=ccupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- Amnesty International has called on the Israeli occupation to immediately release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of North Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been held in Israeli detention for over seven months since his abduction by Israeli forces.
Amnesty called on Israeli occupation authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all other arbitrarily detained Palestinian health workers.”
Who’s Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya?
Israeli forces kidnapped Dr. Abu Safiya in December 2024 after storming Kamal Adwan Hospital. Soldiers forced him out at gunpoint, destroying the hospital and putting it out of service.
Surrounded by bomb-struck buildings, Abu Safiya walked down the middle of a road strewn with debris, his white medical coat standing out against the rubble as he made his way toward Israeli tanks.
The footage is the last time Abu Safiya was seen before he was taken into custody by Israeli forces.
Abu Safiya was the lead physician in Gaza for MedGlobal, a Chicago-based nonprofit that has partnered with local health care workers since 2018 and arranges volunteer medical missions to the enclave.
In an interview with NBC News, the organization’s co-founder, Dr. John Kahler, said he was “very afraid” that Abu Safiya won’t “make it out alive” from detention. He added that the physician was “a friend of mine, a hero, mentor,” who, among other things, had helped to establish nutrition stabilization centers in the Gaza Strip.
Where’s Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya?
Not until 11 February 2025 did Israel allow Dr. Abu Safiya to meet with a legal counsel. In the latest visit by a lawyer to Ofer military prison in early July 2025, she said Abu Safiya has lost more than 40kg (88 pounds) since his arrest, dropping from 100kg (220 pounds) to about 60kg (132 pounds).
He was severely beaten on June 24 at Ofer Prison, sustaining injuries to his ribs, face and back. Despite requesting medical care and cardiology tests for an irregular heartbeat, his requests were denied.
He remains in solitary confinement under harsh conditions, deprived of sunlight, and still wearing winter clothes in the summer heat. His lawyer warned that Abu Safiya and many other Palestinian detainees are in grave condition and the Israeli Prison Service continues to impose severe restrictions on their access to food, adequate medical care and hygiene.
“Unlawful Combatants”
The Israeli occupation forces have abducted more than 2000 known Gazans during the ongoing genocide, a number that is likely even higher, and are holding them in indefinite incommunicado detention, without charge or trial, under the Unlawful Combatants Law, in clear violation of international law.
There are currently 2,454 detainees classified as “unlawful combatants”, the highest recorded since the start of the genocide, prisoner advocacy groups said.
According to Amnesty International, citing former detainees, during their incommunicado detention, which in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance, Israeli military, intelligence and police forces subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Unlawful Combatants Law grants the Israeli military sweeping powers to detain anyone from Gaza that they suspect of engaging in attacks against Israel or posing a threat to state security for indefinitely renewable periods without having to produce evidence to substantiate the claims.
Those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients; mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called “safe corridor” from northern Gaza to the south; human rights defenders, UN workers, journalists and other civilians.
One of the most well-known cases is that of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
In a statement, Amnesty said, “Dr. Abu Safiya’s arrest and ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial – based on the abusive Unlawful Combatants’ Law – is a reflection of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers and the decimation of the healthcare system in Gaza in order to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians.”
The Israeli military claimed in January that Abu Safiya had been involved “in terrorist activities” and held “a rank” in Hamas that it said had made the Kamal Adwan Hospital a stronghold during the war.
In March, an Israeli court extended the detention of Abu Safiya for six months. The ruling classified him as an “unlawful combatant”.
But according to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, no formal charges had been made against the hospital director.
How Many Doctors Are Being Held in Israeli Prisons?
Twenty-eight doctors from Gaza are being held inside Israeli prisons, eight of whom are senior consultants in surgery, orthopaedics, intensive care, cardiology and paediatrics, according to a July data from Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW).
Twenty-one of those detained have been held for more than 400 days. HWW said none had been charged with any crimes by the Israeli occupation. Three healthcare workers have been detained since the start of July, including Dr. Marwan al-Hams, head of Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, who was abducted by an Israeli undercover force outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip. His whereabouts are unknown, and Israel has yet to publish a statement on his detention.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in July, Israel has arrested and detained more than 300 healthcare workers since the start of the assault in October 2023. HWW puts this figure higher, at over 400.
Muath Alser, director of HWW, said: “Many of the health workers were arrested at their work sites, and they remain held for months – often without communication, being denied medical care when needed, and suffering from terrible detention conditions. We urge people in power to pressure Israel to release those health workers still under unlawful detention.”
Reports of torture, violence and psychological abuse of healthcare workers while in Israeli detention have been verified by the UN and published in reports by organisations such as HWW, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Amnesty.
Two senior doctors are known to have died in Israeli detention: Dr. Iyad al-Rantisi, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Kamal Adwan hospital, and Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of the orthopaedic department at al-Shifa hospital, died shortly after being transferred to Ofer prison in April 2024. Former detainees said he died from torture and had suffered severe sexual violence in the hours before his death.
Their bodies have not yet been returned to their families.
