Gaza doctor prevented from meeting lawyer, says Israeli rights group 

A leading human rights group in Israel has revealed that the occupation army refuses to allow Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, to meet with a lawyer to evaluate his personal and detention conditions.

“Despite our urgent requests to send an attorney, the military says he’s barred from lawyer visits until 10 January,” said Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) on social media. “The Israeli military also continues to withhold information about Dr Hussam Abu Safiya’s detention location, despite retracting their earlier claim that he isn’t being held in Israel.”

PHRI pointed out that medical professionals are protected by international humanitarian law. “There’s a reason for that and that is that if you attack health care professionals, you attack a whole society, you attack civilians who need medical attention, people with chronic illnesses and people with injuries.”

The organisation added that its statistics show that there are more than 20,000 people in Gaza waiting for urgent medical evacuations. “The reason is that there is no active healthcare system in Gaza and hundreds of medical professionals have lost their ability to care for their people,” said PHRI. “More than 1,000 medical professionals have been killed; 230 have been arrested; 130 are still held in Israeli incarceration facilities… More than 70 people have already died in Israeli incarceration facilities. Just as a comparison, nine people died in Guantanamo in 22 years of operation. We have here more than 70 people in just a few months.”

Abu Safiya was arrested by the Israeli army in the North Gaza Governorate on 28 December, a day after soldiers stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, set it on fire, and put it out of service. More than 350 people were arrested, including Abu Safiya, who was photographed in his medical gown being led by soldiers in handcuffs amidst the destruction, sparking a wave of international condemnation.

As the Israeli genocide intensified, the hospital director paid a heavy personal price when he lost his son Ibrahim in the Israeli army’s storming of Kamal Adwan on 26 October. On 24 November, Abu Safiya himself was injured in a bombing that targeted the hospital, but he refused to leave and continued to treat patients and the wounded.

The Israeli genocide has killed almost 46,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas cross-border incursion on 7 October, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

UN: Israel continues to restrict aid access to northern Gaza