A senior Gaza physician whose anguished New York Times op-eds became widely cited touchstones of the war is now at the center of a sharp credibility fight over media vetting, after Israeli officials and a watchdog group exposed that he also held a senior role in Hamas.

The IDF and the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor say Hussam Abu Safyia, identified by the New York Times as a pediatrician and hospital director in northern Gaza, was in fact a Hamas colonel—an affiliation not disclosed in his opinion essays published after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that ignited the current war.

According to NGO Monitor, Abu Safyia was photographed in a Hamas camouflage uniform at a 2016 ceremony marking the completion of Kamal Adwan Hospital, alongside senior figures from the terrorist group. The image appeared on a Facebook page overseen by Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Palestinian outlets have at times referred to Abu Safyia by military rank, the watchdog adds.

The IDF corroborated that assessment, telling reporters Abu Safyia was a ranking member of Hamas and that Kamal Adwan Hospital had been used by terrorists from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad during the conflict. The military said Abu Safyia was detained during the war on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity and later released without charges.

Neither NGO Monitor nor the IDF accused Abu Safyia of personally carrying out specific attacks.

The revelations have reopened a debate over how global media outlets source firsthand testimony from conflict zones, and what obligations editors have to disclose affiliations when contributors operate within politicized or militarized institutions. Abu Safyia authored two Times op-eds during the war that condemned Israel’s conduct and appealed for international intervention. In one, he wrote of “the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip.”

“Those who platformed Abu Safyia must do some serious soul-searching,” said an NGO Monitor researcher.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)