Reports emerged yesterday that Israeli special forces abducted Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital and spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, outside the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) field hospital in the southern part of the enclave.
The Palestinian health ministry said on Monday that Hams, who also oversees field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, was on his way to visit the ICRC facility in northern Rafah, when undercover Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian, before capturing him, reported Middle East Eye. The person killed was reported to have been a local journalist who had been conducting an interview with al-Hams at the time of the attack.
“This cowardly act targeted one of the most prominent humanitarian and medical voices who has conveyed to the world the pain of starving children, the suffering of wounded patients deprived of medication, and the cries of mothers at hospital gates,” the ministry said in a statement. “It clearly reflects a deliberate intention to silence the truth and obscure the suffering of an entire people enduring one of the worst health and humanitarian disasters.”
