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Gaza City – Dr Hussam Abu Safia, 52 years old, remains in an Israeli prison a year after Israel arrested him without charge or trial.
His family and supporters are demanding his release as his health deteriorates due to reports of the inhumane conditions in which he is detained.
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Abu Safia, known for his constant presence as director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, has become a central player in international discussions on the protection of medical personnel in armed conflicts.
He insisted on remaining at the hospital, along with several members of the medical staff, despite continued Israeli attacks on the facility.
Israel eventually surrounded the hospital and forced everyone to evacuate. Since then, Abou Safia has been in detention and the hospital is out of service.
He was transferred between Israeli prisons, from the notorious Sde Teiman detention center to Ofer prison, where he was continually mistreated.
No charges have been filed against Abu Safia, who is detained under the “unlawful combatants” law, which allows detention without a standard criminal trial and denies detainees access to evidence against them.
The suffering of a family
Abu Safia is being held in extreme conditions and, according to his lawyers, has lost more than a third of his weight.
His family is worried about him because he also suffers from heart problems, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, skin infections and a lack of specialized medical care.
His eldest son, Ilyas, 27, told Al Jazeera via Zoom from Kazakhstan, where the family fled a month ago, of his grief over Abu Safia’s detention, adding that his father’s only “crime” was being a doctor.
Ilyas, his mother Albina and his four siblings stayed with his father in Kamal Adwan during the Israeli attacks, despite the possibilities of leaving Gaza, especially since Albina is a Kazakh citizen.
On October 26, 2024, Israel killed Ilyas’ brother Ibrahim, 20, while bombing the hospital.
“The entire medical staff cried with grief [my father] and for Ibrahim,” Ilyas said.
The kidnapping of Dr Abu Safia
At dawn on December 27, 2024, the hospital woke up to an Israeli siege reinforced with tanks and quadcopter drones.
Israeli tanks had been around Kamal Adwan since mid-October 2024, gradually closing in – destroying parts of the infrastructure like water tanks – until one day they were so close that no one could get out.
Patients and staff gathered in the emergency reception corridor, according to Dr. Walid al-Badi, 29, who stayed with Abu Safia until his arrest and spoke to Al Jazeera on December 25 at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
“The situation was extremely tense, the loudspeakers were calling for everyone to evacuate, but Dr. Abu Safia asked us to remain calm. Then the loudspeakers called for Dr. Abu Safia to come to the reservoir.”
Abu Safia was ordered into an armored vehicle. According to al-Badi, the doctor returned with a sheet of instructions, disheveled, clothes dusty and a bruise under his chin.
Everyone rushed to check on him and he told them he had been attacked.
“Israeli media showed a video claiming that they… treated him with respect, but they did not show… how he was attacked in the tank and threatened,” al-Badi said.
Abu Safia was ordered by the Israelis to prepare a list of everyone hospitalized, which he did and returned to the armored vehicle, where he was told that only 20 personnel could remain. The others had to leave.
“Around 10 a.m., the Israelis allowed some ambulances to transport patients, injured people, displaced civilians and the doctor’s family to the Indonesian hospital. [about 1km away] while the medical teams left on foot,” says al-Badi.
However, several patients remained, besieged with the doctors.
“The doctor told me to go, but I told him I would stay with him until the end.”
The only female doctor who remained was the head of the intensive care unit, Dr Mai Barhouma, who spoke to Al Jazeera from Baptist Hospital.
Barhouma worked with critical patients dependent on medical equipment and oxygen, and his conscience did not allow him to leave, despite Abou Safia’s request.
The Israeli army repeatedly summoned Abu Safia to give him new instructions, once, according to Drs. Barhouma and al-Badi, offering him a safe exit for himself.
He refused, insisting he would stay with his team. Around 10 p.m., the quadcopters ordered everyone to line up and evacuate.
Meanwhile, Israel bombed and burned the upper floors and cut off the electricity.
“We were heartbroken when Dr. Abu Safia led [us] “, al-Badi recalled. “I hugged Dr. Abu Safia, who was crying as he left the hospital he had tried so hard to stay in.”
Testimonies from that day indicate that the medical staff were taken to al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where they were beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers during interrogations.
Barhouma left in an ambulance with an intensive care patient, but the ambulance was held up for hours at the school.
“The soldiers tied our hands and forced us to walk towards al-Fakhoura school, [2km away] from the hospital. Our colleagues who had left in the morning were still there, tortured,” al-Badi recalled, adding that they arrived around midnight.
“They ordered us to strip down to our underwear, tied our hands and began to beat us severely with boots and rifle butts, insulting and cursing us. »
The interrogations and beatings of doctors in the freezing cold continued for hours while Barhouma was in the ambulance with the seriously ill patient.
“The oxygen ran out, so I started using a manual resuscitation pump. My hands were swollen from pumping non-stop, terrified that the patient would die,” she said.
She described hearing the cries of tortured doctors and then being ordered out of the ambulance by Israeli soldiers.
“The soldier asked me for my ID and did an eye scan, then ordered me to get out, but I refused and told him I had a critical patient who would die if I left them.”
Eventually, the Israelis released the medics, including al-Badi and Abu Safia, ordering them to head toward western Gaza, while sending the ambulance with Barhouma on board on another route to the west.
But the relief did not last. They had barely walked a few meters when an Israeli officer called Abu Safia.
“Our faces froze,” al-Badi said. “The doctor asked what was wrong. The officers replied, ‘We want you to be with us in Israel.'”
Al-Badi and a nurse tried to push the doctor away, but he reprimanded them and told them to keep walking.
“I cried like a child separated from its father as I saw the doctor being arrested and put on the white nylon uniform of the detainees. »
Request his release
Abou Safia’s family is appealing to human rights and legal authorities to obtain his immediate release.
“My father’s lawyers have visited him about seven times over the past year, [each visit allowed only] after exhausting attempts with the prison administration. Each time, my father’s condition deteriorated significantly,” Ilyas told Al Jazeera.
“[He] suffered fractures to his thigh and shrapnel to his foot from an injury sustained while he was in hospital before his arrest. He also suffers from other health problems and is subjected to severe psychological and physical abuse that is inappropriate for his age.
“Israel is trying to criminalize my father’s work, his continued service to the people and his efforts to save the wounded and sick in an area that Israel itself considered a ‘red zone’ at the time.
“My father’s presence and steadfastness inside the hospital constituted a major obstacle to the Israeli army and its plan to empty the north of its inhabitants. »
Ilyas is proud of his father.
“My father is a doctor who will be cited throughout the world as an example of respect for medical ethics and courage.
“I am proud beyond words and I hope to hug him soon and see him emerge safely from the darkness of the prison.”
