About Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

On 27 December 2024, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital—the last functioning hospital in North Gaza at the time—and arrested the hospital's director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya along with other medical staff and patients. Dr. Abu Safiya refused to leave his patients, knowing that doing so as the Israeli onslaught approached the hospital would mean either martyrdom or imprisonment.

Dr. Abu Safiya had been tirelessly running the hospital, providing essential care to children and bearing witness to the collapse of Gaza's healthcare sector during the genocide. He continued his work even after the targeted assassination of his own son during an Israeli airstrike. Today, over 160 Palestinian doctors and medical staff are being held prisoner by the Zionist Entity.

Current Conditions

In the latest visit by a lawyer to Ofer prison in early July 2025, she reported that Dr. Hussam and other prisoners had been subjected to torture. She also stated that Dr. Abu Safiya showed signs of significant weight loss as the Zionist entity's prisons continue to impose severe restrictions on Palestinian detainees' access to food, adequate medical care and hygiene.

Dr. Abu Safiya's arrest and ongoing imprisonment is a reflection of the Entity's systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers and the decimation of the healthcare system in Gaza in order to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians.