‘Everyone here is at risk’: Injured Kamal Adwan Hospital director’s poignant message

Dr. Hossam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, was critically injured by shrapnel from a bomb dropped by an Israeli quadcopter drone on the hospital on Saturday.

On Sunday, with bandaged arms from his hospital bed, the renowned medic issued a video statement, saying the only operational hospital in northern Gaza has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli strikes over the past week.

He stated that the attacks are deliberately aimed at “hindering our ability to provide humanitarian services” to those injured in Israeli bombings, including 20 patients currently in the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).

Speaking on behalf of the hospital staff, Dr. Safiya called on the World Health Organization (WHO), international institutions, and the global humanitarian community to “ensure international protection for our healthcare system, including both the hospital and its workers.”

According to reports, around 60 patients, including women and children, are currently receiving treatment at the hospital, enduring relentless Israeli ground and aerial aggression.

In a statement on Sunday, the Hamas resistance movement also highlighted the attacks on Gaza’s healthcare facilities in recent weeks, with a particular focus on Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“The hospital has been subjected to continuous bombardment by aircraft, as well as direct gunfire targeting hospital rooms,” the movement stated.

“The most recent crime by the occupation against Kamal Adwan Hospital involved dropping a bomb on Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, as he was leaving the operating room and heading to his office.”

Other resistance groups in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have also denounced the latest Israeli military assault on the hospital and its medical director.

Here is the full text of Dr. Safiya’s message from the hospital bed:

“We are speaking from the center of the intensive care unit, the only one in the northern Gaza Strip, after enduring over fifty days of siege. We have made appeals to the world to send medical delegations, surgical specialists, medical supplies, and even just one ambulance to the northern Gaza Strip, as well as fuel and food. Unfortunately, after the failure of the occupying army to evacuate the north, they have now begun to directly target our healthcare system.

For the past seven consecutive days, we have been bombed directly. Once, they targeted the reception and emergency departments, injuring several of our medical personnel. On another occasion, they struck the hospital yard, the generator assembly point, the oxygen station, the water network, water tanks, and the overall infrastructure.

This targeting clearly indicates that they want to hinder our ability to provide humanitarian services, which are supposed to be protected by international laws that safeguard healthcare systems and their personnel. We currently have more than twenty injured individuals here in the room.

Everyone here is at risk; working inside Kamal Adwan Hospital has become increasingly dangerous.

It is evident that a new weapon has been introduced by the Israeli army, specifically a quadcopter that drops bombs containing tiny fragments that are nearly invisible to the naked eye. These projectiles penetrate the bodies of our workers, causing severe bleeding and damage to internal organs.

On behalf of me and the staff of this healthcare system, we demand action from the world. We call upon the World Health Organization, international institutions, and the humanitarian community—those who claim to uphold democracy and humanity.

We urge organizations like OCHA and all those with influence over health rights to provide international protection for our healthcare system, not only for the hospital but also for its workers.

We are committed to providing humanitarian care and will continue to do so in the northern Gaza Strip. Wherever there is a citizen in need, we will stand alongside them until we exhaust our resources.

Even if we can only offer minimal assistance, we will continue to fulfill our humanitarian duty. There are both divine and earthly laws that compel the world to support this health system, which is operating under the bare minimum of resources.

Weeks ago, medical personnel were arrested, and regrettably, there has been no intervention or movement on this issue. We continue to suffer and die while the world remains silent, failing to halt the relentless bloodshed in the northern Gaza Strip.

Each day, we witness the horrific suffering and bloody scenes in Kamal Adwan Hospital. We receive daily calls for help from people trapped under rubble, but unfortunately, we lack the means to rescue the injured. The next day, we are often devastated to learn that those who sought our help have become martyrs.

Tragically, many of our targeted homes have become graves for their inhabitants. This is the reality we face: a genuine campaign of extermination, targeting everything in the northern Gaza Strip, including our healthcare system.

We are targeted every day—whether by bombs, shelling, quadcopters, or Apache helicopters. We cannot understand what sin we have committed to face such violence against our healthcare system.

Once again, we urgently call on the world to stop the bloodshed occurring in the northern Gaza Strip. We demand an end to the attacks, targeting, and violence against us in a system that the entire world should protect. We ask the international community to urgently intervene in the north and stop the targeting of our healthcare system and its workers.

To my brothers and colleagues present, please provide your names, places of work, and details of your injuries so that the world knows about our teams who have been injured while performing their humanitarian duties. They were harmed while offering everything they could with limited resources to care for the wounded and patients in the northern Gaza Strip.

We also demand the immediate release of our medical personnel who were arrested from their posts at Kamal Adwan Hospital. They were brutally detained, beaten, and insulted, dragged in an inhuman manner. Unfortunately, we still have no information on their whereabouts or well-being.

We call on the world to intervene immediately to ascertain the fate of our colleagues who were arrested and to secure their release without delay.

After each attack, the targeting has become routine. When the hospital's roof is struck, the water tanks and network are damaged. This is followed by attacks on the electricity generators—the only generator supplying power to the entire hospital. Each assault causes damage to our oxygen network and other infrastructure.

With every attack, we attempt repairs only to face further damage the following day. It has become impossible to leave the oxygen station nonfunctional, as doing so would jeopardize the lives of patients dependent on ventilators.

This cycle of destruction and repair has regrettably become routine at Kamal Adwan Hospital.”

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