• Lawyer says detained doctor suffers irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, skin infections without medicine
• Visits restricted, food and sunlight denied, hearings “theatrical” with no lawyer present

ISTANBUL

A Palestinian lawyer on Thursday said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, is being “abandoned to disease and hunger” in an Israeli prison, warning that his condition is rapidly deteriorating under what she described as deliberate neglect.

Ghaid Qasem, Abu Safiya’s attorney, told Palestinian outlet Aljarmaq that her client suffers from severe chest pain, irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure, but has never been examined by a cardiologist since his arrest last December.

She said Abu Safiya also endures fractured ribs and widespread skin infections, including scabies, without any medicine or ointments.

“The prisoners are cut off from sunlight, denied sufficient food, and live in total isolation,” she said. “Even I was punished simply for visiting him three weeks ago, a meeting that lasted only 20 minutes and was surrounded by harassment before, during and after the meeting.”

Qasem said she obtained a 33-page medical file for Abu Safiya, but it contained no specialist report despite his worsening condition.

She added that the doctor is expected to be presented before a judge in the coming weeks, but described such hearings as purely “theatrical,” with guards merely informing him that his detention has been extended “until the end of the war” without a lawyer present.

In earlier remarks, Qasem had disclosed that Abu Safiya’s weight plunged from 100 kilograms at the time of his arrest to just 60 kilograms, underscoring what she called a pattern of “deliberate neglect” of Palestinian detainees.

Abu Safiya was detained on Dec. 27, 2024, when Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital as part of their campaign to drive Palestinians from northern Gaza. Troops arrested 240 staff and patients, stripped them, and rendered the hospital inoperable.

He has been held under Israel’s “Unlawful Combatants Law,” which permits open-ended detention without charge, renewable every six months, based on secret intelligence files. Rights advocates say the law, enacted in 2002, has been widely used to imprison Palestinians from Gaza without trial.

The Israeli army has continued a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 65,100 Palestinians since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and forced the population into famine. 

On Tuesday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory confirmed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.