Imminent danger to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s life
JVL Introduction
Update: Click here to sign the petition demanding Dr Safiya’s release!
Amnesty International has issued a warning concerning Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya making it clear that he is in critical condition because of the abusive treatment he has been subjected to in Israeli detention.
Dr Safiya is a Palestinian paediatrician and neonatologist who served as the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip from February-December 2024, when it was emptied by the Israeli army.
Soon after, Dr Safiya was arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned without charges or trial under what Amnesty describes as the “cruel and abusive Unlawful Combatants Law”.
He is now held in Rakevet detention centre, an underground section beneath the Ayalon prison complex, where detainees, mostly Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, are subjected to systematic torture and inhumane treatment.
His lawyer last visited him on 2nd July. Subsequently Physicians for Human Rights–Israel reported that, according to Dr Safiya’s lawyer, Attorney Odeh:
“Dr. Abu Safiya was brought to the meeting shackled by his hands and feet and accompanied by masked prison guards. He bore fresh, severe injuries to his head, around his eyes, and on his ears and neck—to the extent that his lawyer initially struggled to recognize him.”
Israel refuses to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees since October 2023 – in blatant violation of its obligations under international law.
Update: 11 Jul: we have added at the end of this post the quite extraordinary denialist statement put out by the Israeli government’s Permanent Mission to the UN in the teeth of all the evidence.
Fears mounting for arbitrarily detained Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya amidst reports his life is in grave danger
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The British Government needs to do more and demand Israel releases him!
I know it’s all past sad but I am so saddened by this.
The truly terrorist Israeli state continually gets away with murder & genocide because of the complicity of morally corrupt governments such as our own.
What can one say to this? It is unbelievable that descendants of people who were tortured and murdered horrifically because they were jews can to-day, without conscience, and because they are jewish, and protected by America the way no other ethnic group are protected, treat a doctor of this humanitarian stature the way nazis tortured their forebears because he is of another race (Palestinian). It is vile, unforgivable – and unforgettable…
Dr Hussan Abu Saffiya must be released immediately . It is beyond human that the world government is allowing Israel to torture and abuse a good man . The worlds medical authorities must stand up re his disgraceful treatment by Israel There has to be consequences for this and all the other crimes Israel is committing every day.
I hope that all of us will be signing the petition urgently, and attending the protrst/s where possible
I just got this email.
“I know you’re all working behind the scenes on this, thank you for everything you’re doing. From the Abu Safiyah family, they requested that anyone from around the world write to the Israeli prison service to add pressure on them. Some kind souls created this website with all the relevant emails on it”
https://savedrabusafiya.com/#act
Everyone knowing this must deluge their MPs, the Foreign Office, the Israeli embassy in disgust, and a call to get Dr Hussam Abu Safiya out for immediate treatment outside of Israel, and to get government to cease all links with Israel.