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Update: October 2025 | Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya remains arbitrarily detained by Israeli authorities without charge or trial. Despite his name appearing on the list of detainees approved for release during the October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, he was not freed. His continued detention highlights Israel’s ongoing targeting of Palestinian health workers. We must intensify pressure for his immediate release. 

On 27 December 2024, the Israeli military raided Kamal Adwan hospital, the last functioning major hospital in North Gaza at the time, and arbitrarily detained its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, along with other medical staff and patients. The raid put the hospital out of service.

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. 

Dr. Abu Safiya and several other healthcare workers arbitrarily detained by Israel were not among the detainees released as part of the October Ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, despite his name being added to the list approved by the Israeli cabinet. 

We must urgently demand his immediate release. Sign the petition now.

 

Sign the Petition

  Our Petition
 
 

Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi 
Military Advocate General   
Israel Defence Forces 

Dear Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi,

I am writing to you to demand the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a paediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the occupied Gaza Strip, who was arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared by Israeli forces on 27 December 2024, along with other hospital staff and patients, following a deadly raid on the hospital, which put it out of service.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, 51, has for months acted as one of the most prominent voices of Gaza’s decimated healthcare sector, providing comprehensive and reliable information about the healthcare situation in the North Gaza governorate, particularly since Israeli forces laid a near-total siege to the area since 6 October 2024. He continued to bear witness and treat children despite the killing of his son in October 2024.

Testimonies collected by Amnesty International and other human rights groups reveal a dreadful reality inside Israeli prisons and detention centres, where Palestinian detainees, including health workers, face systematic torture and other ill-treatment and are denied their right to a fair trial and due process, along with access to adequate food and medical care.

In light of this, and the ongoing failure of Israeli authorities to grant independent monitors access to detention centres, we are extremely concerned for the life and wellbeing of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Multiple sources reported that Dr. Hussam and other Palestinian detainees have been subjected to abuse and other ill-treatment. It also was reported that he has been denied access to healthcare and that he lost a lot of weight due to poor detention conditions and depriving him from food and nutrition.

Dr. Hussam’s ongoing detention and ill-treatment bring forward serious violations of international law.

Therefore, I urge you to secure the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all other Palestinians, including health workers, forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained by Israel. Pending Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s release, I urge you to ensure his protection from all forms of torture and other ill-treatment, including coercion. Also pending his release, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya must be granted access to adequate medical care while in detention.  

Sincerely,

[Your name]