His white coat stands out in stark contrast to the gray ash and rubble surrounding the hospital he had been fighting tirelessly to defend for the past few months. Two massive tanks, their guns pointed in his direction, stand ready to fire. A voice calls out from the tank, calling the name that has now become a symbol of steadfastness, heroism, and tragedy in Gaza: Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
This is the scene that played out on December 27, as the Israeli army made its final move towards the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which it had been besieging and attacking for weeks as part of its ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign in north Gaza.
Upon being summoned by the soldiers, Dr. Abu Safiya ventured out amidst the rubble towards the tanks, in a now viral photo, which supposedly caught the last moment he was seen before being abducted by the Israeli army. Eyewitnesses in the hospital say that Dr. Abu Safiya, despite the imminent danger awaiting him, did not hesitate to go out to the army — once again, putting himself on the front line to protect the hospital and the patients and staff inside.
The Israeli military would later release recordings documenting the moment Dr. Safiya approached the tank. Through the loudspeaker from inside the tank, the soldier orders the doctor to lift his sweater for inspection. The soldiers then open the door for him; he lowers his head to enter and extends his hand to shake hands with the Israeli officer, who shakes his hand and says to him in Arabic: “Good morning. Come in. Come in, doctor, how are you? Is everything okay?”
The footage, published by Israeli media, went on to show Dr. Abu Safiya leaving the tank back towards the hospital, with a series of shots purporting to show patients, staff, and emergency services being “safely” evacuated from the hospital. What the Israeli army footage did not show, however, is that once the cameras cut, Dr. Abu Safiya, and a number of other patients, journalists, and hospital staff inside Kamal Adwan were abducted, beaten, and abused by the soldiers.
Mondoweiss interviewed witnesses who were at the hospital in those moments. They say that once Dr. Abu Safiya returned from the tank, he notified the people inside, upon instruction from the soldiers, that the hospital must be evacuated. Then, the army’s raid began, and soldiers began dividing men, women, doctors, and patients, forcing the groups into different areas around the hospital, before detaining people.
“As soon as we went down, the army surrounded the hospital and received us [and split us into groups]. They immediately stripped us of our clothes and took [my group] to a command and control center in the Al-Fakhoura area in Jabalia and interrogated us. The center includes interrogation rooms and torture rooms,” Mohammad Al-Sharif, a journalist who was detained for 11 hours inside Kamal Adwan Hospital and later released to Gaza City, told Mondoweiss.
“We were stripped of our clothes and it was very cold, and [the soldiers] were insulting us, threatening us and humiliating us. Then, the army examined everyone. Some were arrested, patients, civilians, and doctors were arrested, in addition to torturing the medical staff and the injured,” al-Sharif described.
One of those people was Dr. Husam Abu Safiya. And though the viral photo was not, counter to what was previously reported, the last moment Dr. Abu Safiya was seen alive, he was last seen later being taken from the hospital, after being subjected to beatings by Israeli soldiers, witnesses say.
“No one knows the fate of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Neither the Ministry of Health nor the doctor’s family nor human rights organizations have any information about him after we left the hospital. His fate is still unknown, and I am in contact with his family, and they do not have any information yet,” Al-Sharif said.
Is Dr. Abu Safiya Being Held at a Notorious Torture Camp?
Dr. Abu Safiya’s unknown whereabouts have led to wide speculation about his fate. Many fear that he is being subjected to severe abuse by the Israeli military due to his high profile, and his repeated refusal in previous months during Israeli raids to leave his patients and staff behind.
In an interview with Mondoweiss just days before his detention, Dr. Abu Safiya said defiantly, when asked about the attacks facing the Kamal Adwan Hospital, “We will leave when the last Palestinian leaves the northern Gaza Strip. We will stay and serve those who are here. This is a humanitarian mission, and our message to the world is that we deliver humanitarian care and should not be obstructed. We committed ourselves to providing for those in need, and we will fulfill our oath as doctors here at Kamal Adwan Hospital.”
In the aftermath of Dr. Abu Safiya’s abduction, reports began to circulate speculating that he was being held in the notorious Israeli torture facility, Sde Teiman — the site of documented cases of torture, rape, and killing of Palestinian detainees.
Testimonies of former detainees who were recently released from Sde Teiman, and reported on by CNN, say that they heard Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s name being called inside the prison, and that they heard from people who saw the doctor that he was subjected to torture that caused blood to flow from his eyes.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) announced that it had filed a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice on Thursday, demanding immediate disclosure of the location of Dr. Abu Safiya. On January 2, PHRI said that the military official informed the group “that a review has found no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question,” a claim that directly contradicts the testimonies of eyewitnesses from the hospital.
One day later, however, amid mounting pressure from human rights groups, the army confirmed that they were holding Dr. Abu Safiya, and that he was “currently being investigated by Israeli security forces.” The army went on to claim that Dr. Abu Safiya was suspected of being a “terrorist” and for “holding a rank” in Hamas. Israel has used similar unfounded allegations against other Palestinian doctors from Gaza to justify their detention and torture.
Abu Safiya’s family issued a statement explaining that they had received testimonies from released detainees confirming that he was being held in Sde Teiman prison and that he was subjected to mistreatment and humiliation, including being forced to take off his clothes and used “as a human shield.”
“Since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, my father has made tremendous efforts to support the dilapidated health system and has been a support and help to patients and the people of northern Gaza who have faced the most difficult conditions of a stifling siege that lasted 84 days, including continuous bombing, hunger, oppression and deprivation,” the statement said.
“During this period, our father lost his beloved son, Ibrahim, and was himself seriously injured, and is still suffering from its effects to this day. Despite this, our father has continued to perform his duty with all sincerity. Today, he is being held in the Israeli Sde Teiman prison, known for its crimes against Palestinian prisoners.”
The family appealed to international humanitarian organizations and the World Health Organization to intervene immediately to protect the doctor and preserve his life before it was too late.
“We call on all doctors in the world to take urgent and immediate action to pressure the occupation authorities to release the parents of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya before he meets the fate of many doctors and medical workers who were killed under torture or due to deliberate medical negligence, or are still missing to this moment,” the family said.
As noted by the family, the abduction of Dr. Abu Safiya has put a spotlight back on the Israeli pattern of raiding hospitals in Gaza, abducting doctors and hospital staff, torturing them and killing them in prison.
The most well-known such case is that of Palestinian doctor Adnan al-Bursh, head of the orthopedics department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Al-Bursh was reportedly severely tortured inside the Sde Teiman detention center, before being transferred to another prison where he was left to die, stripped of his clothes, in the prison courtyard.
As of September 2024, UN experts reported that at least three Palestinian doctors from Gaza were confirmed to have died inside Israeli prison custody.
According to testimonies provided to Human Rights Watch from prisoners who were abducted during Israeli raids on hospitals, detainees were stripped of their clothes, beaten, blindfolded, and handcuffed for several consecutive weeks. Those taken were also subjected to pressure to confess that they were members of the Hamas movement, including Israeli officers threatening indefinite detention, rape, and the killing of their families in Gaza if they did not confess.
At the time of publication, one week after Dr. Abu Safiya was detained, his exact whereabouts and his condition remain unknown.
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