By now, editors at the New York Times and producers at CNN are surely squirming over what to do about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Gazan doctor and hospital director who Israel has locked up for a year and a half without trial, and who says his jailers are trying to kill him.
Worldwide campaigns, by Amnesty International and other human rights groups, have called for Dr. Abu Safiya’s release and global media coverage has been significant. Britain’s flagship newspaper, the Guardian, has naturally already reported about Dr. Abu Safiya. Here is its July 6 headline: “Detained Gaza doctor almost unrecognisable after injuries in Israel jail, lawyer says.” Even the Israeli press have reported about him, including covering a demonstration in Tel Aviv on July 6 drawing attention to his case.
But in the American media, there has been a complete blackout about his case and his dire condition.
As of July 7, the New York Times has not mentioned his name a single time since January 2025. The Washington Post did run an Associated Press report, but there was no fanfare on the Post home page and you had to search hard for the article. In the Wall Street Journal so far: nothing. CNN’s website did have a short video report, but it apparently never appeared on the network’s U.S. outlet. Dr. Abu Safiya is also missing on MS Now, supposedly the most progressive cable network.
Hiding the story of Hussam Abu Safiya is clearly pro-Israel censorship, and unfortunately, all too characteristic of America’s newspapers and cable networks in their coverage of Palestine.
As this site and other alternative media have regularly reported, Dr. Abu Safiya, a pediatrician who was the administrator of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza, turned himself in to the Israeli army on December 27, 2024. There is an iconic photo of him, in his white physician’s coat, walking through the rubble in Gaza toward an Israeli tank. (Somehow that photo has never made it into the New York Times.) Since then, first-hand accounts from his lawyer and now his son have alerted the world about his terrible treatment in various Israeli jails and his physical deterioration. Dr. Abu Safiya, now held in Rekefet Prison, has said: “They’ve brought me here to kill me. I don’t see myself surviving. This is the end.”
Israelis have insinuated that Dr. Abu Safiya is somehow linked to Hamas, but he has never been charged with any crimes. But the media is not supposed to decide on his guilt or innocence before reporting on his jailing. Hiding the story of Hussam Abu Safiya is clearly pro-Israel censorship, and unfortunately all too characteristic of America’s newspapers and cable networks in their coverage of Palestine.
What’s more, the U.S. media is also covering up a much bigger story. Dr. Abu Safiya is being held without trial, in what Israel euphemistically sometimes calls “administrative detention.” Precise figures are hard to confirm, but Amnesty International has estimated that at the end of 2025 Israel was holding 4,622 Palestinians, from both Gaza and the occupied West Bank Palestine, without putting them on trial.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s terrible situation, which even just by itself is newsworthy, could also serve as a news peg to write about Israel’s administrative detention policy. National Public Radio, to its credit, did just that back on May 30. Its excellent on-air report even interviewed Dr. Abu Safiya’s son, Ilyas.
Mainstream media reporters based in Israel who want more background could drop into the offices of Israel’s premier human rights organization, B’Tselem, which monitors the detentions, even though Israel’s government no longer gives them the figures. Here’s one of their reports.
What’s extraordinary about the U.S. self-censorship is that the Israeli media has reported about Dr. Abu Safiya’s plight. Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, even ran an editorial charging the Netanyahu government with mistreating him and others, and urged Israeli courts to “halt the ongoing starvation, abuse and imprisonment.” And even the more right-wing Times of Israel has at least recognized his existence.
What explains the cowardice at the New York Times and at CNN? Even those of us who have spent years monitoring the distorted and dishonest U.S. coverage are stupefied.
James North
James North is a Mondoweiss’ Editor-at-Large, and has reported from Africa, Latin America, and Asia for four decades. He lives in New York City. Follow him on X at @jamesnorth7
We know bought out Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber, Chris Hayes, Joe Scarborough etc will never touch this story. They love their pay checks more than facts, justice, truth.
UN Francesca Albanese on it.
UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese slams the BBC for airing unproven Israeli claims against detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, now critically ill.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/un-expert-blasts-bbc-over-coverage-of-detained-gaza-doctor
Have noticed BBC going a bit weak kneed on P/I, Gaza issue. In fact the other day during BBC coverage about the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral after the U.S./Israel assassinated him and many others. The BBC reporter only interviewed Iranians who hated the murdered leader. A bit biased one would say.