The lawyer for Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a prominent Palestinian medic detained in Israel for more than 18 months, said he could not recognise his client during a prison visit last week because of the severity of the beating he had endured.
Nasser Odeh met Abu Safiya at the Rakefet interrogation facility last Thursday. “He nearly lost consciousness several times,” Odeh told the BBC. “He told us that he was subjected to severe violence inside the prison, especially on the day of the visit.” Odeh described bruises covering his client’s face, eyes, neck and ears, and said Abu Safiya was “exhausted and unable to breathe”.
“Lawyer says Dr Hussam Abu Safiya was so badly beaten he could not recognise him during a prison visit.”
According to Odeh, more than five prison guards assaulted Abu Safiya with their hands, batons and hammers after an appeal against his detention last month at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Abu Safiya told his lawyer he had not received any medical treatment for his injuries. “I’m living in hell,” he said. “The mind can’t imagine what I go through every day. I think someone has decided to kill me.”
The Israel Prison Service rejected the account as false. But Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to respond by Tuesday to a petition calling for the release of Abu Safiya and 13 other Palestinian doctors from Gaza who are being held without charge. The UN human rights body has also called for his immediate release.
Abu Safiya was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which was under a “near total siege” by Israeli forces, according to the UN. He was detained in December 2024 when the Israeli military forced patients and medical staff to leave the hospital, saying it was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”. At the time, the World Health Organization called for an end to attacks on hospitals in Gaza. The IDF said Abu Safiya was apprehended for suspected involvement in terror.
Odeh said he hoped to see his client soon. “His place is outside prison, his place is in the hospital.” But he struggled to repeat Abu Safiya’s parting words: “Thank you Nasser, but I think it will be the last time we will meet.”