The crisis unfolding beneath our waterways is far more severe than most people realize, and we are running out of time," she added. "Rivers need to be managed as connected systems, with coordination across borders, and investments in basin-wide solutions now before these migrations are lost forever."
The CMS report follows last month's publication of a study by researchers in Spain who examined how ocean warming driven by human burning of fossil fuels is causing a "staggering and deeply concerning loss of marine life.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is Our Land,' Says the Israeli Settler
Israel has killed at least 26 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, of whom at least eight were murdered by settlers.
Mar 24, 2026
As Muslims around the world celebrated an end to the holy month of Ramadan over the weekend, Palestinian communities across the West Bank were violently assaulted by Israeli settlers in what witnesses describe as coordinated attacks.
Masked settlers—many under military protection—carried out raids in at least 12 locations, according to multiple reports and video footage. They burned cars, homes, and used weapons, including guns, grenades, rocks, live fire, and pepper spray, to inflict pain on Palestinians.
The West Bank is one of two enclosed regions where Palestinians live under Israeli control, the other being the war-torn Gaza Strip. But Israeli settlers, with the support of a far-right government and the silent complicity of many Israelis, have sought to take this land. Israel has killed at least 26 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, of whom at least eight were murdered by settlers.
On Monday, the widespread violence continued. In Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers detained six Palestinians, including a journalist, after raiding and vandalizing their homes. The Israel Defense Forces also set up checkpoints around the city and surrounding villages, “closing multiple main and secondary roads with iron gates, concrete blocks, and earth mounds,” according to the Palestinian News Agency Wafa.
How can Israel dispute the facts of genital mutilation reported in none other than the Times—a paper often accused of holding sympathy for Israel? I guess just like Donald Trump: by doing it.
Attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers have become more brazen since America and Israel escalated their war in the region. The United Nations estimates that Israeli soldiers and settlers have murdered at least 15 Palestinians since the start of the Iran war in late February.
In a brutal report in The New York Times March 18, for example, a Palestinian man had his genitals mutilated—in front of his family—and 400 sheep stolen by some 20 Israeli settlers. The account is almost too harrowing to put to words.
Imagine you are a Bedouin: a nomad, a villager in the Middle East. In Israel, this often means you are looked on as a peasant—and there’s no doubt you are Palestinian. You’re a woman, a mother. You live in a tent. Your life is seen as a threat by men across a border they built—the separation wall enclosing Palestinians in the West Bank.
A group of settlers arrives. Some 20 men beat you, slap your children, pull you out of your tent—your home—by your hair. They demean you for existing. They tie up your husband, strip him naked, cut his boxers with a knife, and tie his penis with a zip tie. Imagine that. Can you?
That’s the story of Suhaib Abualkebash, 29, in the report I mention above in the Times. “This is slow death,” Niama Abualkebash, 28, said of the attack on her husband. “Doing this to a man is to kill him.”
Human rights activists staying in the Bedouin community—a common tactic used to deter settler attacks in the past—were among those beaten by the settlers. Ava Lang, a 24-year-old American activist, recalled what the settlers said: “They were asking our names, where we’re from, saying, ‘We’re going to kill you,’ and ‘This is our land; we’re Jewish.’”
After beating the family, including a 3 year old, the settlers stole family wedding rings, cellphones, cash, and identification papers. The brother of the man who had his penis mutilated, Muhammad Abualkebash, 40, recalls what the settlers said next.
“They said; ‘If you don’t leave, we will burn you. We’ll hit you. We’ll take your children, and we will rape your women,” he said to the Times. “‘Go to America, go to Jordan or anywhere else, but go.’”
Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October 2023. About 1,000 have been killed in the West Bank, where, as the UN has reported, young men and boys are at a higher risk for harassment and mistreatment by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
How do Israelis feel about this? From what journalists have observed in the country, only a small portion of Israelis openly oppose violence against Palestinians.
A new poll featured on Israel’s Channel 12 reveals that first-time Jewish Israeli voters, between 18 and 21 years of age, are more right-wing and religious-nationalist in their outlook than older voters. The poll found that 75% of voters described themselves as “right-wing” compared with 68% among older voters. The self-identified “left” accounts for only 5%.
Justice is unlikely for the Abualkebash family—or any of the Palestinians harmed, intimidated, and mutilated by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Let’s not forget: beyond murder, abuse can extend to injuries, displacement, and destruction of Palestinian homes and farmland.
“Most of the international community views Israel’s presence in the West Bank as illegal,” wrote The Times of Israel on March 17, “though the US under President Donald Trump has been more tolerant.”
Also on March 17, the UN unveiled an investigation into settler violence in the West Bank, covering a 12-month period up to November 2025, warning of an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis. The report denounced the Israeli government’s role in aiding settler expansion in the West Bank.
“The Israeli government has accelerated unlawful settlement expansion and annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, forcibly displacing over 36,000 Palestinians and increasing violence by Israeli security forces and settlers,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said at a briefing in Geneva.
Israel, responding in their usual tone, via the Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva, accused the UN of being anti-Israel. “It does not function as an impartial and neutral human rights office, but as the epicenter of vile anti-Israel activism,” the mission said in a statement.
How can Israel dispute the facts of genital mutilation reported in none other than the Times—a paper often accused of holding sympathy for Israel? I guess just like Donald Trump: by doing it.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, where it’s been less than six months since the so-called ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was brokered, some 680 Palestinians have been killed.
On Sunday, four Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza. At least 10 others were wounded. And last week, the military killed 12 Palestinians in an urban refugee camp. One family of four was among the slain, including a woman who was pregnant with twins.
“We were sleeping and got up to the strike of a missile. The strike was strong,” said Mahmoud al-Muhtaseb, a neighbor. “There was no prior warning.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular