UN panel calls Israel’s detention of Gaza doctor 'arbitrary'

GENEVA: A United Nations human rights body has said Israel’s detention of Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya is arbitrary and called for his immediate release, while rights organisations and his lawyer have warned that his life is at serious risk.

In findings issued on Monday, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Israel’s handling of the case violated several provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The panel said the remedy should include his release as well as compensation and other reparations.

"The appropriate remedy would be to release Mr Abu Safiya immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations," the working group stated.

The UN panel also expressed wider concern over the implications of the case, saying it was one of several brought before it and that it may point to a broader pattern of arbitrary detention in Israel.

Detention and allegations of abuse

MENA Rights Group, which submitted the complaint, said Abu Safiya is a 52-year-old paediatrician and the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital. According to the group, he has been held since December 2024.

The organisation said he has been subjected to repeated solitary confinement, prolonged interrogation sessions, and beatings with batons and electric shock sticks. Earlier on Monday, his lawyer Nasser Odeh said through a prisoners’ group that the doctor’s health was in grave danger and that he had faced daily abuse in detention.

Video from a Supreme Court hearing last month showed Abu Safiya appearing noticeably thinner. Steve Cutts, chief executive of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, issued a stark warning over his condition. "If Dr Abu Safiya dies in that cell, it will be murder, and everyone who had the power to stop it - and did nothing - will be complicit," he said.

Israeli response and court ruling

The Israel Prison Service previously denied allegations that Abu Safiya and other doctors had been abused in custody. The prison service and Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The UN working group said Israel had also not responded when it was approached about the case in July last year. Last month, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking Abu Safiya’s release. The court based its decision on confidential material under legislation covering so-called unlawful combatants, which permits detention for indefinitely renewable periods.