CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

‘Torture and Degrading Treatment’

Photograph Source: rajatonvimma /// VJ Group Random Doctors – CC BY 2.0

“Israel must immediately release Gazan doctor Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya,” UN experts said in a recent statement, in unequivocal terms.

Dr. Abu Safiya was “subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment,” they said. His health condition is “dire.”

Many are already familiar with the iconic Palestinian doctor from Gaza. But the deserved and urgent focus on his case should not end with him. Rather, it should illuminate the broader catastrophe afflicting Gaza’s health sector — one deliberately dismantled as part of the ongoing genocide that began on October 7, 2023.

Palestinians and others continue to refer to the genocide as ‘ongoing’. This is not hyperbole. Though the rate of killing by bombs has decreased, the genocide remains in effect because the destruction of Gaza, and of all civilian infrastructure necessary for survival, continues to produce the same outcome: Palestinians are still dying as a direct result of the same policies.

This has affected every aspect of Palestinian life in Gaza that guarantees survival—from water and food to medical care.

Speaking at a WHO press briefing in Cairo on October 8, 2025, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s top regional health official for the Eastern Mediterranean, laid it all on the table.

Though she spoke in institutional terms, outlining Gaza’s urgent healthcare needs, her account confirmed the scale of devastation caused by Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Over 1,700 health workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the genocide, she said. The majority of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed........

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