Gaza: Israeli occupation forces kidnapped Monday Dr. Marwan Al Hams, director of field hospitals affiliated with the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, and killed a journalist and wounded another who was accompanying him.
Dr. Al Hams was the director of Abu Yousef al Najjar Hospital in Rafah before it was destroyed during the Israeli invasion of the city.
He was responsible for managing the field hospitals file and serving as a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Munir Al Barsh, Director General of the Ministry of Health, said in a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that the occupation forces, using a special armed force, kidnapped Dr. Al Hams while he was visiting the Red Cross Hospital west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
They killed journalist Tamer al Za'anin and wounded journalist Ibrahim Abu Ushaib.
He stressed that the kidnapping of Al Hams by a dangerous armed force represents a direct targeting of the voice of patients in the Gaza Strip, holding the occupation fully responsible for his health and safety.
Al Barsh explained that the kidnapping of Al Hams targets one of the most prominent humanitarian and medical voices who conveyed to the world the pain of children dying of hunger, the suffering of the wounded deprived of medicine, and the cries of mothers at hospital gates.
He emphasized that the kidnapping reflects a premeditated intent to silence the truth and obscure the suffering of an entire people experiencing the most horrific health and humanitarian catastrophe.
In the same context, Ismail Al Thawabtah, Director of the Government Media Office, said that a special force affiliated with the Israeli occupation army, during the kidnapping of Dr. Al Hams, directly opened fire on the ambulance carrying him, killing a journalist and wounding others, including the ambulance driver.
Al Thawabtah confirmed, in a similar statement to QNA, that Al Hams was kidnapped while performing routine humanitarian and medical duties on his way to the field hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.
The occupation forces are fully responsible for Dr. Al Hams' life and safety, stressing that this crime amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity and constitutes a serious and grave violation of the most basic rules of international humanitarian law and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which criminalize harming medical personnel while performing their humanitarian duties.
During their ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip, the occupation forces continue to target the health system in the Strip by destroying hospitals and health clinics, putting them out of service, and targeting medical personnel, Ministry of Health staff, and hospital directors by arrest, killing, or assassinating them.
