A dispirited Mohammad Safi at his hospital bed in Gaza after losing sight in both his eyes.  

By Imad Freij

RAMALLAH, Thursday, April 11, 2019 (WAFA) – Mohammad Deeb Safi, 27,  from Beit Lahyia, north of the Gaza Strip, could barely see in one eye when he was summoned to appear at a Hamas interrogation center for the fifth time in two months,  When he left the center, he had lost sight in both eyes.

Safi was active in the “We Want to Live” movement in Gaza that demanded better living conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip. Movement activities that included protests in several parts of the Gaza Strip were brutally suppressed by Hamas armed groups and its leaders and activists were detained and tortured.

Safi’s brother, Ahmad, wrote on his Facebook page that Mohammad was summoned five times to appear at the Hamas-run Home Security Office in the north of Gaza because of his activities with the protest movement. Every time he would go in, he would be kept for five hours and then get released and told to go home until the next time he will be summoned.

The last time he was summoned on March 19, he was held for three days in the cells and brutally beaten and tortured. When he was released, he had a nervous breakdown and had lost sight in his left eye, according to Rami Aman, a journalist acquainted with Safi’s conditions.

Safi was taken to the eye hospital in Gaza where he underwent quick surgery in his eye and he was able to regain partial sight in it. He was scheduled for another operation in two weeks, but the day before his operation, he was summoned again to the Home Security Office.

“He told the Hamas operatives of his condition when they summoned him,” said his Safi’s brother, Ahmad. “He told them that he was scheduled for an operation in his eye, but they didn’t care and insisted that he comes to their office. During interrogation, he told his interrogators that he had lost sight in one eye and then the interrogator hit him three times on the back of his head and told him: ‘So that you will not see at all’.”

When Safi left the interrogation center, he was not feeling good at all, said Aman. He was dizzy. A Hamas member saw him and asked him to sit down and get some rest, but Safi preferred to get home. On the way, he felt very sick and sat on the sidewalk until a neighbor saw him and asked him why he was sitting there.

“I can’t see anything,” was Safi’s response, crying.

Safi is currently at Shifa hospital in Gaza awaiting an opportunity to travel to a specialized hospital out of Gaza for treatment in his eye.

M.K.