For many in Gaza it was simply the “children’s doctor“For the rest of the world he became the face of the Palestinian health resistance under the bombs, immortalized while walking alone, in a white coat, towards an Israeli tank during the siege of the Kamal Adwan hospital.
Today, according to human rights organizations, Dr Hussam Abu Safiyapediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, risks dying in prison.
The Israeli organization raised the alarm Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), who reports a dramatic worsening of his physical and psychological conditions since the last visit carried out by his lawyer, Nasser Odehin the Nitzan detention center, Israel.
“He wasn’t the same person anymore”
The meeting between the lawyer and Abu Safiya took place on July 2nd and what the lawyer says is the portrait of a devastated man. According to the testimony made public by PHRI, the doctor was led to the interview handcuffed at the hands and feet and escorted by hooded officers. Obvious bruises and wounds on his face, neck and head, shortness of breath, he would have struggled to even remain seated without losing his balance.
حياة الدكتور حسام أبو صفية في خطرٍ داهم.
حذّرت جمعية أطباء لحقوق الإنسان (PHRI) من أن الدكتور حسام أبو صفية، مدير مستشفى كمال عدوان، يواجه خطرًا فوريًا على حياته، وذلك بعد زيارة محاميه الأستاذ ناصر عودة له في قسم التحقيقات تحت الأرض “راكيفيت” داخل سجن نيتسان.
بحسب شهادة… pic.twitter.com/XzFJMk8ICp
— Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya د.حسام أبو صفية (@HussamAbuSafiya) July 5, 2026
He was not the same person I had met previously, Odeh said.
The lawyer also reports that Abu Safiya said he suffered almost daily beatings and did not receive adequate care despite repeated episodes of fainting and feeling unwell.
The words attributed to the doctor are a desperate cry:
This is the last time you’ll see me. They brought me here to kill me. I don’t think I’ll survive.
Arrested without formal charges
Abu Safiya was arrested on December 27, 2024 during the Israeli military operation that led to the closure of the Kamal Adwan hospital, the last large health facility still functioning in the north of the Strip. He has since been detained under Israel’s controversial so-called “unlawful combatants” law, which allows for prolonged periods of detention without trial and without formal charges.
Israeli authorities claim that the doctor is linked to Hamas. Accusations that the person concerned, the Gaza Ministry of Health and the Palestinian movement have always rejected.
In a report published in May 2026, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also said that Israel had not provided sufficient evidence to support allegations related to the military use of Gaza hospitals.
The requests of human rights organizations
Physicians for Human Rights Israel speaks today of an extremely serious situation and calls for immediate intervention. According to Naji Abbas, head of the organisation’s prisoners department, there is “a real risk to Dr Abu Safiya’s life” if he does not quickly receive independent and adequate medical assistance. The association called for the doctor’s urgent transfer to a different facility, an external health assessment and access to specialist care.
Meanwhile, the doctor’s family lives far from Gaza and cannot meet him. The eldest son, Elias, said he hadn’t heard his father’s voice for months.
I’m afraid he will be silent foreverhe said, in a sentence that conveys the entire human dimension of this story. Beyond the accusations, sentences and political conflicts, at the center remains the fate of a man, a father and a doctor who for years treated children in one of the most tormented areas of the planet.
Dr. Abu Safiya and at least 13 other Palestinian doctors from Gaza have been held in Israeli custody for more than 18 months without charge or trial. PHRI calls for their immediate release. And not only that: Israel has subjected hundreds of health system workers to arbitrary detention and forced disappearance, all people detained without indictment or trial
Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system constitutes a deliberate infliction of living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian population, in violation of the Genocide Convention, Amnesty comments.
The appeals of Italian paediatricians
Meanwhile, the Italian Confederation of Paediatricians has written to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asking for humanitarian intervention for Hussam Abu Safiya. In the letter, signed by the national president Teresa Mazzone, the pediatricians recall Abu Safiya’s commitment to caring for children during the most dramatic moments of the war in Gaza, underlining how he continued to guarantee healthcare despite bombings and lack of resources.
The Confederation asks the Italian Government to take action with the Israeli authorities to obtain the doctor’s release, if there are no accusations supported by evidence, or to guarantee a fair and transparent trial. It also calls for dignified detention conditions, access to medical care and the protection of his physical integrity.
In any case, doctors and health workers have been calling for the release of Hussam Abu Safiya for some time.
Sources: Physicians for Human Rights Israel / Amnesty International
