AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IS calling on Israeli authorities to immediately release one of Gaza’s most prominent medics.

According to Amnesty, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, told a lawyer on a recent visit, “This is the last time you’ll see me”.

The lawyer who visited him has warned there is an imminent threat to Abu Safiya’s life as a result of torture and other ill treatment he has been suffered while in Israeli custody.

The paediatrician has been detained without charge or trial since 27 December 2024, when he was arrested while on duty at his besieged hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia area. 

He had risen to prominence by posting about the dire conditions at the hospital during attacks by Israel.

Nasser Odeh, a lawyer for Physicians’ for Human Rights Israel who visited Dr Abu Safiya on 2 July said that since his transfer to the notorious underground detention facility Rakevet, the hospital chief had been subjected to daily beatings, threats and to other forms of abuse.

He reported observing fresh bruises and torture marks on the paediatrician’s head and across his body, leaving him barely recognisable, and told how he had arrived at their meeting with his hands and feet shackled. 

He described him as weak and on the verge of losing consciousness and said Abu Safiya told him:

“This is the last time you’ll see me…they brought me here to kill me.”

Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International said the details emerging about the deteriorating conditions of his detention are truly horrifying. 

“It is unconscionable that a paediatrician, who has dedicated his life to saving others in the occupied Gaza Strip, is being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment – including severe physical and psychological abuse and prolonged solitary confinement – while being detained without any justification”.

She added that “expressions of concern alone are little more than a cynical fig leaf for states’ inaction in the face of Israel’s crushing of Palestinians’ human rights”.

She said Amnesty and other organisations were calling for “urgent and effective intervention to save his life”.

In a statement given to Amnesty International by Abu Safiya’s son, Elias, a family spokesperson, said:

“[My father] is currently living through critical moments between life and death…[His] health and situation are becoming more critical day by day.

“We call on the international community, human rights organisations, media, and all people of conscience to take immediate and urgent actions to press for an immediate end to torture and all other violations committed against my father, the provision of urgent medical care, the ability to monitor his condition through independent legal and humanitarian channels and the guarantee of his protection and respect for his fundamental rights.

It added: “The world’s silence today could mean the loss of an innocent human life. Time is running out, and we urge you to intervene before it is too late.”