RAMALLAH (Dispatches) -- Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital who was abducted by Israeli forces in December 2024, is facing an immediate risk of death due to torture and severe negligence in Israeli custody, his lawyer said.
Lawyer Nasser Odeh visited Abu Safia at the underground Rakefet interrogation facility in Israel’s Nitzan prison on Thursday and found the physician bearing “fresh, severe injuries to his head, around his eyes, and on his ears and neck.” According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Odeh “initially struggled to recognize him.”
During the visit, Abu Safia “experienced difficulty breathing” and appeared “extremely weak.” Odeh wrote that the doctor “struggled to sit upright without falling, and on several occasions seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.” 
Based on the observations, the NGO concluded that Abu Safia’s “life is in immediate danger” and has called for his urgent transfer to another facility for an independent medical examination.
Abu Safia conveyed a harrowing message to his attorney during their meeting: “This is the last time you will see me. They brought me here to kill me. I don’t see myself surviving. This is the end.”
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club confirmed that Abu Safia remains in solitary confinement and is being denied medical care, adding that these measures are aimed at “physically and psychologically exhausting him” and constitute a clear attempt to “eliminate him inside Israeli prisons”—what the organization described as a “slow killing.”
Abu Safia had previously been held at the Sde Teiman facility, the notorious Israeli prison where a Palestinian detainee was brutally raped by soldiers in July 2024. The soldiers responsible were only briefly detained and recently had all charges against them dropped.
In May, former detainees came forward with disturbing testimonies about the torture Abu Safia has faced. One said Israeli jailers stripped him naked and unleashed police dogs to attack him. Another said “the prison cells echoed with the doctor’s screams under severe beatings” from prison guards.
Israel has made unfounded claims that Abu Safia, who is being held without charge, was a member of Hamas. His detention was extended by six months in late 2025 under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law.
Abu Safia was among many doctors in Gaza who refused to halt their medical work after the Israeli military ordered them to flee. He was abducted during a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in December 2024, one of many throughout the war. According to Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, people were executed during the raid, including medical staff and displaced civilians sheltering in the hospital.
By July 2025, Abu Safia had lost around 40 kilograms since his detention, his lawyer said. His family has issued an urgent appeal they describe as possibly their “last cry”.