'Bring him home:' Francesca Albanese demands release of Hamas-linked Gaza hospital chief

"UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has become notorious for her extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, called to ‘bring home’ a Gaza hospital director who was arrested on suspicion of being a Hamas leader.

Albanese commented this morning (Thursday) on the case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was arrested in December 2024 after a raid on the hospital resulted in the arrest of hundreds of Hamas terrorists and the dismantling of a Hamas command center located at the hospital.

Abu Safiya was arrested on suspicion of being a Hamas operative. Journalist Eitan Fischberger has shown that Arabic media has referred to Abu Sfiya as a Colonel in the Hamas-run Military Medical Services in Gaza.

Abu Safiya's lawyers have claimed that he was tortured while in detention in an attempt to garner global sympathy and force his release despite the accusations of his high-ranking place in the Hamas terrorist organization.

One such sympathetic figure was Francesca Albanese, who posted about Abu Safiya on X and wrote, ‘Get. Him. Out. Bring Him Home.’

Albanese's call for Abu Safiya's unconditional release contrasts with her silence on the hundreds of Israeli hostages who were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, over 70 of whom continue to be held captive about 500 days later. The states in which multiple hostages have recently been released have highlighted the terrible conditions in which the hostages have been held and the tortures their captors have inflicted on them, including starvation, branding, suffocation, and more.

In December 2023, Albanese called a demand that Hamas release the hostages ‘unacceptable.’

Albanese responded to a tweet by former US State Department official Dennis Ross, who wrote, ‘The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is real. Why not call on Hamas to release all hostages and agree to have its leaders leave Gaza. They could save Palestinians from paying a further price. Real support for Palestinians should produce such a call. Isn’t it time for that?’

The Special Rapporteur wrote in response, ‘Regrettably, this sounds like: - putting the onus to end the carnage in Gaza on the Palestinians, including those being slaughtered in Gaza; - justifying and deflecting the attention from the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Gaza. Unacceptable.’

Among the hostages who are still being held in Gaza are Kfir Bibas, who was just nine-months-old when he was kidnapped and when Albanese said that it was unacceptable to demand that Hamas free the hostages and would be two-years-old now. Kfir's older brother Ariel, who was four-years-old at the time of the kidnapping and would be five now.

Commentators on X slammed Albanese for demanding the release of Abu Safiya despite his Hamas ties while never demanding the release of the innocent hostages such as the Bibas children..."