Supreme Court rejects appeal of Gaza hospital chief, a Hamas officer detained by Israel

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the appeal of Gaza hospital chief Hussam Abu Safiya, a Hamas officer, against his ongoing detention, ruling that under the law for unlawful combatants Israel can continue to hold him without charges.

The text of the decision and its reasoning will not be released, as it was based on classified intelligence. The case was heard behind closed doors, and Abu Safiya and his lawyer were not privy to the confidential materials on which the decision was based.

Abu Safiya, who runs Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested by Israeli forces during the war in Gaza in December 2024 and is one of the most prominent Gazan detainees. He is being held in solitary confinement and rights groups have called for his release.

He holds the rank of colonel in the Hamas Military Medical Services, according to the service itself and Palestinian media reports. A photograph from 2016 showing him wearing a Hamas uniform and sitting next to senior members of the terror group emerged after his arrest. The MMS is separate from Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, though some of its members directly participated in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught of southern Israel.

Israel has said Abu Safiya was a high-ranking Hamas operative, but has not accused him of participating in any specific acts of terror. Another director of Kamal Adwan, who was captured by the IDF earlier in the war, revealed in an interrogation that the MMS-affiliated hospital was turned into a military facility under Hamas’s control and that at one point it housed a kidnapped soldier. That director, Ahmed Kahlot, said some 16 members of the hospital’s staff – including doctors, nurses and paramedics – are also Hamas operatives who serve in the al-Qassam Brigades.

“The rejection of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s appeal and his continued detention without charge represent a profound moral and legal failure,” said Naji Abbas, director of the Prisoners and Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel, following the rejection of the appeal.

“Rather than upholding the fundamental principles of the rule of law and due process, the court has endorsed the indefinite detention of a hospital director who remains in solitary confinement while suffering from medical conditions that are not receiving appropriate treatment.”

During a visit by lawyers from Physicians for Human Rights Israel on June 4, the lawyers learned that Abu Safiya had been placed in solitary confinement. The Israel Prison Service has declined to say why he was moved to solitary.

Abu Safiya’s lawyer said he is being held in Nafha Prison “under harsh detention conditions” and claimed he is being denied “necessary medical care despite his deteriorating health.”

His legal team has also said that, in the wake of his arrest, he was subjected to severe abuse at the Sde Teiman military base.

Israel currently holds over 1,300 Palestinian detainees under the terms of the law for unlawful combatants, in a practice known as administrative detention.

Such detainees include those arrested by the IDF and security services inside Gaza during military operations but who have not been charged with a crime.

The measure sees individuals held without charge for up to six months at a time, under limited court review. The detentions can be renewed indefinitely while allowing military prosecutors to keep suspects from being able to see the evidence against them.

The tool is typically used when authorities have intelligence tying a suspect to a crime but do not wish to reveal the source of the information.