Human rights defenders in the global medical community and beyond are demanding Israel immediately release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza's obliterated Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was seized by Israeli troops on Saturday and is believed to be imprisoned at a notorious detention center where dozens of detainees have died and where torture, rape, and other abuses have been reported.
"We appeal to world leaders, to the global medical community, and to all who value humanity: Help us save our friend, our colleague, and a true healer," Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, a Boston-based pediatric neurologist and co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, told Common Dreams on Monday.
"Put all kinds of pressure to ensure his release so he can return to his patients, who need him desperately, and to his family, who cannot endure this pain," Kuemmerle added. "We demand a reality that respects life, respects human rights, and respects every man, woman, and child for humanity's sake."
Doctors for Humanity—a coalition of groups including Global Health Coalition, Doctors Against Genocide, and Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations—said in a statement Monday, "We the medical community demand the immediate release of Dr. Abu Safiya and an immediate end to the bombing of hospitals and targeted kidnapping and killing of healthcare workers in Gaza."
"Bombing of hospitals and kidnapping, torturing and killing doctors and healthcare workers is illegal and immoral and a crime according to the Genocide Convention," Doctors for Humanity added.
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder the Illinois-based NGO MedGlobal, for whom Safiya works as lead Gaza physician, said over the weekend that "Dr. Abu Safiya has dedicated his life to protecting the health and lives of children in Gaza, providing care under conditions no medical professional should have to endure."
"His arrest is not only unjust—it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones," the group added. "We urgently call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu Safiya."
Dr. Yipeng Ge—who in November 2023 was suspended from his medical residency at the University of Ottawa for social media posts critical of Israel's "settler-colonialism" and "apartheid upon Palestinian people"—called for Abu Safiya's "immediate release," as well as "protection of hospitals and medical workers in Gaza" and "an end to the genocide" there.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard hailed Abu Safiya as "the voice of Gaza's decimated health sector," who pleaded "for the protection of his hospital" while "working under inhumane conditions, including following the killing of his son" by an Israeli drone strike at the hospital gates earlier this year.
"We at Amnesty are extremely concerned over the fate and well-being of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya," Callamard said. "He must be released immediately and unconditionally."
Recently released former detainees at the Sde Teiman prison in Israel's Negev Desert said Abu Safiya is being held there, and that the Israeli security forces working there—some of whom stand accused of gang-raping a prisoner—are treating captured Palestinian doctors "really badly."
Idrees Abu Safiya, Abu Safiya's son, toldThe Guardian on Monday that his father's leg was badly injured during the Israeli raid on the hospital.
"We are so worried, we haven't been able to sleep for three days because we didn't know until today where he is," Idrees told the British newspaper.
Relatives of Abu Safiya toldCNN that "Sde Teiman is known for brutality and torture, we can't imagine what our father is going through in that place and if he is well or not, warm or cold… hungry or in pain."
Kuemmerle told Common Dreams: "What is striking about Dr. Abu Safiya is his extraordinary composure, kindness, and unwavering dedication, even in the face of unimaginable hardships. We have come to know his bravery, dedication, humane professionalism, and gentle manners. We are terrified for his fate, knowing all too well as Palestinians the horrors that await our doctors in these torture camps."
Israel claims that Abu Safiya—who, despite the killing of his son and an injury caused by shrapnel from a November 23 Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan, refused to stop working at the hospital—is a suspected Hamas terrorist. That's a common allegation made by Israeli officials, who also often claim that hospitals are used as Hamas command-and-control centers. These officials usually offer very little if any evidence to support their assertions.
"The lies that are being spread right now that [Abu Safiya] is really a Hamas colonel are lies to prevent what is happening right now, which is a global wave of outrage, and that global wave of outrage must grow so we, the global medical community, can stop the relentless attacks on healthcare workers and healthcare infrastructure," Dr. Rupa Marya, a University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine who's currently on paid suspension after questioning whether an Israeli student and likely Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran may have committed war crimes, told Common Dreams.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, hundreds of healthcare workers have been detained and more than 1,000 have been killed since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Critics accuse Israel of deliberately killing and wounding health workers.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Saturday published the testimonies of witnesses to alleged IDF war crimes during the Kamal Adwan raid, including "deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area."
Responding to Israeli attacks on hospitals and Abu Safiya's detention, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at London-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said on the Bluesky social media platform Saturday that "our leaders must demand the immediate and safe release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all detained Gaza health workers."
"Health workers are not a target," he added, "and impunity for Israel's destruction of Palestinian healthcare must end."
