Israeli forces are reportedly detaining Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya in a camp notorious for torture, sexual assault and killings of Palestinians, after abducting him and carrying out a massacre in the hospital last week.
CNN reported on Monday, citing Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody, that Israel is holding Safiya in Sde Teiman camp, a camp likened to Guantánamo Bay for Israeli soldiers’ horrific treatment of detainees there, who are often held without charges. Detainees said that they had either seen and recognized the doctor or heard his name being read out.
CNN cited a man named Alaa Abu Banat, who was abducted and detained by Israeli forces 43 days ago while he was walking home. He said he talked to Safiya’s cellmate, who told him Israeli soldiers beat Safiya “until his eye was bleeding.” Israel’s torture camps, particularly Sde Teiman, have become infamous for their brutality against Palestinians throughout Israel’s genocide. The Israeli military has killed at least 60 Palestinian detainees in their custody since October 7, 2023, according to human rights sources.
“They are all still in detention. They treated them really badly especially the doctors,” Abu Banat told the outlet.
Safiya’s family also said in a statement on Monday that they have heard from recently released detainees that the doctor is being held at Sde Teiman.
Israeli forces claimed, without evidence, that Safiya was being held over suspicions that he is a member of Hamas — the same excuse used for nearly all Palestinian detainees from Gaza, even if they are later cleared of such claims. One eyewitness released from the torture camp said that soldiers there said they were holding prisoners simply for being from Gaza.
Images circulating online showed Safiya, a pediatrician, walking toward Israeli tanks in the wreckage of Israel’s assault on and around Kamal Adwan — formerly the last operational hospital in northern Gaza. His condition is unknown.
Israeli forces destroyed what was left of Kamal Adwan Hospital last week after having attacked and besieged the hospital for nearly three months straight. Soldiers set the facility ablaze after violently forcing dozens of patients and medical workers to evacuate, stripping many of them to their underwear and detaining others.
Safiya has been vocal throughout Israel’s assault, during which Israeli forces killed his son, Ibrahim. The doctor has provided crucial updates about Israel’s atrocities in and around the hospital while pleading, for months, for international intervention to help save the lives of dozens of patients and medical staff at Kamal Adwan. Israeli forces have detained him in previous raids of the facility, done as Israel has carried out its campaign of total ethnic cleansing in north Gaza.
Safiya’s family has put out an urgent appeal calling on the world, especially the World Health Organization and MedGlobal, to take action for his release. They warned that he is experiencing “extreme cold” in Israeli custody as witnesses have said that soldiers forced him to strip and used him as a human shield after the massacre.
“We have received testimonies from released detainees confirming that he has been subjected to humiliation and mistreatment, including being forced to remove his clothes and being used a as human shield,” his family said. “He is also suffering from extreme cold and deprivation of necessary medical care.”
MedGlobal, for which Safiya is a lead physician, has also called for his release.
“Dr. Abu Safiya has dedicated his life to protecting the health and lives of children in Gaza, providing care under conditions no medical professional should have to endure. His arrest is not only unjust — it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones,” the group’s president and co-founder, Zaher Sahloul, said in a statement. “We urgently call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu Safiya.”
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