Wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants, with his wrists bound together in handcuffs, Dr. Abu Safiya looks significantly thinner and exhausted, showing signs of ill-treatment and abuse.
A photo of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya has appeared for the first time in over nine months. Wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants, with his wrists bound together in handcuffs, Dr. Abu Safiya looks significantly thinner and exhausted, showing signs of ill-treatment and abuse.
Even in the grainy photo, two distinct marks on his right arm are visible, possible signs of torture to which the Israelis have subjected him since his abduction on December 27, 2024.
Weight loss is clearly visible as the imposing, charismatic doctor looks like a shadow of his former self. Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer revealed last year that he had lost 40 kilogrammes of body weight in Israeli rape and torture dungeons.
The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza appeared from his jail cell at an Israeli Supreme Court hearing via video link on Wednesday. He had recently been transferred to solitary confinement in Nafha prison.
Ramy Abdu of Euro-Med Monitor reported that journalists were barred from access to the hearing, and the doctor’s lawyer, Nasser Abu Awda, was allowed to present his defence plea, but he was later removed under the pretext of discussing secret indictment items between the prosecution and the Supreme Court judges.
Ultimately, the court postponed a ruling on the doctor’s detention.
“We will remain patient and endure the suffering despite the exhaustion, oppression, and pain, and we say nothing but: ‘Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs,’” Elias, Dr. Abu Safiya’s son, wrote on Twitter.
“O Allah, You who freed our Prophet Yusuf from captivity, free my father and all our brothers who are prisoners and detainees in the prisons of the criminal occupation…
“My father is a prisoner in the hands of the occupation, and he has remained in solitary confinement since 3 June without receiving any medical treatment.”
Elias recently revealed the poor condition of his father.
Highlighting the harsh conditions and the extent of isolation that Palestinians endure in the Israeli dungeons, Elias said that a couple of months ago, Dr. Abu Safiya, in a letter, asked him to contact the journalist Anas al-Sharif to report on the issue of detainees and their suffering. He was unaware that Anas had been martyred last August.
Released detainees have described horrific torture being meted out to Dr. Abu Safiya. One former detainee said that the Israelis forced the doctor to spend “seven consecutive days shackled by both hands and feet, making basic tasks such as eating, drinking, and using the bathroom unbearably difficult.”
In a bid to break him down, they forced Dr. Abu Safiya “to repeat insulting phrases about himself while under severe torture.”
“They stripped him of his clothes and set dogs on him,” another former detainee revealed last month. “The dogs attacked him, scratched him, and knocked him to the ground.”
Dr. Abu Safiya continued to run Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, at the peak of the genocidal Israeli campaign in 2024. He refused to abandon his patients and humanitarian duties, which brought him to global attention.
After months of relentlessly bombing the vicinity of the hospital — which led to the martyrdom of his son, Ibrahim — and laying siege to it, the Israelis forced patients and doctors to vacate it.
They proceeded to burn parts of the medical compound. They sexually abused doctors and patients after the evacuation. — Palestine Will Be Free
