Staff writer Sul Nowroz wrote last month about the Israeli detention, mistreatment and suspected torture of the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Ghazzah. Multiple documented reports suggested that after his arrest on 27th December, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya was beaten and whipped at a mobile Israeli military facility before being taken to the notorious Sde Teyman military site.
Despite worldwide condemnation, Israeli authorities claimed for the first week that they had no record of the detention or arrest of Abu Saffiya. Physicians For Human Rights Israel (PHRI) filed a petition with the Israeli High Court on 2nd January, and as a result, the IDF were ordered to reveal his whereabouts. Amnesty International joined many other groups worldwide calling for Israel to come clean. Forced disappearance is a crime against humanity. The next day, the IDF officially admitted that he was “currently being investigated by security forces”.
The doctor’s family appointed a lawyer with the help of the Al Mezan Centre For Human Rights, and information gradually became available. On the 8th January, Dr Abu Safiya was transferred from Sde Teyman to Shikma prison for a hearing the next day, in which he was banned from having any legal representative, and was only allowed to attend via video link.
At the end of the week he was transferred to Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank, with a further extension to deny him legal counsel until 6th February under draconian Special Detention legislation, often used against Palestinians to deny them basic legal and humanitarian rights.
As reported in Sul Nowroz’s article last year, Ofer prison is where Palestinian doctor Adnan Al-Bursh was tortured to death by the occupying Israeli military.
Yesterday, after 47 days in detention, Dr Abu Safiya was finally seen by lawyer Mohammed Jabareen, who was told that there were no charges against the health worker and that he may be released in the coming days. During those more than six weeks in detention, the doctor received various forms of punishment and torture, including being stripped, shackled, and made to sit on sharp gravel, as well as beaten with batons and electric shock sticks. At Ofer prison he was held in solitary confinement for more than three weeks, and has been receiving just one poor quality meal a day. His weight decreased by 12 kg (just under 2 stone) in that short time.
Sad to say, Abu Safiya’s case is just one among many, indicating a systemic pattern of illegal detention, ill-treatment, torture and sometimes murder carried out in defiance of any human rights for Palestinian detainees at the hands of an illegally occupying military force.
PHRI are aware of more than 130 health workers abducted in Ghazzah, at a time when almost the entire health infrastructure has been destroyed in what appears to be deliberate targeting, which would be entirely illegal in international law.
