GENEVA: Israel said on Friday that the detention of a Gaza hospital director, who has been held since December 2024, was “lawful”, and rejected reports that he suffered a life-threatening condition.
Hussam Abu Safiya “is lawfully detained by Israel based on concrete intelligence”, Israel´s diplomatic mission in Geneva said on X, accusing him of being a colonel in Hamas.
“At no stage of his detention has he exhibited any indication of a life-threatening condition.”
The statement came after a United Nations investigative team and several UN rights experts this week raised the alarm about the case.
The paediatrician and director of Gaza´s Kamal Adwan Hospital rose to prominence in 2024 by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.
On December 27 that year, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility, labelling the only functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time a Hamas “terrorist centre”, and arresting dozens of medical staff, including Abu Safiya.
Four independent UN rights experts said in a statement on Tuesday that “Dr. Abu Safiya´s ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial is a reflection of Israel´s systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers”.
The UN´s independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories issued a separate statement on Wednesday voicing “grave concern at credible reports that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya... has been subjected to continued and severe abuse” during his detention.
