We the Undersigned call for Freedom for Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

 

On December 27, 2024, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and his remaining hospital staff, finally surrendered to Israeli forces. By then, Kamal Adwan had been made inoperable by the IDF who threatened worse destruction. Dr. Abu Safiya has been in a series of Israeli prisons ever since. His attorney says he’s lost a third of his body weight and has suffered assault and beatings. He has not been charged with any crime but is being held under a dubious Israeli “Unlawful Combatants” provision. No evidence has been offered that he’s a combatant of any kind. Amnesty International calls for Abu Safiya’s release.

 

Abu Safiya had written several opinion pieces in the New York Times. In the last one, published a few weeks before his arrest, the Times described him as the lead physician in Gaza for the humanitarian organization MedGlobal. He’s a pediatrician but a few days earlier he had to perform the first surgery of his life. He wrote, “The human mind cannot imagine all the death and body parts and blood that surround us around the clock. But it remains our responsibility to keep on providing humanitarian services.”

 

In the fall of 2024, the Israeli military decided to empty the hospital. It bombarded parts of the facility and ordered it to be evacuated. Abu Safiya and his medical staff refused. Dr. Abu Safiya said, ‘I will stay inside my hospital until the last moment." The attacks continued. His 15-year-old son Ibrahim was killed on hospital grounds by an Israeli drone. The doctor himself was seriously wounded in another attack inside the hospital suffering six shrapnel wounds to his leg. Finally, when it looked like the whole hospital would be leveled Dr. Abu Safiya agreed to leave. There’s video of him walking through rubble into the maw of an Israeli armed personnel carrier.

 

Israeli authorities claim he’s being held under suspicion of being a “Hamas terrorist operator.” Yet after a year of “investigation” and interrogations no evidence of any terrorist activity on the part of Dr. Abu Safiya has been revealed. The doctor is as he appears to be, a person performing courageously and upholding the very best of medical ethics.

 

We call on the United States government, which supplies Israel with armaments, intelligence and full diplomatic backing, to insist that Dr. Abu Safiya be freed along with other medical staff from the former Kamal Adwan Hospital.

 

(* Disclaimer) Institutions mentioned for identification purposes only. The Campaign to Free Dr. Abu Safiya is not endorsing any groups or other efforts mentioned below

 

Initial Signers in alphabetical order

 

Yigal Arens

University of Southern California (USC), Emeritus

 

Phil Brewer MD FACEP

Founding Faculty Member, Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine / Yale New Haven Hospital

 

Jim Brasile
Veterans For Peace 42
Contact Coordinator

 

John Cappadona MD,

member of Health Care Workers for Palestine (Hartford vigils) and Veterans for Peace, CT branch

 

Roane Carey

Former Managing Editor and Senior Editor “The Nation” magazine

 

Mark Colville

Community organizer/activist, Amistad Catholic Worker

 

Molly Crabapple

artist and author

 

Samuel Farber

Emeritus Professor of Political Scienced at CUNY (City University of New York)

 

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

trade unionist/writer; USA

 

John T. Fussell, JD

Retired labor lawyer

 

Ira Helfand

Past President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

 

Rabbi Andy Kahn

Executive Director of the American Council for Judaism

 

Rev. Tony Lorenzen

Minister,

UU Church of Meriden and UU Congregation of Danbury

 

Jennifer Sarin Loewenstein

Associate Director, Middle Eastern Studies Program & Senior Lecturer,

University of Wisconsin-Madison (ret.) and Human Rights Activist.

 

Bill McKibben

author

 

David Michel
author
Former CT State Representative from Stamford (HD146)

 

Marc Nelson

Artist and teacher

 

Paula Panzarella

New Haven CT peace and social justice activist, poet and freelance writer

 

Miko Peled

President, Palestine House of Freedom

 

Rev. Allie Perry

social justice activist, a member of Shalom United Church of Christ and

active with the UCC Movement for Palestinian Solidarity and Apartheid Free Communities

 

Mitchell Plitnick

President of ReThinking Foreign Policy. 

 

Rabbi Brant Rosen

Tzedek Chicago

 

Professor Tony Rosso,

retired, Southern Connecticut State University

 

Dr. Alice Rothchild

MD Harvard university, Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council 

 

Feroze Sidhwa, MD, MPH, FACS, FICS

San Joaquin General Hospital, French Camp, CA

 

Zaher Sahloul

Pulmonary & Critical Care

Associate Professor at UIC

President, MedGlobal

 

Melinda Tuhus

journalist, human rights advocate

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Subsequent signers

 

Lillian Rosengarten

A refugee from Nazi Germany, anti-Zionist defender of Palestinian freedom and  self-determination for all Palestinians This encompasses a bi national solution with two national identities living together in harmony.

 

Kathy Kelly

board president, World BEYOND War

 

Andrew Courtney

Citizen Photographer

 

Robert Dubrow

Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Public Health

 

Mike Alewitz

Professor Emeritus, Mural Painting

Central CT State University

Artistic Director

Red Square, New London, CT

 

Jill Stein M.D.

 2024 Green Party Presidential Candidate

 

Craig Mokhiber

International Human Rights Lawyer,

Member, Gaza Tribunal

 

Seth Freeman

President, 4Cs SEIU 1973

Professor, CT State Community College

 

Estela Lopez-Espelin, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

 

Michael Espelin, APRN, PMHNP-BC

Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner 

 

Justine McCabe

PhD, clinical psychologist, human rights activist.

 

Rev. Dr. Randolph W.B. Becker,
Unitarian Universalist Minister and Religious Educator

 

Ofer Neiman

anti-Zionist Israeli citizen

 

Michael Letwin

Co-Convener, Labor for Palestine National Network;

Former President, UAW 2325

 

Jillian Gilchrest

State Representative (CT), MSW

 

David Letwin

Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union

 

Jonathan Kuttab

International human rights lawyer,

Executive Director, FOSNA

 

Omar Scott Antar

CT Palestine Alliance

 

Edwin Vargas, Jr.

Former Deputy Speaker

Connecticut House of Representatives

 

Steve Siegelbaum

Educator, singer/songwriter

 

Moshé Machover 

Professor (emeritus) 

 

Robert Herbst

Human Rights Lawyer

 

Frank Panzarella

retired president of IAM, Local 1990

 

Abdul Osmanu

Hamden (CT) Legislative Councilor District 3

 

Sue Clark

ENvironmental Health Advocacy LEague (ENHALE)

Concord, MA

 

Peter Beinart

author

 

Allan Brison

former Alder from the City of New Haven, CT

 

Eric Stamm, LCSW, MPH

Hartford Quaker, Hope Out Loud, Hartford

 

Khaled Alqaddumi

President

Watan Inc.

South Windsor, CT

 

Karina Quintans

New Hampshire Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East

 

Josh Elliott

Sadu Nanjundiah

Professor, Physics, CCSU

 

Hani Mowafi, MD, MPH 

Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine

Yale School of Medicine

 

Carol Gray, JD, PhD, LLM

Assistant Professor of Public Law

Department of Political Science

University of Alaska Fairbanks

 

Alice Robinson, BS, MPH

Public Health Scientist

 

Rev. Dr. Don Wagner

retired, Orland Hills, IL

 

Shelly Altman
co-founder, Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven

 

Susan Bramhall
retired Software Developer, Yale University

 

Susan Klein

vigiller and

member Jewish Voice for Peace

Greater New Haven Peace Council

 

Martha Klein 

No Pipeline Expansion Northeast Lead Facilitator  

 

Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan

CT legislature (Danbury/Bethel)

 

Dave Lippman

Musician

 

Diana Lapp, MD

Family Physician

 

Anna-leila Williams
Professor Emerita

Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac

 

Evan Siegel

Iranian specialist

 

Rev. Joshua M. Pawelek

Unitarian Universalist Society: East

Manchester, CT

 

Dianne Fireweed Radmore 

artist, writer, activist

co-founder, Denman Islanders for Climate Action & Social Justice 

 

Elizabeth Aaronsohn, Ed.D.

Associate Professor Emerita

Central CT State University

New Britain, CT 

 

Melene Rose

Citizen of the United States. Resident of Connecticut.

 

Mr. Alex Ishkanian

Elementary Special Education Teacher

 

LouAnn Villani

retired nurse

 

Jody Williams 

Nobel Peace Laureate 

 

Sherry Wolf

Tempest Collective and JVP NY

 

Ted Zuur

Ukraine Solidarity Network

 

Maureen Tyra

Educator, Bridges of Peace and Hope Board member

 

Hassan Fouda

NorCal Sabeel

 

Max Weiss

Professor of History, Princeton University

 

Janet Simmon

PEN, NH Palestine Education Network