The director of a besieged hospital in northern Gaza said that his 21-year-old son was killed by Israeli shelling on the facility on Saturday.
Ibrahim, the son of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was killed at the entrance of the Kamal Adwan Hospital when he was approaching to see if the Israeli army had withdrawn, his father said.
“His dream was to become a doctor,” Abu Safiya told CNN.
His son was volunteering to help treat the wounded after a shortage in medical staff at the hospital, Abu Safiya said.
“He was with me around the clock in the intensive care unit and other departments,” he added.
The hospital has been besieged by the Israeli military, which has alleged that “terrorists” were present in the area. The facility was subject to a series of raids on Friday where Abu Safiya said he was detained and interrogated by the Israel Defense Forces over unidentified wounded patients being treated in the hospital.
“We have injured and wounded patients whose families have not identified them yet, and they remain nameless … and so I was accused of bringing in resistance fighters and treating them, which is not true,” Abu Safiya said.
“The soldier beat me and insulted me in front of the medical staff,” the doctor alleged.
The hospital director said that, along with an assistant, he’s the last remaining doctor in the hospital. Several patients require surgeries but without a team, the overwhelmed doctor does not “know what to do.”
“It’s just me and one assistant, and I am overwhelmed by cases that mostly involve amputations and burns,” he said.
Gaza hospital director says his son was killed in Israeli shelling. CNN NEWS
15 hr 38 min ago
US will focus on preventing escalation after Israel’s strikes on Iran, defense secretary says
From CNN’s Mina Allen
US Defense Secretary Llyod Austin said the US is focused on preventing continued escalation in the Middle East after Israel’s strikes on Iran early Saturday.
Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant following the attack, and said in a Saturday post on X that the US military continues to have an enhanced presence in the region.
“I reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to Israel’s security and right to self-defense,” Austin said of his call with Gallant. “I made it clear that the United States maintains an enhanced force posture to defend U.S. personnel, Israel, and partners across the region in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations and is determined to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region.”
Some context: Analysts say the nature of Saturday’s strikes — which Israel said hit military sites, and did not target Iran’s energy infrastructure, according to an Israeli military source — indicates that a US pressure campaign to limit the scope of the Israeli attack may have been successful.
World leaders have been urging the two sides to avoid a wider regional war.
Gaza hospital director says his son was killed in Israeli shelling. CNN NEWS
15 hr 38 min ago
Analysis: The US is urging an end to direct Israel-Iran fire. Experts say it’s too soon to tell
Analysis from CNN’s Nadeen Ebrahim
After Israel’s attack on Iran Saturday, US officials were quick to caution both countries against perpetuating the cycle of violence, but analysts say lasting de-escalation is not a foregone conclusion.
Iran appeared to have downplayed the Israeli strike, Iranian experts said. State media broadcast images showing calm on the streets of Tehran, with traffic moving and people going about their daily business.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC, said Iran’s downplayed response may be “more reflective of their desire to de-escalate than a true assessment of the damage Israel inflicted on Iran,” like Israel’s attempts to hide damage caused by Iran’s October 1 attack.
“The ball is now in the Iranian leadership’s court,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow with the Iran Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and a retired Israel Defense Intelligence officer who specialized in Iran.
However, “Iran will not be deterred from escalating in the future if it so sees fit, neither would Israel,” H.A. Hellyer, scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London, told CNN’s Paula Newton, adding that deterrence is often used as an excuse by the attacking state, but only leads to more regional instability.
“It doesn’t de-escalate through escalation,” he said, “which is the most incredible thing I’ve heard.”