By Abdul Masih —
A “doctor” from Gaza who accused Israel of genocide in The New York Times turns out to be a colonel in Hamas, a watchdog group discovered.
Hussam Abu Safyia presented himself as a doctor and The NY Times platformed him in the overwhelming propaganda campaign to demonize the Israeli Defense Forces in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas incursion into Israel that killed 1,200 civilians and others and kidnapped 200 hostages.
Just this week, NGO Monitor unearthed a 2016 photo of Abu Safyia wearing a Hamas camouflage military uniform while at a gathering of militant elites to celebrate the completion of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. They stumbled on the photo on the Gaza Medical Services‘ Facebook page — a group overseen by the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The ceremony was reportedly attended by ranking members of the brutal terror group, including Gen. Abu Obaida Al-Jarrah, Director of Military Medical Services Saeed Saoudi and National Security Forces commander Col. Naeem Al-Ghoul.
Safyia blasted Israel twice in The NY Times — on Oct. 29, 2023 and Dec. 2, 2024. “We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip,” Safyia wrote in one op-ed. The NY Times credentialed him as “pediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza” with no mention to his military rank.
“Those who platformed Abu Safyia must do some serious soul-searching, and figure out how they ended up promoting the propaganda of a literal Hamas terrorist,” NGO Monitor senior researcher Vincent Chebat said.
An IDF spokesman said Safyia was a ranking member of Hamas, and that the hospital was teeming with hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists. Neither NGO Monitor nor the IDF accused Safyia of participating in any specific terrorist acts.
The Israeli Defense Forces apprehended Safyia during the war on suspicion of “involvement in terrorist activities” but released him without charges.
Sources: New York Post, others.
