The lawyer for a prominent Palestinian medic held without charge in Israel for more than 18 months says he could not recognise his client after a severe beating at a notorious interrogation facility.
Nasser Odeh visited Dr Hussam Abu Safiya last Thursday at the Rakefet facility and found him with bruises covering his face, around his eyes, on his neck and ears. "I had difficulty recognising his features," Odeh told the BBC. "Signs of beatings and torture were clearly visible on his face. He was exhausted and unable to breathe."
“Lawyer for detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya says he was so badly beaten he could not recognise him.”
Abu Safiya, the former director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, was detained in December 2024 when the Israeli military forced patients and staff to leave the hospital, describing it as a "Hamas terrorist stronghold". He has been held without charge ever since.
Odeh said Abu Safiya told him that more than five prison guards assaulted him with their hands, batons and hammers after an appeal against his detention last month at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. The medic said he had received no medical treatment and that he nearly lost consciousness several times during the attack.
"He said clearly, 'I'm living in hell. The mind can't imagine what I go through every day. I think someone has decided to kill me'," Odeh recounted. The lawyer struggled to repeat Abu Safiya's parting words: "Thank you Nasser, but I think it will be the last time we will meet."
The Israel Prison Service rejected the account as false in a statement to the BBC. The country'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 held without charge.
A UN human rights body has called for his immediate release, and his family has also appealed. Odeh said he had not lost hope. "I hope to see him soon out of prison," he said. "His place is outside prison, his place is in the hospital."
