DO NO HARM
Dr Hassam Idris Abu Safiya,
paediatrician and neonatologist,
Director of Kamal Adnan Hospital,
Beit Lahia, Gaza, was kidnapped.
He was summoned by loud hailer. Someone –
a colleague perhaps – photographed him,
in his white coat, walking carefully
and decisively through rubble
towards an IDF Merkava tank.
Since then he has been imprisoned without charge;
savagely beaten; malnourished; denied
medication; and a change of clothes.
***
Will history judge these times as a
categorically defining moment?
The dichotomy, disjunction seems clear:
are you for humanity or hatred?
There are those who care, and those who do not;
those who try do something, anything,
to make a difference; and those who
trim, lie, exult. The Talmud tells us –
and the Koran echoes the sentiment –
‘Who saves one life saves all’.
Catherine Reynolds
September 5, 2025These are Old Testament times of barbarism and cruelty. Where life counts for little and where humanity is lost to view. In this short poem you exemplify one atrocity and clearly observe how polarised the experience of Gaza has become and how mercy is prey to villainy. It is a wasteland of rubble and death. In all this destruction, ‘who saves one life, saves all.