The occupation isolates Dr. Abu Safiya in isolation, and his lawyer reveals the reason news

The Israeli Prison Service transferred Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, from the Negev detention center to solitary confinement in the Nafha Desert Prison amid harsh detention conditions, while depriving him of the necessary treatment and his most basic rights guaranteed in accordance with international law.

Nasser Odeh, Abu Safiya’s lawyer, confirmed that the transfer and solitary confinement came as a direct punitive measure against the doctor in response to submitting an appeal against the decision to continue his arbitrary detention.

Odeh said – while speaking to Al Jazeera – that this measure came after a series of repeated threats and pressures that his detained client received from intelligence officers and the Israeli prison administration.

He added that the aim of these threats and pressures was to force Abu Safiya not to convey the true picture of his harsh detention conditions, as well as the thousands of Palestinian prisoners inside the occupation prisons.

Accordingly, transferring him to solitary confinement directly aims to prevent him from mingling with prisoners, and to completely isolate him from his lawyer, his external environment, and the detainees, especially after the defense team was denied access to him several times without any legal justification.

A year and a half of abuse

Regarding the details of the doctor’s health and legal status, lawyer Nasser Odeh pointed out that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya faced, throughout a year and a half of detention, systematic abuse from the various Israeli authorities, embodied in the difficult conditions of detention, medical negligence, and deprivation of medical treatment despite his difficult health condition, in addition to his continuous prevention from meeting his lawyer.

Likewise, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital is being detained in accordance with the “Unlawful Combatant Law” without any evidence being presented against him so far.

The occupation army had arrested Abu Safiya on December 27, 2024, when it stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital. His detention was extended more than once during the year 2025, including a decision on October 16, 2025 to extend it for an additional 6 months.

In February 2025, the Palestinian doctor appeared for the first time in a recording broadcast by Israeli media, chained inside the prison, which sparked a widespread wave of condemnation that considered the scene a form of “psychological terrorism” and a deliberate broadcast to humiliate him.

The lawyer pointed out that his client’s case is not isolated, but that there are about 14 Palestinian doctors who were kidnapped from Palestinian hospitals, stressing that this behavior represents part of a systematic policy to eliminate the Palestinian health system in the Gaza Strip, and to punish doctors for the treatment and medical care they provided to their people during the war.

Judicial appeal

Regarding the current legal moves, lawyer Nasser Odeh explained that he had filed an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court to demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, arguing that this detention is unjust, arbitrary, and contrary to Israeli law, international law, and the Geneva Conventions, which provide special protection for medical personnel during the period of war.

The court session was expected to be held in the coming days, but the defense team was surprised by the decision to transfer Abu Safiya to Nafha prison and isolate him.

Odeh expressed his deep concern for the doctor’s health due to the policy of medical negligence, stressing that no accurate information has been available to confirm his health and psychological condition until this moment, while legal follow-up continues and awaits the response of the Israeli court.

Abu Safiya – according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera Net – is one of 737 medical personnel arrested by Israel since the start of the recent war on Gaza, including doctors, paramedics and nurses, amid information that a large number of them were subjected to abuse and abuse.