Protesters march in Huddersfield Photo: Neil Terry Photography
THE first Palestine protests of 2025 took place across Britain at the weekend.
In Wales, campaigners staged a day of healthcare protests including outside Maelor Hospital in Wrexham.
The protest was against “the total destruction of key hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza and the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics by the Israeli military.”
A freedom march was also staged through the town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire on Saturday, organised by Huddersfield Freedom For Palestine.
And hundreds marched through the streets of Manchester on Saturday in a weekly protest organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine (GMFP), which brings together a dozen support groups in the region.
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Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “Israel is escalating its attack on Palestinian healthcare system — attacking hospitals and imprisoning hundreds of healthcare workers.
“Join us to demand our government takes action to save Gaza’s healthcare workers.”
The next national demonstration for Palestine takes place in London on January 20.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
A view of destruction following the Israeli attack on the courtyard of Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surrounding buildings in Beit Lahia, Gaza on December 25, 2024. (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The hospital’s director was detained by Israeli forces and his whereabouts are unknown.
The World Health Organization on Saturday demanded the protection of healthcare facilities in Gaza as it announced that Friday’s Israeli raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza put the facility entirely out of service—leaving the besieged region without any major health centers in operation.
WHO said parts of the hospital were badly burned and damaged, including a laboratory and surgical units.
On Saturday, 12 patients and a healthcare worker were reportedly forced to evacuate to Indonesian Hospital, which is not functioning, and “some people were reportedly stripped and forced to walk toward southern Gaza,” said WHO.
Fifteen patients who had been in critical care were forced to transfer to Indonesian Hospital on Friday, leaving medical experts concerned about their health conditions at the damaged facility.
“The movement and treatment of these critical patients under such conditions pose grave risks to their survival,” said the agency. “WHO is deeply concerned for their wellbeing, as well as for the Kamal Adwan Hospital director who has been reportedly detained during the raid. WHO lost contact with him since the raid began.”
Gaza health officials said Saturday that Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, had been taken by Israeli forces to “a detention center for interrogation” along with dozens of other hospital staff.
“With Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals entirely out of service, and Al-Awda Hospital barely able to function, and severely damaged due to recent airstrikes, the healthcare lifeline for those in North Gaza is reaching a breaking point.”
Israelraided Kamal Adwan claiming that the hospital served as a “Hamas terrorist stronghold,” but did not provide evidence for the allegation. Health authorities in Gaza strenuously denied the claim.
The U.S.-backed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Saturday that Abu Safia was among those who had been detained but did not say where he’d been taken.
“With Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals entirely out of service, and Al-Awda Hospital barely able to function, and severely damaged due to recent airstrikes, the healthcare lifeline for those in North Gaza is reaching a breaking point,” said WHO. “WHO calls for urgently ensuring that hospitals in North Gaza can be supported to become functional again. Hospitals have once again become battlegrounds, reminiscent of the destruction of the health system in Gaza City earlier this year.”
The Council on American Islamic Relations called on the Biden administration to demand the release of Abu Safia, who was reportedly beaten before he was detained.
“Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on medical personnel, patients, and hospitals must be condemned by all people of conscience who value international laws and norms,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the group. “The Biden administration, which is complicit with Israel’s genocide, must call for an end to Israeli attacks on medical facilities throughout Gaza and must demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.”
Relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack mourn after their bodies were brought to al-Awda Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on December 23, 2024. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“It is unacceptable for the world to remain silent and unable to protect the healthcare system,” said Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Israeli forces have encircled and attacked three barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza with growing intensity over the past week, endangering the lives of patients receiving treatment inside the facilities—including premature babies—and medical workers.
Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a video statement over the weekend that the Israeli military had surrounded the facility and that “bullets had penetrated the intensive care unit, the maternity department, and the specialized surgery department.”
“The nursery, maternity, and all departments of the hospital are being targeted by the occupation forces with all types of weapons, including sniper fire, tank shells, and quadcopters,” said Abu Safiya, who noted that the hospital was still treating more than 80 patients.
Al Jazeera reported late Monday that a video recorded by eyewitnesses “shows robots in the vicinity of the hospital leaving behind an explosive device.”
“We were told by the person who filmed that video that there were at least four other robots in the vicinity of the hospital,” the outlet added. “Another video shows everyone in one corridor of the hospital, in the middle of the building, away from the windows and balconies and the rooms that are looking over the streets where these explosive devices are planted.”
Israeli authorities have ordered the evacuation of Kamal Adwan as well as Indonesian Hospital and al-Awda Hospital, but medical personnel and patients inside the facilities fear for their lives as there’s nowhere safe to go.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said in a Telegram post that Israel’s military has targeted Kamal Adwan in recent days with “explosives and tank fire.”
“We hold the world accountable for what is happening to us and demand that they take responsibility for our suffering,” the ministry said. “It is unacceptable for the world to remain silent and unable to protect the healthcare system. We are being attacked in plain sight, with the entire world watching, yet no one intervenes in the face of this barbarity.”
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, Israeli forces have waged what one United Nations expert described as an “unrelenting war” on Gaza’s already-strained healthcare system, invading and destroying hospitals and other medical infrastructure while choking off necessary supplies.
An Oxfam report published Monday found that just 12 trucks were able to distribute aid in northern Gaza over the past two and a half months due to Israel’s siege and incessant military attacks. Oxfam noted that between early October and mid-December, only 11 medical evacuation and assessment missions were approved for Kamal Adwan, and “one could not reach the hospital due to military activity and the rest all faced impediments along the way.”
“The situation in Gaza is apocalyptic and people are trapped, unable to find any kind of safety,” said Sally Abi-Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director. “The absolute desperation of having no food or shelter for your family in the biting cold of winter. It is abhorrent that despite international law being so publicly violated by Israel and starvation being used relentlessly as a weapon of war, world leaders continue to do nothing.”
“Every day that passes without a cease-fire,” Abi-Khalil added, “is a death sentence for hundreds more civilians.”
Efforts to evacuate the three hospitals in northern Gaza have been hindered by ongoing Israeli military attacks as well as a lack of ambulances, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The group said it lost contact with Kamal Adwan Hospital early Sunday “following a harrowing night of relentless shelling, gunfire, and explosive robots targeting nearby buildings.”
“PCHR stresses the urgent need for immediate action to protect patients and medical personnel and to ensure the ongoing operation of the hospital in an area where thousands of residents and IDPs face bombardment, starvation, and deprivation of healthcare and humanitarian services,” the organization said in a statement.
The group added that “Israel’s ongoing military assault and atrocities and its disregard for calls to end the genocide in Gaza are emboldened by the perpetual impunity granted by the U.S. and some Western allies, alongside these nations’ complicity in the serious violations committed against the Palestinian people through continuously arming Israel with weapons, ammunition, and political support.”
Palestinian girls struggle as they get donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, December 6, 2024
MORE than 800 child health professionals have demanded Sir Keir Starmer put an end to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes.
In an open letter, paediatricians, doctors and academics called on the Prime Minister to end all arms export licences to Israel and impose immediate sanctions until it complies with international law.
“We continue to hear first-hand accounts, from British healthcare professionals, of the war crimes being committed by the Israeli Defence Forces, and the catastrophic health crisis affecting both the physical and mental health of children and their families,” the letter reads.
“As British citizens, how can we live to tell the tale to our children and grandchildren that we just watched innocent lives being lost?”
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According to Oxfam, more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than in any other conflict over the past two decades.
Israel’s bombing has targeted schools, hospitals and so-called “safe zones.”
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Hussam Abu Safiyeh, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, is treated by colleagues for his injuries following an Israeli strike that hit the medical compound in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 23, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
“These people, they target everyone, but I swear, this will not stop us from continuing our humanitarian work,” said a Gaza hospital director injured in an Israeli strike.
More than 1,000 doctors and nurses are among at least 44,211 people killed in Israel’s 13-month assault on the Gaza Strip, officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave said Sunday.
“Over 310 other medical personnel were arrested, tortured, and executed in prisons,” Gaza’s Government Media Office also said in a statement, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency. “The Israeli army also prevented the entry of medical supplies, health delegations, and hundreds of surgeons into Gaza.”
“Hospitals have been a declared target for the Israeli army, which bombed, besieged, and stormed them, killing doctors and nurses, injuring others after directly targeting them,” the office said. The statement came after the director of the main partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza was injured in an Israeli strike.
Hussam Abu Safiyeh is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital—which, according to Al Jazeera, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked, damaging “the facility’s generators, fuel tanks, and main oxygen station.”
The wounded director said: “These people, they target everyone, but I swear, this will not stop us from continuing our humanitarian work. We will keep on providing this service no matter what it costs us.”
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in addition to killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli forces have injured at least 104,567 others. Along with attacking hospitals, they have destroyed many homes, schools, and religious sites, and displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people.
Israel—which has been armed by the Biden administration and bipartisan U.S. Congress—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its conduct in Gaza. Additionally, the International Criminal Court earlier this week issued arrest warrants for Israel’s current prime minister and former defense minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Last month, 99 U.S. healthcare providers who have volunteered in Gaza since last fall sent U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris a letter detailing “the massive human toll from Israel’s attack” and urging them to “end this madness now!”
“It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population,” the Americans wrote. “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.”
“We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world,” they continued. “All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of international humanitarian law.”
They added that “we wish to be absolutely clear: Not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities. We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder.”
Despite such appeals and accounts, the outgoing Biden-Harris administration has declined to cut off weapons to the Israeli government and earlier this week most U.S. senators from both major parties rejected a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have blocked some American arms sales to Israel.
