3 January 2025
The Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine Riyad Mansour urged everyone to decide whether they stand by hope and humanity, as embodied by the white coat worn by doctors around the world, or stand with destruction and death.
He recalled Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who had refused to leave the Kamal Adwan hospital and his patients a few weeks before the ultimate attack on the facility, as saying: “so the army punished me by killing my son. I saw him die at the entrance gate.”
The detained doctor’s plight is only one of an infinite number of stories of unimaginable loss and trauma, courage and resilience from Gaza, the speaker for Palestine added, calling for his immediate release. Palestinian doctors and medical personnel took their mission to heart at the peril of their lives.
“They did not abandon the victims; do not abandon them,” he said, pleading: “End the genocide”.