The world knows Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from a single image: a pediatrician in a white coat, walking alone through the rubble of northern Gaza toward an Israeli tank on December 27, 2024.
He wasn’t surrendering an army.
He was surrendering the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza after 85 days of siege, as his staff and patients were forced out at gunpoint.
More than 550 days later, Dr. Abu Safiya is still in Israeli custody.
He has never been charged with a crime. He has never stood trial.
“…the time for prevention has passed and only immediate action can save [Dr. Abu Safiya’s] life.”
And according to the legal organization representing him, he may not survive much longer.
“He Risks Dying”
Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) issued an urgent alert on July 6 warning that Dr. Abu Safiya is at imminent risk of death from prolonged torture and mistreatment.
When his lawyer, Nasser Odeh, visited him on July 2, the doctor bore fresh, severe injuries to his head, around his eyes, and on his ears and neck — wounds so extensive that his own lawyer initially struggled to recognize him.
He had difficulty breathing, was too weak to stay upright in his chair, and was visibly afraid to speak for fear of further reprisals.
The timeline LAW lays out is chilling.
On June 24, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s appeal challenging his detention.
He was placed in solitary confinement at Ganot Prison.
Immediately after he returned from court, five Israeli Prison Service guards entered his cell and severely beat him.
He was then transferred to Rakefet — an underground interrogation facility inside Nitzan Prison — where LAW says the abuse has continued and intensified.
He is still being denied medical care. No one has had direct news of him since July 2.
“Dr. Abu Safiya is being tortured. He risks dying,” said LAW Executive Director Antonia Mulvey, adding that the time for prevention has passed and only immediate action can save his life.
Who Is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya?
Dr. Abu Safiya, 51, is a pediatrician and neonatologist who spent more than two decades caring for children in northern Gaza before becoming director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
When Israeli forces ordered northern Gaza’s hospitals to evacuate in late 2024, he refused to abandon his patients — including newborns who could not be moved — and became the most prominent voice documenting the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
The cost was staggering.
In October 2024, his 15-year-old son Ibrahim was killed by an Israeli drone strike at the hospital’s entrance.
Dr. Abu Safiya buried his son in the hospital yard, said the funeral prayers himself, and went back to his young patients.
Weeks later, shrapnel from an Israeli quadcopter strike tore into his thigh and back while he was in his office.
He kept working.
Then came the December 27 raid.
Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan, detained hundreds of staff, patients, and family members, and left the hospital in flames and out of service.
Dr. Abu Safiya was first taken to Sde Teiman — the military base notorious for the abuse of Palestinian detainees — and has been moved between prisons ever since.
Israel holds him under its “Unlawful Combatants” Law, a statute that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial.
The military has claimed, without presenting public evidence, that he held a rank in Hamas.
His legal teams have maintained throughout that he was doing exactly what it looked like he was doing: practicing medicine and running a hospital.
The abuse in detention has been documented for over a year.
Front Line Defenders reports he has suffered four broken ribs and an irregular heartbeat from torture, and has been denied his glasses and his medication.
In March, UN special rapporteurs demanded his immediate release, citing reports of severe torture and violations of the Mandela Rules on the treatment of prisoners.
When he appeared before Israel’s Supreme Court by video in June, his family said he was visibly gaunt and showed signs of torture.
The court extended his detention anyway.
Not an Isolated Case
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of 14 doctors from Gaza that LAW says Israel is illegally detaining right now.
At least six Palestinian healthcare workers are known to have died in Israeli custody since October 2023.
Attacking hospitals and imprisoning the people who staff them isn’t collateral damage — human rights organizations describe it as the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s ability to keep its people alive.
LAW is demanding that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya be examined immediately by an independent medical professional, that the International Committee of the Red Cross be granted access to him — something Israel’s own Supreme Court ruled on June 3 that the government cannot categorically deny — and that all medical professionals held without charge be released.
His legal team has filed an emergency application in Israeli courts and is pressing diplomats, the UN, and the EU to act.
The World Health Organization, the UN, the ICRC, Amnesty International, and more than 850,000 petition signers have called for his freedom.
Every day without action brings Gaza closer to losing one more doctor — a man whose only documented act was refusing to walk away from his patients.
You Can Help
Send Israeli officials a letter demanding the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Amnesty International has a form on their website that makes it very easy.
