CrossFireArabia
A Palestinian released prisoner who reached Gaza Friday morning recounted the horrific conditions faced by Palestinians in Israeli prisons, adding that an interrogation officer informed him that they had killed all of his family members, saying it as a kind of gift.
Earlier Friday, Israeli occupation army released 30 Palestinians from Gaza, who had been held in Israeli prisons after being abducted during the occupation’s invasion of several neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip.
CrossFireArabia
Activists on social media circulated a photo on Wednesday of imprisoned Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, during his appearance before an Israeli military court.
The photo clearly showed signs of his deteriorating health. Abu Safiya appeared to have lost a significant amount of weight, with visible signs of extreme exhaustion and emaciation, along with his long beard. This comes amidst reports from his family and human rights organizations that he is being subjected to torture, ill-treatment, and medical neglect in Israeli prisons.
Abu Safiya’s last public appearance was in February 2025, when an Israeli television channel broadcast footage of him in chains being violently led by Israeli soldiers inside a prison while being interrogated by Israeli intelligence officers.
Abu Safiya’s family had previously warned of the continued deterioration in his health, confirming that he was being subjected to torture and ill-treatment, in addition to significant weight loss due to the harsh conditions of his detention.
Abu Safiya is considered one of the most prominent medical professionals in the Gaza Strip. He garnered widespread attention during the war for his insistence on continuing his work at Kamal Adwan Hospital despite the bombing and siege. He was the last to leave the hospital after it was stormed by the occupation forces, having refused to evacuate it while large numbers of wounded and sick people remained inside during the large-scale attack launched by the occupation on the northern Gaza Strip in what became known as the “Generals’ Plan.”
CrossFireArabia
By Dr Marwan Asmar
The year 2026 maybe the worst experienced by Christians experienced in the occupied territories as the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.
A latest study by the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) reported there have been 88 reported cases of attacks and harassment on Christians carried out in the Palestinian territories so far this year.
It points out 63 attack cases were carried out in the second quarter of this year alone which would mean 2026 is set to register a new record of abuse against Christians.
This is far higher than that of 2025 which stood at 181 cases.
The violations include spitting incidents and verbal insults, and vandalism of cemeteries, gravestones, statues, and crosses. This is in addition to racist graffiti and desecration of Christian religious sites. Most of these acts are concentrated in the Old City of Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the vicinity of the Armenian Patriarchate.
The RFDC was set up 2023 in Jerusalem to combat the growing anti-Christian harassment and violence in Israel, particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem that grew in the last years from extremist rightwing Jewish religious nationalists and settlers who are left free to roam the city under the protection of the Israeli army.
Nun Violently Attacked
Last April a nun at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in the Old City was violently attacked. As shown by a CCTV camera the attacker came at the nun from behind, shoving her violently to the ground and kicking her.
Two months later a priest from the Latin Patriarchate was attacked outside a restaurant near the Damascus Gate of the Holy City. Eye-witness reports show the priest was cornered, repeatedly spat at, and insulted verbally by three Jewish men.
The incident was reported on the 4th of June by the RFDC. The victim, Father Firas Abedrabbo, a parish priest of the Latin Church in Ein Arik, near Ramallah, was assaulted after his lunch with friends.
His name was reported in the media unlike the 48-year-old French nun who also worked as a researcher at the Archaeological School. Her name was never released to protect her identity, it was reported.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman and is the editor of www.crossfirearabia.com
