Hussam Abu Safiya was detained by Israeli forces from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, and has since been beaten and interrogated [Screengrab/X]
An Israeli court on Tuesday upheld the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, classifying him as an “unlawful combatant” and ordering his imprisonment for six months without charge or trial.
Dr. Abu Safiya, 52, was arrested by Israeli forces in late December after they stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, destroyed its infrastructure, and forcibly removed him at gunpoint.
The Be’er Sheva court ruling, confirmed by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Information Office, comes under Israel’s 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows the state to detain Palestinians indefinitely based on alleged “secret evidence”, without judicial review – a measure increasingly used against Gaza residents since 2005.
Abu Safiya has become an international symbol of Palestinian resilience. A photo of his arrest – wearing his white medical coat, walking alone amid Israeli military vehicles – circulated widely and drew condemnation from humanitarian organisations.
Despite being injured in an Israeli airstrike in November, he refused to leave his post, continuing to treat the wounded until his eventual arrest.
The pediatrician’s suffering was compounded by the death of his son, Ibrahim, during an earlier Israeli military raid on the hospital in October.
His family and legal team report that he had been subjected to severe torture and starvation in Israeli prisons.
Throughout Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Dr. Abu Safiya had consistently appealed to the international community to protect the hospital from collapse, as relentless bombardment killed doctors, patients, and children inside the facility.
He also documented evidence of Israeli forces placing explosives at the hospital gates shortly before another raid in late December.
His detention comes as Israel faces mounting international legal scrutiny.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Simultaneously, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is investigating genocide claims against Israel for its ongoing military campaign, which has killed more than 50,100 Palestinians – mostly women and children – and injured over 113,700 since October 2023.
