The son of a Palestinian doctor held in an Israeli prison for more than 555 days without charge issued an urgent appeal Sunday, saying his father can barely breathe or speak and showing signs of severe abuse following a transfer to solitary confinement.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Israeli forces arrested him at work on December 27, 2024. His son Elyas Abu Safia, also a doctor, posted a video message Sunday saying a lawyer who visited his father two days earlier returned with alarming details about his condition.
Al Jazeera reported that Physicians for Human Rights Israel warned Abu Safia's life is in immediate danger following his transfer to the Rakefet section of Nitzan prison.
The group said lawyer Nasser Odeh visited Abu Safia on July 2 and documented severe injuries, signs of assault, difficulty breathing, and repeated loss of consciousness. Guards brought him into the visit with his hands and feet bound, surrounded by masked officers. Odeh observed fresh bruises and injuries on Abu Safia's head, around his eyes, ears, and neck. The wounds were so severe that the lawyer struggled to recognize him.
"The day before yesterday, the lawyer Nasser Odeh managed to visit my father, where he told us painful details about this visit," Elyas said in the video.
"My father was unable to breathe. My father was unable to speak," he said, adding: "His face was disfigured from the marks of torture and pain, and the blood he endured inside the prison, especially after the last court session held in Jerusalem."
Elyas also directed words at Arab and Muslim leaders, saying they had gone silent on his father's case. "You deprived us even of your voices, your solidarity and your support, which should have been there from the start of the detention," he said. "But sadly, your silence is a betrayal and a crime, and complicity in torturing my father and the hostages inside Israeli prisons."
Two months before Abu Safia's arrest, an Israeli drone attack killed another of his sons, Ibrahim, at the entrance of the hospital where he worked.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel described the lawyer's account as among the most serious testimony the group has received since the start of the war. The organization called the situation an immediate threat to Abu Safia's life.
