Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital and a prominent voice of Gaza’s decimated healthcare sector, is still being arbitrarily detained by Israeli authorities since his arrest on 27 December A lawyer who visited him and other detainees, recently reported that he has been subjected to abuse and other ill-treatment. Join us in demanding his immediate and unconditional release. 

On 27 December 2024, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital—the last functioning hospital in North Gaza at the time—and arrested the hospital’s director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya along with other medical staff and patients.

Dr. Abu Safiya had been tirelessly running the hospital, providing essential care to children and bearing witness to the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare sector under Israel’s genocide. He continued his work even after the tragic death of his own son during an Israeli airstrike. Like many health workers before him, he was detained while caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties

Not until 11 February 2025 did Israeli authorities 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 reported that Dr. Hussam and other detainees were subjected to assault and beatings. She also stated that Dr. Abu Safiya showed signs of significant weight loss as the Israeli Prison Service continues to impose severe restrictions on Palestinian detainees’ access to food, adequate medical care and hygiene.

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.

Act now and call on Israeli authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all other arbitrarily detained Palestinian health workers.

During Israel’s military campaign and its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers from Gaza without charges or trial. Health workers have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, held in incommunicado detention or subjected to conditions amounting to enforced disappearance.

Attacks by Israeli forces have severely impacted health workers and medical facilities and crushed the healthcare system. The UN Human Rights Office documented at least 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, resulting in significant casualties among doctors, nurses and other civilians. Israel’s decimation of the healthcare system in Gaza forms part of its deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians, as prohibited under the Genocide Convention.