Israel Holds Gaza Hospital Director for 23 Months Without Charge as Independent Review Flags Life-Threatening Neglect

An independent Israeli medical professor finds alarming weight loss, untreated injuries, and dropping haemoglobin in Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya's prison records — while courts deny independent examination and Israel classifies 375+ medics as 'unlawful combatants.'

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, has been held in Israeli custody for nearly 700 days without a single formal charge. Detained at his hospital on 27 December 2024 while wearing the unwashed coat he kept since his son Ibrahim was killed by a drone strike, Abu Safiya was classified as an "unlawful combatant" — a legal designation Israel has applied to more than 375 medical workers to justify indefinite detention without trial.

The medical picture is deteriorating. Prof. Amit Tirosh, an independent Israeli specialist who reviewed Abu Safiya's prison medical file obtained by Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), told the Guardian that the doctor's weight fell from 90kg to 76kg between January 2025 and May 2026. The 14kg loss was logged by prison physicians as "a common trend among security prisoners associated to their diet" — a note Tirosh called deeply alarming. Haemoglobin levels dropped between February and July 2026, coinciding with reported beatings at Rakefet, a notorious underground prison facility where Abu Safiya was held in solitary confinement. Tirosh identified a cascade of medical failures: insufficient investigation of chest pain, delays in treating scabies, bruising around one eye, dizziness, and rib pain documented in July records but left unexplained. "Such blood loss can be life-threatening and requires urgent ER evaluation," he said. "Per the records, these urgent problems were not addressed and could endanger his life." He noted that more than 100 prisoners have died in Israeli facilities between 2023 and 2025. Israel's courts have closed both available legal doors. The supreme court rejected a petition for Abu Safiya's release last month. A district court then rejected a separate petition for an independent medical examination — a right PHRI says is protected by law. The district court ruling surfaced Israeli allegations that Abu Safiya had exaggerated his medical problems, set up organisations from prison, influenced other prisoners, and maintained international contacts. PHRI argues none of these allegations justify denying an independent medical exam. The broader pattern is structural, not incidental. Fourteen Palestinian doctors, including hospital directors and specialists, remain imprisoned without charge at a time when Gaza's healthcare system has been systematically degraded through siege and military operations. Abu Safiya himself kept Kamal Adwan hospital running through more than 80 days of siege and attacks before his arrest. His family has had no direct communication with him throughout his detention. The Israeli prison service told the Guardian the allegations are "part of a broader campaign aimed at discrediting the state of Israel" and that the IPS "operates in accordance with the law and under constant judicial oversight." Tirosh's assessment was blunter: "To the Israeli prison system authorities I would say that I feel deep shame to be counted with them as a doctor or health provider in Israel. As a system, they betray every medical and ethical principle I stand for." What emerges from the record is a detention regime where medical professionals are removed from a healthcare system that desperately needs them, held indefinitely under a legal classification that bypasses normal judicial protections, and subjected to conditions that an independent Israeli medical expert considers life-threatening — all while courts deny the most basic external oversight mechanism available.