Calls for the Release of Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya and Dozens of Detained Healthcare Workers

Activists and human rights organizations renewed their calls for the release of dozens of healthcare workers who remain detained by Israeli occupation forces, including Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, who was arrested on this day last year from his workplace at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

The organization "CodePink" stated: "We will not forget Doctor Abu Safiya, and more than 360 healthcare workers abducted by Israel from Gaza since October 2023".

Before the first anniversary of the occupation's abduction of Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya from the hospital he managed in Gaza, Doctor Yiping Guo, a member of the "Doctors Against Genocide" organization, said in a post on social media: "A year ago, the Israeli army abducted Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya along with dozens of medical staff during a terrifying raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. Release Hussam Abu Safiya. Release them all".

In turn, activist Petra Schornhofer said: "A year has passed since the illegal abduction and detention of Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya. Since then, he has been languishing in an Israeli prison and subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment. Do not forget him, and do not stop demanding his release", and in a poignant appeal, Albina Abu Safiya, the detained doctor's wife, said: "Save my husband before it's too late. His only crime was saving the wounded and treating injured children".

Abu Safiya (52 years old), director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested on December 27, 2024, during the ongoing siege and raids by occupation forces on the hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, and the Israeli army claimed, without providing evidence, that the hospital, which was then the last major operating hospital in northern Gaza, was being used as a command center for Hamas, and during a previous occupation attack on the hospital, Abu Safiya's 15-year-old son was martyred in a drone strike, and the doctor himself was seriously injured in a separate attack that left six shrapnel in his leg.

Abu Safiya was transferred after his arrest to Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert, where numerous deaths of detainees were recorded, and reports of torture and sexual assaults, before being later transferred to Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.

Abu Safiya reported being subjected to torture, including beatings with sticks and electric shocks, in addition to severe weight loss and rib fractures and other injuries, which he said deprived him of appropriate medical care, and this was confirmed by several documented reports indicating that healthcare workers were subjected to torture, sometimes to death, as in the case of Doctor Adnan Al-Bursh, head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, Al-Bursh "is likely to have been raped to death", a fate said to have befallen other Palestinians during their detention in occupation prisons, according to the "Common Dreams" platform.

Abu Safiya remains in detention without any formal charges being brought against him, while Israeli courts have extended his detention several times under what is known as the "unlawful combatant" laws, and in January last year, Abu Safiya's mother died from a heart attack, and the American organization "MedGlobal", with which he worked as a lead doctor in Gaza, said the death came as a result of "intense grief" over her son's fate.

For its part, Amnesty International confirmed that the arrest and ongoing arbitrary detention of Doctor Abu Safiya without charges or trial – based on the abusive unlawful combatants law – represents Israel's systematic targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers, and its destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, with the aim of imposing living conditions intended for the physical destruction of Palestinians.

According to UN agencies and international experts, Israeli forces destroyed or caused severe damage to most Gaza hospitals in hundreds of attacks since October 7, 2023, while more than 1,500 Palestinian healthcare workers were martyred, and an independent UN investigation committee concluded last year that the occupying state pursued a deliberate policy to destroy the health system in Gaza, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity amounting to genocide.

The occupying state currently faces a genocide lawsuit filed by South Africa before the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including killing and forced starvation.