Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, has been facing harsh detention conditions in Israeli occupation prisons for nearly 18 months. Family sources reported that the 52-year-old doctor is subjected to a systematic starvation policy and deliberate deprivation of basic medical care, which has led to a severe deterioration in his general health.
Abu Safiya had voluntarily surrendered to the occupation forces in December 2024, in a heroic step aimed at protecting patients and medical staff and preventing the storming of the hospital, which was the last health facility in the northern Strip. Since then, direct communication between him and his family has been cut off, and they live in constant anxiety over his unknown fate.
Elias Abu Safiya, the son of the detained doctor, explained that his father is suffering from a significant health deterioration as a result of being deprived of all his rights guaranteed by international laws for prisoners. He pointed out that the occupation authorities did not allow his father to meet his lawyer until after 90 days of complete prohibition, under intense human rights and international pressure demanding disclosure of his fate.
The family follows the doctor's news with great difficulty through lawyer Nasser Odeh, and the doctor's son confirmed that all news coming from behind bars increases their fears. Elias described the family's situation as living in continuous torment, as they await any information as if it might be the last news about their father, who was forcibly disappeared from practicing his humanitarian profession.
The family condemned the continued detention of Dr. Abu Safiya without any formal charges, stressing that his record with the Public Prosecution and the Israeli Supreme Court is free of any legal violations. Sources indicated that the only crime Abu Safiya committed was his insistence on saving the lives of children and the wounded amidst the harsh war conditions that ravaged northern Gaza.
Legal data provided by the 'Physicians for Human Rights' organization indicate that Abu Safiya is one of 375 medical personnel detained by Israel without fair trials. These personnel are held under the so-called 'unlawful combatant' law, a legislation used by the occupation to justify indefinite detention without the need to present clear evidence or indictments.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has become a global symbol of professional steadfastness, especially after the scenes that documented his movement among the rubble in his white medical uniform to confront the occupation mechanisms. The doctor refused to leave the hospital throughout months of siege, preferring to stay with sick children who were facing the imminent danger of death from all sides due to lack of resources.
Abu Safiya's suffering was not limited to detention and torture; he was also heartbroken by the martyrdom of his son Ibrahim in October 2024 due to an Israeli bombing that targeted the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital. The doctor himself was injured during repeated attacks on the medical facility before he was led away in shackles by occupation soldiers after the hospital was stormed and parts of it were burned.
Human rights reports indicate that the occupation transferred Abu Safiya at the beginning of his detention to the notorious 'Sde Teiman' center in the Negev desert, before he was later transferred to Ofer Prison. In the absence of justice, his detention was extended several times during 2025, the last of which was a decision issued last October to extend his detention for an additional six months.
The doctor's appearance in a leaked recording broadcast by Israeli media in February 2025 sparked a wide wave of international condemnation, as he appeared handcuffed and in a state of extreme weakness. Human rights organizations considered that publishing such images falls under 'psychological terrorism' practiced by the occupation against Palestinian medical personnel and their families with the aim of breaking their will.
Legal sources confirm that the use of emergency laws to disappear doctors aims primarily at destroying the health system in Gaza and depriving civilians of the last line of defense for their lives. Abu Safiya remains a model for hundreds of doctors who pay the price for their commitment to the medical oath amidst international silence regarding the blatant violations they are subjected to inside Israeli interrogation centers.
The Abu Safiya family appeals to the international community and global medical institutions to intervene immediately to save their father's life and ensure his release and the release of his detained colleagues. The family stresses that the continued detention of medical personnel under vague legal pretexts constitutes a war crime that requires prosecuting those responsible in international courts to ensure that these tragedies are not repeated.
My father is living in tragic circumstances and is subjected to systematic starvation, and we live in constant anxiety and treat every call as if it were the last.
شارك برأيك
Family of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya reveals tragic details of his detention conditions in occupation prisons