As the Israeli military continues to block access to a high-profile Palestinian doctor they kidnapped last month, medical workers and aid groups say that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s ongoing detention and the lack of transparency around it underscores Israel’s larger campaign of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
Israeli forces kidnapped Abu Safiya on Dec. 27 during an attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital. According to the World Health Organization, it was one of dozens of attacks in a monthslong bombardment that has subjected hundreds of patients and health care workers to forced evacuations, detentions and sometimes death inside what was effectively the last functioning hospital in walled-off North Gaza.
Nearly two weeks after the kidnapping, the Israeli military has yet to release information on Abu Safiya’s whereabouts and status — and will only say that he is in custody and is considered a terror “suspect” without providing evidence to support the claim. Authorities say the doctor is banned from meeting with a lawyer until at least Friday and refused to respond to a legal filing by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel challenging that ban.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather at Queen’s Park in Toronto to demand that Israel release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, on Jan. 5, 2025.
Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images
“We don’t know in which facility, we don’t know if he’s safe or not. He is not allowed to meet a doctor yet,” Naji Abbas, director of PHRI’s prisoners and detainees department, said on Wednesday. PHRI has been fighting on behalf of Palestinians the group says are facing human rights violations in Israeli custody, and took on Abu Safiya’s legal case.
“We don’t know what he’s being charged [with]. We assume that they don’t have anything against him,” Abbas continued. “Because from the 26 testimonies that we collected from [detained] health care workers, most of them were told directly that they are not accused or charged with anything, but they will stay in detention. That’s illegal. That’s illegal detention, it’s an illegal arrest.”
Recently released prisoners have told the pediatrician’s loved ones and caseworkers that he is being held at alleged torture camp Sde Teiman, the so-called “Israeli Guantanamo” where detained Palestinians — including health care workers — face inhumane treatment and living conditions. Israeli authorities would not confirm that Abu Safiya is being held at Sde Teiman, though released prisoners described the doctor showing signs of torture.
On Tuesday, Abu Safiya’s family announced that the doctor’s mother had died of a heart attack just months after an Israeli strike had killed his 19-year-old son, Ibrahim. Safiya’s mother had no prior cardiac issues or medical conditions, according to Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of medical aid group MedGlobal. Abu Safiya serves as the organization’s lead physician in Gaza.
“I spoke with her grandson … and he told me she was crying last night and she felt that her son is in distress – and she went to sleep,