Beaten, isolated, starved: Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya in poor health in Israeli detention
“He has been made an example of — a warning to anyone who dares to defy the demands of the Israeli occupation.”
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, is in poor health after being tortured, starved, and forced into solitary confinement for long periods in Israeli detention, his lawyer has revealed.
“Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is not okay,” Ghaid Qassem, Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer, revealed on Monday (July 14), following her last visit to the doctor’s cell in Ofer Prison on July 9. “He has lost over 40 kilograms — more than one-third of his body weight. At the time of his arrest, he weighed 100 kg — today, he weighs no more than 60 kg.”
Aside from depriving him of food and drink, the Israelis are also physically abusing Dr. Abu Safiya to the point where he needs medical care and proper testing, but he is denied access to healthcare. “On June 24, 2025, he was severely beaten,” Qassem added. “His room (Room 1, Section 24 – Ofer Prison) was specifically raided. He was brutally assaulted in the chest area and sustained severe bruises to the face, head, back, and neck. The beating lasted approximately 30 minutes. Dr. Hussam requested medical care, proper testing, and to be examined by a cardiologist — but his request was denied. He suffers from irregular heartbeat. His eyeglasses, which had recently been sent to him through his lawyer, were broken.”
Furthermore, despite the heat, he is forced to wear winter clothes. “He is still wearing winter clothes while enduring starvation, torture, solitary confinement, and total deprivation — buried underground, with no exposure to sunlight,” Qassem revealed. “Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, like all Palestinian detainees, is not okay.”
Dr. Abu Safiya was abducted from Kamal Adwan Hospital on December 27, 2024, when the Israelis forced everyone in the hospital to evacuate after a months-long siege and assault on the last functioning major hospital in northern Gaza. Dr. Abu Safiya was last seen walking in the direction of an Israeli tank in the vicinity of the hospital before it was revealed he was in Israeli custody. Initially, the Israelis attempted to label him a terrorist and a Hamas operative, but they never provided any proof to substantiate their accusations.
Also read: How Israel has besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza for weeks with total impunity
However, his non-existent links to the resistance have not secured Dr. Abu Safiya’s freedom.
The heroic doctor braved a relentless barrage of Israeli attacks on his hospital and documented their brutality on his social media as bomb‑laden unmanned vehicles were detonated inside the building and fires were set in its various units. Dr. Abu Safiya lost his son, Ibrahim, in one of the attacks and was forced to hastily bury him in a street adjoining the hospital.
Videos of the grief‑stricken father leading funeral prayers for his son circulated globally, but this proved no deterrent to the Israelis as they continued to lay siege to the hospital, which is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law. (Under Article 19 of the First Geneva Convention (1949): “Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.”)
The Israelis, under the full diplomatic support of their Western backers, have consistently demonstrated over the past two years that international laws do not apply to them.
After the forced evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israelis abducted its medical professionals and sexually assaulted many.
A December 2024 report by Euro-Med Monitor revealed several harrowing testimonies:
Israeli soldiers forced women and girls to remove their clothing under threats, insults, and offensive slurs targeting their honour. Several women and girls also reported being sexually harassed.
One of the women expelled from the area told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “A soldier forced a nurse to take off her trousers, then placed his hand on her. When she tried to resist, he struck her hard across the face, causing her nose to bleed.”
Another woman reported that a soldier told a woman in their group: “Take it off, or we’ll force it off you.”
In another incident, a woman refused to remove her headscarf, prompting a soldier to tear her clothes, exposing her chest. One victim recounted being dragged by a soldier who forced her to press against him, saying, “Take it off now,” while hurling obscene remarks at her.
Similarly, a hospital staff member told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “The soldiers ordered us to remove our hijabs, but we refused. They then turned to the girls under 20 years old and demanded they remove their hijabs, but they also refused. The soldiers decided to punish us by taking two women at a time and forcing them to lift their clothes and lower their trousers under threats and coercion.”
Dr. Abu Safiya has been singled out by the Israelis for his defiance in the face of their brutality. He remained steadfast despite tragic personal loss and refused to surrender to the demands of the Israelis. “This appears to be part of a politically motivated campaign of retaliation,” Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Qassem, said in an interview in March. “He has been made an example of — a warning to anyone who dares to defy the demands of the Israeli occupation.”
The ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza has specifically targeted medical infrastructure and healthcare professionals in the besieged enclave. All 36 of Gaza’s hospitals have been dismantled multiple times, and many have been put completely out of service. The hospitals still able to admit patients provide only very basic care, which is inadequate considering the severe damage the indiscriminate Israeli bombings are causing to the bodies and minds of defenceless Palestinians.
The Israelis’ destruction of Gaza’s medical infrastructure has occurred in broad daylight — captured on camera, admitted by them, and documented by global health authorities. They blew up the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only specialised cancer facility, in March this year, after using it as a military base for over a year.
That hospital no longer exists.
After they laid a days-long siege on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, a UN official acknowledged, “Al-Shifa has gone, it’s no longer able to function in any way, shape or form [as a medical centre.]”
In an early February report, the health ministry in Gaza revealed that 1,155 medical personnel had been killed by Israel since October 7. That number will have risen considerably in the six months since then.
There have been numerous recent targeted killings of doctors. Dr. Marwan Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, was martyred alongside his wife and five children in early July in an Israeli terrorist strike on their home. Earlier this week, esteemed surgeon Dr. Ahmad Qandeel was martyred in another Israeli strike.
The relentless killing of doctors has been a persistent theme of the ongoing Israeli genocide. The Israelis raped, tortured, and subsequently murdered the beloved Gazan doctor Adnan Al-Bursh in April last year after abducting him from Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in December 2023.
“In mid-April 2024, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 of Ofer Prison. Prison guards brought him in a dire state. It was clear he had been assaulted, with visible injuries on his body, and he was naked from the waist down,” a captive who witnessed Dr. Al-Bursh in his final moments told the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked.
“The guards threw him into the centre of the yard and left him there. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh could not stand. One of the prisoners helped him to a room, but moments later cries came from the room announcing that Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh had died”
To this day, the Israelis have refused to release Dr. Al-Bursh’s body.
Several Palestinian doctors remain in Israeli torture camps despite not being charged with any crime by Israeli authorities. They remain imprisoned under “administrative detention,” which is renewed indefinitely, without disclosure of evidence.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s treatment is emblematic of the contempt the Israelis have for Gaza’s medical fraternity. Dr. Abu Safiya’s family, including his son and wife, has issued multiple pleas to help secure his release, but he remains confined to Israeli torture chambers, suffering under the worst forms of neglect and abuse.
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Bless the resistance and the martyrs, pray for humanity to prevail and free Palestine.
It is unbelievable that any other country, apart from little Yemen, and other resistance groups are giving aid to Gaza, when so many countries that sold weapons to Israel have the ability to stop this. You all saw how quickly Israel screeched for a ceasefire when Iran hit back, proving what cowards Israelis are when the other side can equal them.
So why are you sitting on your hands when you could put an end to this within days.
Your shame in leaving an unarmed people to be slaughtered will haunt you and your silence forever. You have nowhere to hide, your silence is your complicity. If ever you experience an unprovoked attack don't cry if no one comes to your aid.