After over two months of imprisonment in Israeli jails, new information has been revealed about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza. According to Palestinian lawyer Ghaid Qassem, who visited Dr. Abu Safiya last week, he has gone through long periods of sustained interrogation and torture and several prison transfers.
Dr. Abu Safiya was arrested amid a brutal siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital by Israeli forces, which culminated on December 27, when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) set Kamal Adwan Hospital on fire. The IOF also ordered 350 people, including 75 patients and their escorts, along with 185 medical staff to evacuate the hospital.
Read more: The siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital: When Israel made a hospital, its staff, and patients, military targets
In the months prior, Dr. Abu Safiya had been using his own social media page and giving interviews on local and western media in order to provide constant updates about Israel’s siege of the hospital and pleading for international institutions to take action to stop Israel’s attacks. He had become a visible spokesperson for the people of Gaza during the genocide and in particular, the healthcare workers who have faced disproportionate levels of violence as they struggled to keep the healthcare system online amid Israel’s blockade and targeted attacks.
While media reports had circulated indicating that Dr. Abu Safiya was set to be freed in the final stage of the first phase of the Hamas-Israel prisoners-for-captives swap deal at the end of February, Israel continues to imprison the hospital director, in defiance of the massive international campaign demanding his release.
Abu Safiya’s abuse and solitary confinement in Israeli detention
Prior to meeting Qassem on Thursday, March 6, Abu Safiya was only allowed to see a lawyer once throughout over two months of detention. During his imprisonment, he spent a couple of weeks in solitary confinement inside Israel’s infamous Sde Teiman detention camp, which he described as a “slaughterhouse”.
While at Sde Teiman, Dr. Hussam reported being “forcibly stripped, having his hands shackled, and being made to sit on sharp gravel for approximately five hours by Israeli forces.”
Moreover, he was subjected “to severe physical abuse, including beatings with batons and electric shock sticks, as well as repeated blows to the chest.”
The Palestinian doctor was later transferred to Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, where he was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days, then he was moved to section 24 with other detainees from Gaza.
Qassem clarified that section 24, alongside section 23, is designated for prisoners from Gaza to keep them isolated from other Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1948.
Horrific accounts from the “slaughterhouse”
Based on Abu Safiya’s accounts, as well as other prisoners she met, Qassem described the conditions inside Sde Teiman, stating: “if we talk about this prison, it is a slaughterhouse in every sense of the word. The torture, violations, and starvation are unprecedented.”
The lawyer provided further details of atrocities practiced against Palestinian prisoners in the notorious detention facility, which included shackling prisoners for 10 months straight, denying amputees medical care, binding elderly detainees and blindfolding them.
In addition, prisoners narrated how they endure freezing temperatures in open-air cages, where they are constantly exposed to wind and rain, forced to sit on the ground, prevented from speaking, praying, or even reading the Quran.
In terms of psychological torture, Qassem was informed that the “Israeli intelligence often tells prisoners in Sde Teiman that their entire families have been killed, whether true or not”. “Such tactics leave deep psychological scars,” she said.
Israel placed Abu Safiya under “unlawful combatant” status
On February 12, the head of the IOF’s Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman, issued an order to detain Abu Safiya under the “unlawful combatant law” instead of conducting a standard legal trial,” according to the Palestinian Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.
Qassem explained that Israeli authorities resorted to classifying Abu Safiya as an “unlawful combatant” as they could not build a case against him after failing to find any evidence against him following 45 days of interrogation.
With this classification, they stripped Abu Safiya of his basic legal rights, including representation or a formal indictment, and justified the repeated extension of his detention without charge.
Prolonged consecutive interrogation sessions and brutal torture
The testimonies of the Palestinian lawyer revealed that Abu Safiya was subjected to prolonged interrogation sessions throughout 13 consecutive days, and that each interrogation session lasted about 8 to 10 hours. Abu Safiya also experienced torture and beating, in addition to verbal and psychological abuse.
Qassem referred to the forced media appearance of Abu Safiya in an interview aired by Israel’s Channel 13, late February as evidence of the psychological abuse Abu Safiya endured.
The attorney pointed out that Abu Safiya was not aware that the interview was recorded. “He was caught off guard by the filming. He was not informed, and after the interview, he was isolated, humiliated, beaten, and tortured,” she said.
For many, the Israeli occupation authorities aimed to demoralize Abu Safiya and his supporters over the globe by filming him exhausted and shackled. Nevertheless, Qassem confirmed the steadfastness that Abu Safiya demonstrated.
Unshaken by the gross inhumane treatment and torture he suffered, the resilient iconic Palestinian doctor told Qassem: “a person creates a history, and history is built upon the stands one takes. Such history is to be recorded and taught to others.”
