Israeli occupation forces had kidnapped Hossam Abu Safiya in late December after raiding and burning the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
The family of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Gaza Strip’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, has appealed to Qatar to mediate his release within the next batch of Palestinian prisoners under the ceasefire deal.
“The family of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya demands the international community, the Amir of the State of Qatar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the negotiating delegation in Qatar should press for the release of Dr. Hossam within the next batch,” the family said in a social media post on Monday.
The family stressed that the release of Abu Safiya and other detained Palestinian medics “must be a priority at the negotiating table”.
Israeli occupation forces had kidnapped Abu Safiya in late December after raiding and burning the Kamal Adwan Hospital. MedGlobal then received confirmation that Israeli occupation forces detained him.
Viral drone footage of Abu Safiya’s last moments in Gaza showed him walking alone in his doctor’s white coat among the rubble towards an Israeli tank. The doctor, completely unarmed, greeted the soldiers, who then detained him.
Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Samir Al-Mana’ama, told Al Jazeera last week that he was first taken to the notorious Sde Teiman military detention camp before being transferred to Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank on January 9. He was charged with being an “unlawful combatant”.
Al-Mana’ama said the Palestinian doctor has “an enlarged heart muscle from high blood pressure” and was subjected to torture.
“Despite denying all the charges against him, he was beaten with an electric stick by the Israeli army so as to extract a confession from him,” the lawyer told Al Jazeera.
The Palestinian doctor then appeared for the first time in a humiliating interview by Israel’s Channel 13 last week, where he was shackled and surrounded by heavily armed Israeli forces.
Israeli journalist Yossi Eli appeared to interrogate the doctor by asking him about the reason behind his detention, to which he replied: ”I don’t know.”
“I am originally a pediatrician and worked as a temporary substitute doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital,” he said in the video.
Qatar, alongside Egypt and the United States, has been a central mediator between Hamas and Israel since the beginning of the genocide in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
The mediators reached a fragile ceasefire deal on January 15 entailing the exchange of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli captives. Since the deal came into effect on January 19, Hamas handed over 29 Israeli captives in addition to five Thai workers in exchange for the release of 1,135 Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails.
Israel delayed the release of 620 Palestinian detainees on Saturday in a clear violation of the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of holding “ceremonies that humiliate” Israel’s captives. The accusations came despite the stark contrast between the conditions of Israeli captives and the tortured Palestinians upon their release.
