Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the paediatrician and former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, is now facing what his lawyer describes as an imminent risk to his life. On 6 July 2026, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that his detention violates international law and called for his immediate release. Days earlier, his lawyer had warned that years of systematic beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, and denial of medical care had left him critically weak — handcuffed and shackled, bearing visible signs of torture, and reportedly telling his lawyer he feared their meeting would be their last.
Dr. Abu Safiya has been held without charge since December 2024, when Israeli forces stormed his hospital, one of the last still functioning in northern Gaza, and detained him along with his staff and patients, days after his own son was killed in a strike on the building. Since then, extensions to his detention, denial of medical treatment, and repeated transfers between facilities have continued, despite his case having already drawn international concern for over a year.
His case is not isolated. A recent investigation documented similar treatment of Palestinian journalists held by Israeli authorities since October 2023. Journalists interviewed including cameraman Alaa al-Sarraj, bureau chief Diaa al-Kahlout, reporter Shady Abu Sedo, and local editor Emad al-Ifranji described being detained specifically because of their profession, despite identifying themselves as press at the moment of arrest. All passed through Sde Teiman, a military facility described by human rights organisations as a site of systematic torture, before being moved to prisons including Ofer and Ketziot.
Their accounts describe blindfolded beatings, untreated injuries, and interrogations focused on their journalistic work who they had interviewed, what they had filmed, who owned their outlets. None of the journalists has been able to resume their work since release; some lost their homes, equipment, and colleagues to strikes during their detention. According to RSF, 19 Palestinian journalists remain arbitrarily detained by Israeli authorities.
Both cases rely on the same legal mechanism: Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, which permits indefinite detention without charge or meaningful judicial review. Courts have repeatedly upheld detentions under this law based on classified evidence that defence lawyers are not permitted to see for a doctor accused, without disclosed grounds, of posing a security threat, and for journalists whose press credentials were treated as irrelevant to their arrest.
