When a photograph of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya appeared on June 10, it was one of the first signs of life his family had received since February 2025.
The former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, among the most prominent Palestinian doctors detained by Israel during the genocide in Gaza, had been brought before the Israeli Supreme Court for a hearing on his continued imprisonment. In the image, taken during the proceedings, Abu Safiya appeared frail and visibly thinner than before his arrest following the Israeli military’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in late December 2024.
For his family, the image was devastating.
“We all started crying,” his son, Elyas Abu Safiya, told +972 Magazine. “When we saw the latest picture of my father during his trial, it wasn’t just his face we saw — we saw clear signs of torture.
“It is so painful to see your father, who dedicated his life to saving lives and treating patients, like this,” he continued. “I don’t know how to describe it. What is he going through away from the cameras? If this is what we saw in public, what is happening there?”
Abu Safiya is one of 14 Palestinian doctors from Gaza currently held by Israel without charge. In April, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) called for their release, saying the doctors had been denied adequate food and medical care and subjected to physical abuse in detention.
On June 16, the Supreme Court rejected Abu Safiya’s appeal, allowing Israel to continue holding him under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law. The law permits Israel to imprison people without charge or trial if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe they took part in “hostile activity.”
His lawyer, Nasser Odeh, who visited Abu Safiya in late May, said the doctor “suffers from chronic illnesses and is not receiving the medication he needs. The prison authorities have not provided him with adequate medical treatment.”
On June 3, Odeh added, Abu Safiya was transferred to solitary confinement. “The decision to place him in isolation appears to be punitive and came after he filed an appeal,” Odeh said. “One of the main difficulties is the extremely limited legal process available to challenge his detention, because there are no formal charges against him and no indictment.”
“He is denied family visits, International Committee of the Red Cross visits, and the ability to receive clothing from outside,” Odeh said.
‘Every doctor has lost more than 44 lbs’
PHRI, which filed a petition to the Supreme Court on April 30 on behalf of the 14 imprisoned doctors, said Israel has “arrested hundreds of essential medical workers, effectively paralyzing an already fragile healthcare system under constant destruction.”
Naji Abbas, director of the Prisoners and Detainees Department at PHRI, told +972 Magazine that over the past six weeks, the organization’s lawyer has been able to meet with 10 detained doctors from Gaza, including Abu Safiya. Their testimonies, he said, reveal a pattern of abuse, starvation, and medical neglect.
“All of them reported being denied medical treatment,” Abbas said. “All are suffering from injuries caused by violence, and all complained of being starved. Every doctor has lost more than 20 kilograms [44 lbs].”
In one case, Abbas said, a doctor’s medical condition was so severe that PHRI appealed to the Israel Prison Service. “After our appeal, he was taken to a clinic, where his weight was measured at 55 kilograms [121 lbs],” Abbas said, more than 30 kilograms (66 lbs) less than he had weighed when he was arrested over two years ago.
The doctors, Abbas added, are almost entirely cut off from the outside world.
“We should understand that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is not aware of the international campaign demanding his release because he is totally disconnected,” Abbas said. “They can’t read newspapers, listen to the radio, or access any outside information. The only people they are able to communicate with are lawyers.”
Abbas believes the doctors’ continued administrative detention is tied to what they witnessed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, and what they may one day say publicly.
“The Israeli state is afraid of what they might say,” he said. “It is afraid of the stories they will tell, and the testimony they will provide about what they faced and what they saw during these months.”
Recalling the words of one detained physician, surgeon Dr. Ahmad Moussa, after a recent PHRI visit, he pointed to the resilience that has enabled many detained doctors to endure — and to remain potential witnesses to what has happened in Gaza and inside Israel’s carceral system “The last time we met him, he said: ‘I am adapting to the pain. I am getting used to it. My question is: when am I being released?’”
Singled out for harsher treatment
The abuse described by the doctors, Abbas said, was not just broadly consistent with the deterioration in prison conditions for all prisoners. In a previous PHRI report based on 21 testimonies from detained healthcare workers, doctors described being singled out for harsher treatment once soldiers or prison guards discovered their profession.
“All of the doctors described what we can call special treatment when soldiers and Israeli Prison Service guards learned they were doctors,” Abbas said.
“One physician, for example, said he told an Israeli prison doctor: ‘I’m a doctor too. I’m your colleague. You should treat me well.’ The Israeli doctor responded by slapping him.”
Other doctors recounted similar experiences. “During transfers between facilities, when soldiers or guards realized they were doctors, the beatings increased,” Abbas said.
According to Abbas, the pattern extended beyond medical workers. “One doctor said that when they knew someone was an educated Palestinian, he was beaten more,” he said. “So it wasn’t only about being a doctor specifically — it was about being an educated Palestinian in general.”
Today, over 1,300 Palestinians from Gaza are being held under the so-called Unlawful Combatants Law. They include minors, teachers, doctors, and nurses — all detained without charge on the basis of what he described as spurious claims based on propaganda and media reports.
One case he pointed to as emblematic of the law’s absurdity is that of Fahamiya Al-Khali, an 82-year-old Palestinian woman from Gaza suffering from Alzheimer’s, who was held for more than seven weeks in Israel’s Damon Prison under the same designation.
“This is why I emphasize that the name of the law does not reflect what is happening on the ground,” Abbas said. “It functions, in practice, as another form of administrative detention — where Palestinians are held for long periods without being formally charged.”
For the family of Dr. Ahmad Moussa, who was arrested from Nasser Hospital in February 2024, that uncertainty has defined every day since his detention.
“I saw him three days before his arrest and warned him about what had happened at Al-Shifa Hospital,” his brother, Ashraf Moussa, told +972. “I told him, ‘I’m scared for you,’ but he insisted on staying there.
“For an extremely long time, we had no information about him. For an entire year, we knew nothing. Then we began hearing conflicting reports until a lawyer was finally able to visit him and reassure us.”
The family has since learned that Moussa is being held in Ketziot Prison in southern Israel. A lawyer who visited him about 10 days ago, Ashraf said, reported that Moussa had fractured ribs and skin diseases.
“Before his arrest, he weighed about 110 kilograms [242 lbs],” Ashraf said. “He now weighs around 70 kilograms [154 lbs], according to the lawyer.
“We have not spoken to him at all. What we heard from people who were released is that the conditions are catastrophic, and that there is torture,” he continued. “There are no accusations. He has not been charged. His only crime is that he is a Palestinian doctor.”
Ibtisam Mahdi contributed to this report.