On December 27, 2024, Israeli soldiers attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza’s only functional major medical institution. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital’s 52-year-old director, refused to leave while patients remained inside. He proceeded toward the Israeli tanks, wearing his white coat. The scene was recorded on video. He shook hands with a soldier. He was brought into custody. He hasn’t been free since.
Dr. Abu Safiya has been imprisoned for about 450 days by April 2026. He’s never been charged with a crime.
What has happened to his body in that time
The documentation is detailed and terrible. When his lawyer was finally allowed to see him in February 2025, after 45 days of incommunicado detention during which the Israeli military claimed he was not even in their custody, Dr. Abu Safiya described being taken first to Sde Teiman, a military detention facility in the Negev desert that B’Tselem had documented as a torture camp. He was forcibly stripped, shackled, and made to sit on rough gravel for around five hours. He was assaulted with batons and electric shock sticks. He was transported to Ofer Prison and detained in solitary confinement for 25 days, including 10 days of questioning, before passing out in his cell due to severe respiratory issues.
By March 2025, his lawyer stated that he had dropped 20 kg, cracked four ribs during interrogations, and was experiencing heart arrhythmia and vision difficulties, neither of which were being treated. By July 2025, he had dropped more than 40 kg and had additional injuries from a beating on June 24. He was still denied medical treatment for his abnormal heartbeat. He was still held in solitary confinement.
In March 2026, UN Special Rapporteurs Tlaleng Mofokeng and Ben Saul released an urgent statement urging Israel to promptly free him, citing claims of severe abuse and deteriorating health. They stated that his incarceration was “flagrantly arbitrary and manifestly inconsistent with the Mandela Rules,” the international norms regulating the treatment of detainees.His son told Al Jazeera that his father had cardiac hypertrophy, which was caused by the conditions of his incarceration.
His mother died from a heart attack shortly after his arrest. Her death was due to grief.
This is a disability justice issue
At CripJustice, we make this clear. Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention and torture are being used to deliberately produce disability. He entered incarceration as a healthy physician. If he survives, he will have damaged ribs, heart damage, vision issues, and the psychological effects of long-term solitary imprisonment. These are not side consequences of imprisonment. They are the result of a system that employs the body as a means of punishment.
The denial of medical attention to a man suffering from cardiac arrhythmia while in jail is not an error. It’s a decision. The same decision that murdered Palestinian writer Walid Daqqah, who spent 38 years in Israeli jail and was refused cancer treatment until his sickness proved deadly. The same choice that ICE made when Ismael Ayala-Uribe’s abscess was flagged as potentially life-threatening and he was sent back to his dormitory anyway. The carceral system does not accidentally deny medical care. It denies medical care because the body in custody is not considered a body deserving of care.
The criminalization of healthcare
Dr. Abu Safiya is not only a prisoner. He is a pediatrician and neonatologist who stayed at his hospital through siege after siege, moving his family into the building so he could continue to treat children, despite the fact that his hospital had already had its maternity ward destroyed by Israeli fire and its neonatal ICU reduced to the last functioning one in northern Gaza. He documented what was happening. He refused to go. He was arrested.
According to a UN investigation, Israel has undertaken a deliberate policy of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a larger assault, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by repeatedly attacking medical workers and facilities. Dr. Abu Safiya’s incarceration is not independent of that strategy. It’s an expression of it. At least six healthcare workers have died in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. At least 95 people remain imprisoned. Dr. Abu Safiya is one of them, the most documented and still incarcerated.
What accountability looks like here
Israel’s courts renewed his detention without trial twice in closed-door hearings under the Unlawful Combatants Law, a legal framework that deprives detainees of the safeguards provided to prisoners of war and enables indefinite detention without substantial judicial oversight. The Israeli Prison Service informed NBC News that it does not comment on specific inmates. The IDF has claimed that he possessed a Hamas rank without providing any evidence. Every colleague who worked with him refuted this. Every human rights group that has looked at his case has labeled his detention arbitrary.
The United Nations has advocated for his release. Amnesty International has asked for his release. The World Health Organization has urged for his release. The American Academy of Pediatrics has advocated for his release. His imprisonment has been renewed anyway
At CripJustice, we identify the systems that cause disability and then deny the car to address it. Israel is doing both to a man who has spent his whole professional life caring for others.
What you can do right now
Dr. Abu Safiya has been in prison for more than 450 days. His body is failing. His incarceration is repeatedly renewed. Most individuals outside of human rights circles are unfamiliar with his name.
That changes when we make a change.
Share this post. The most urgent thing you can do is bring his name to the attention of those who haven’t seen it before. When using the hashtags #FreeAbuSafiya, #DisabilityJustice, and #CripJustice, make sure to identify your elected officials.
Contact your representatives. If you live in the United States, contact or email your representatives of Congress and demand that they publicly call for Dr. Abu Safiya’s release as well as the freedom of all Palestinian healthcare professionals detained by Israel. The US government has significant leverage over Israel and has not used it for this purpose.
Sign Amnesty International’s petition for his immediate release at a. It takes fewer than two minutes.
Please support the organization doing this work. The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Front Line Defenders, and Healthcare Workers Watch are documenting his case and appealing for his release in real time, despite limited resources. Find them and provide immediate help.
Stay informed and continue to name names. Dr. Abu Safiya, Walid Daqqah, and Adnan al-Bursh. Iyad Al-Rantisi. Six healthcare professionals have died in Israeli detention since October 7, and their identities should be recognized. Systems of impunity rely on popular quiet. Refusing to be silent is no little thing.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya should be freed. And every healthcare professional remaining in Israeli custody must be released with him.
Sources
Sources:
Release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya — Amnesty International
Hopes dashed for release of prominent Gaza doctor detained by Israel — NBC News, October 16, 2025
Palestinian doctor from Gaza detained by Israeli authorities — MENA Rights Group
Sde Teiman: Israel’s Black Site in the Negev Desert — CripJustice
Gaza Kamal Adwan Hospital chief Abu Safia held at Israeli army base — Al Jazeera, December 30, 2024
Gaza hospital chief held in inhumane conditions by Israel — Al-Monitor, April 16, 2025
UN experts demand immediate release of Dr Abu Safiya — Question of Palestine, March 24, 2026
