Israel brutally detaining Gaza hospital director as ‘bargaining chip,’ says lawyer
Held without charge for 7 months, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has been beaten, starved, isolated, and cut off from his family. His freedom is nowhere in sight.
By Shatha Yaish July 22, 2025
A sit-in protest in Hebron in front of the headquarters of the International Red Cross Committee against the arrest of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and the targeting of medical personnel in the Gaza Strip, Jan. 9, 2025. (Mosab Shawer/Activestills)
Cut off from the world and held in Israeli detention without charge, Palestinian pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has endured repeated beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, and medical neglect since his arrest in Gaza, his lawyer told +972.
Abu Safiya, who was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya until the Israeli army violently shut it down, is being held at Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where attorney Gheed Kassem visited him earlier this month. He was arrested on Dec. 27 during Israel’s raid on the medical facility that was the culmination of a two-month siege, with soldiers rounding up the staff outside, forcing them to strip, and then setting fire to the building.
Kamal Adwan was not just a workplace for Abu Safiya, but a vital lifeline for an entire population under siege. Its closure marked the final blow to the medical system in Gaza’s northern districts.
Shortly after the raid, video footage surfaced showing Abu Safiya being led into a military vehicle under orders from Israeli soldiers. For a week afterward, Israeli authorities denied that he had been arrested at all, before confirming that he was in Israeli custody. The reason for his arrest, the army claimed, was that he had been involved in terrorist activity; seven months later, Israel has still not presented any evidence to prove it.
Abu Safiya was first held at Sde Teiman, a military base in southern Israel that has become notorious for the severe abuse of Palestinian detainees. He remained there under harsh conditions before being transferred to Ofer Prison on Jan. 9.
“I’ve been trying to visit him as frequently and consistently as possible,” Kassem told +972 over the weekend. “At the time of his arrest, he weighed around 97 kilos. In just the first two months alone, he lost about 20 kilos. By the time of my most recent visit, it was clear he had lost close to 40.”
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya. (Courtesy)
According to Kassem, Abu Safiya spent almost a month in solitary confinement at Ofer before being transferred to a department with other detainees from Gaza. These cells are underground, with no ventilation or natural light. “The dampness is so intense that detainees feel cold even when the outside temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius,” she explained.
Hygiene and sanitation, too, are dire. “Often, the bathroom lacks soap — only water is available,” Kassem said. “Clothes are washed once every month and a half or two months. Blankets and covers are washed maybe once every six months.” As a result, skin diseases such as scabies have spread widely among detainees.
The food that the prison provides, Kassem noted, is “the bare minimum: they are being deliberately starved.” Detainees are also totally disconnected from the outside world; according to Kassem, Abu Safiya was not even aware that Israel and Iran went to war for 12 days.
They are also being severely beaten without cause. Abu Safiya told Kassem that his most recent assault by prison guards occurred on June 24 or 25. “He was attacked brutally and savagely,” she said. “The beating lasted around 30 minutes. There were bruises on his head, neck, and chest. After they were done, he asked to see a doctor — he wasn’t feeling well and had pain in his heart. They refused his request.
“This was maybe the fifth or sixth time he had been attacked, and they also broke his glasses.” Kassem continued. “I tried so hard to get him a new pair [after he was arrested without them] and finally managed in May. But when they beat him again, they shattered the lenses.”
‘They’re kangaroo courts’
Kasem noted that the legal framework surrounding Abu Safiya’s detention is completely opaque. He is currently held under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law (2002), which allows Israel to place individuals in administrative detention — without charge or trial — if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe they participated in “hostile activity.”
Palestinian prisoners held at Israel’s Ofer Prison near Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, August 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
According to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, around 2,500 Palestinians from Gaza are currently detained under this law. It denies detainees access to a lawyer for the first 90 days, and there is no limit on the period of incarceration.
“The order is valid for six months and can be renewed indefinitely, without the lawyer or the detainee ever knowing why,” Kassem explained. “Israel always claims there are secret files or classified materials, which even we as lawyers are not allowed to see. Mere suspicion is enough to imprison someone for years.
“The courts are kangaroo courts,” she continued. “The detainees don’t even appear in court [during hearings]: he remains in his cell and is called to speak through a translator over the phone, where he is simply informed that his detention has been extended.”
According to Kassem, Abu Safiya’s case was unusual in that his classification as an “unlawful combatant” took some time. “Many believe the Israeli authorities delayed this step because they hoped to file formal charges against him, but they failed to extract a confession. After about a month and a half of detention, they had no option left but to resort to this classification.”
As such, Kassem believes he is being held “as a bargaining chip in negotiations.” It therefore seems unlikely, she added, that he will be released before the war is over.
Still, she said, Abu Safiya’s spirit remains intact. “Despite all the loss, and the harsh and difficult conditions of his detention, he remains an optimistic person, always with high spirits and confident that the genocide will come to an end.”
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya in Gaza, before his arrest. (Courtesy)
‘I can feel that he is suffering’
Abu Safiya’s family, however, has been kept almost entirely in the dark.“Most of what we’ve learned about his health has come from unofficial sources and, at times, through lawyers,” his son Elias, 28, told +972 from Gaza. “He is subjected to inhumane treatment, deprived of proper food, kept in a place with no light, and constantly interrogated.”
Elias, who is also a doctor, expressed astonishment that his father is considered a threat to Israel’s security when all he did was provide medical and administrative services at Kamal Adwan Hospital. “He has no political affiliations whatsoever,” he stated, “and I believe his arrest is a result of his public appeals to stop attacks on hospitals and Gaza’s health care system.”
Indeed, Abu Safiya’s arrest and detention is part of a much broader Israeli assault on Gaza’s health system over the past 21 months. A UN reportpublished in April documented more than 1,450 attacks on health care workers, patients, hospitals, and medical infrastructure since October 7. It also highlighted the detention of hundreds of medical personnel by Israeli forces.
His wife, Albina, told +972 that she heard from doctors who were released that they had been beaten and tortured. “My children try to shield me from details about [Hussam’s] health, fearing I might be overcome with sadness. But I can feel that he is suffering.
“I believe the army holds a grudge against him because of his dedication to his work,” she continued. “He did everything he could to support Gaza’s collapsing health care system and to save the wounded despite the lack of resources. We want him to come back so we can be together and continue our lives.
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“We are still grieving our son Ibrahim, who was deliberately targeted during the Israeli army’s raid on the hospital. We didn’t even have time to mourn him properly then.”
+972 Magazine contacted the Israel Prison Service for their comment on this report; their response will be added here if received.
Ibtisam Mahdi contributed to this report.
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