A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A prominent Palestinian doctor is close to dying in an Israeli prison. That's according to his lawyer. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has spent more than 500 days in detention. United Nations experts have condemned his treatment. Here's NPR's Emily Feng.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya rose to global prominence for videos he made like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Filmed in north Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he continued to treat patients during the war in Gaza despite Israeli bombing nearby and military orders to leave.
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H ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: "We are being killed every day. We are being slaughtered," he says in this video posted three days before the Israeli military stormed the hospital in December 2024. The military detained him. They told NPR in response to a request for comment for suspected involvement with Hamas, an accusation his family denies. In prison, his lawyer says Abu Safiya now suffers from food deprivation and is kept in solitary confinement. And his son, Elias Abu Safiya (ph), says the lawyer also told him his father endures daily beatings from Israeli prison guards.
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ELIAS ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: "They mask their faces, and they beat my father with a metal hammer to break his entire body," he said. Israel's prison service said in response to an NPR query that, quote, "the allegations described are false, outrageous and entirely without factual basis." But in a legal affidavit, the doctor's lawyer, Nasser Odeh, said during his last visit with the doctor in early July, he could barely recognize Dr. Abu Safiya, so disfigured was his face and neck with fresh bruises from beatings. The lawyer said Abu Safiya told him, they brought me here to kill me.
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E ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: "I hear the world singing their praises about democracy and rule of law, but my father is still in prison," Abu Safiya's son says. "We've told the whole world, and yet they ignore the fate of my father." More than a year and a half after being detained, Israel has not charged Dr. Abu Safiya. Instead, his detention has been repeatedly extended because he's been deemed an unlawful combatant, one of more than 1,300 people currently detained in this manner in Israel, under a broad law allowing Israel to hold people indefinitely for endangering state security.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
FENG: News of Abu Safiya's treatment prompted a small protest in Israel in early July. Among the demonstrators are Israeli doctors with an advocacy group called Physicians for Human Rights. They are petitioning Israel to release Abu Safiya and 13 other Palestinian doctors detained in Israeli prisons. Dr. Amit Tirosh says he believes Israel targeted Dr. Abu Safiya precisely because he is a doctor.
AMIT TIROSH: And healthcare providers all over the Gaza Strip, just to perform what we call the medicide.
FENG: Medicide - the intentional destruction of medical capabilities, which the United Nations has also accused Israel of - a charge Israel denies. Detaining Abu Safiya is connected, Tirosh says.
TIROSH: Ruin any possibility to provide any type of healthcare to the Gazan civilians. So I think this is part of it.
FENG: This month, an Israeli court ordered the state to address concerns about Dr. Abu Safiya's health. Israel responded, saying the doctor had been examined and was not in danger of dying, without offering further details.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOREN CONNORS' "WHISPERS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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