Slovenia demands the occupation to release the Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya.

The Slovenian representative to the United Nations Security Council, Samuel Žbogar, called on the Israeli occupation to release the prominent Palestinian pediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, Hussam Abu Safiya, as well as to release Palestinian medical workers who are prisoners.

Žbogar stated in his speech: "The medical needs in Gaza are very great; doctors and medical workers must work without obstacles and without fear. We urge Israel to release the remaining medical staff from Gaza, including Dr. Abu Safiya from Kamal Hospital, from arbitrary detention."

In mid-October, Amnesty International called on the occupation to release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who has been detained in its prisons since December 27, 2024.

The organization published a template letter addressed to the Israeli military prosecutor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, demanding the immediate release of Abu Safiya.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights "Al-Mizan" reported in a statement that "the Israeli Be'er Sheva Court issued a decision to extend Abu Safiya's detention for six months under the law of unlawful combatants."

Amnesty stated in a statement above the letter template: "Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital and a prominent voice in the devastated healthcare sector in Gaza, has been in arbitrary detention by Israeli authorities since his arrest on December 27 of last year."

It quoted a lawyer who visited Abu Safiya and other detainees, stating that "he was subjected to abuse and other forms of mistreatment."

The lawyer added that Abu Safiya "appeared to have lost significant weight, amid the continued imposition of harsh restrictions by the Israeli prison service on Palestinian detainees' access to food, adequate medical care, and personal hygiene supplies."

The organization mentioned that Abu Safiya "managed Kamal Adwan Hospital tirelessly, providing essential healthcare to children, and witnessed the collapse of the healthcare sector in Gaza under the weight of the genocide being carried out by Israel."

It added that he "continued his work despite the tragedy that befell him after the killing of his son in an Israeli airstrike," noting that he "was detained while caring for his patients and performing his medical duties, as happened to many health workers before him."

The organization emphasized that "the detention of Dr. Abu Safiya and his ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial – based on the abusive unlawful combatants law – represents a manifestation of Israel's systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers and its destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, with the aim of imposing living conditions intended for the physical destruction of Palestinians."

For its part, the Prisoners' Media Office affiliated with Hamas quoted Abu Safiya's family as saying that "the occupation has extended Dr. Abu Safiya's administrative detention for an additional six months."

The family expressed "great concern regarding his continued detention without any charges or fair trial," affirming that "the extension of detention constitutes a significant psychological and humanitarian burden on them, his colleagues, and his loved ones around the world."

Abu Safiya was arrested on December 27, 2024, following the Israeli occupation army's raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where he was forcibly removed under threat of weaponry after the hospital was destroyed and rendered out of service.