From the Liveblog of
Sunday, February 1, 2026
Resurfaced photo shows Gaza hospital director, who had 2 op-eds published by NYT, wearing Hamas uniform
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A resurfaced photo from 2016 shows Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, wearing a Hamas uniform alongside other senior officers in the terror group.
Safiya holds the rank of colonel in Hamas’s Military Medical Services, according to the MMS and Palestinian media reports. The MMS is separate from Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, though its members directly participated in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught of southern Israel.
Israel detained Abu Safiya along with nearly 240 others during a raid on the medical facility in December 2024, alleging that Hamas was using the military hospital as a command center.
Abu Safiya remains held in Israeli custody, and his lawyers have claimed he was subjected to “severe physical abuse,” including beating and electric shocks.
NGO Monitor Senior Researcher @vincent_chebat found a photo of Abu Safyia wearing a Hamas uniform while “at a gathering of Hamas elites…including Gen. Abu Obaida Al-Jarrah, Director of Military Medical Services Saeed Saoudi and National Security Forces commander Col. Naeem… pic.twitter.com/Xn9GDzcDlA
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) January 31, 2026
The hospital director had two opinion pieces published in The New York Times condemning Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The newspaper did not note the affiliation.
The NGO Monitor group shares the photo, which was uploaded to the MMS Facebook page a decade ago. It shows a gathering of top Hamas officers in the terror group’s National Security Forces and MMS celebrating the completion of the hospital, according to a report in The New York Post, which cites the advocacy group.
The IDF has previously said Abu Safiya was a high-ranking Hamas operative, but did not accuse him of participating in any specific acts of terror.
Another director of Kamal Adwan, Ahmed Kahlot, who was captured by the IDF earlier in the war, revealed in an interrogation that the MMS-affiliated hospital was turned into a military facility under Hamas’s control and that at one point it housed a kidnapped soldier.
According to Kahlot, who himself has been a lieutenant colonel in Hamas since 2010, some 16 members of the hospital’s staff – including doctors, nurses and paramedics – are also Hamas operatives who serve in the al-Qassam Brigades.
The Times of Israel Community.