The state was due to file its response to a petition filed by NGO Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) before the High Court of Justice on Tuesday. The NGO seeks the release of 14 Gazan doctors, including Hamas-affiliated Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who Israel has been holding in administrative detention.
Abu Safiya was a Palestinian pediatrician and hospital director who wrote op-eds for The New York Times, and has been held in detention since December 2024. PHRI has claimed that he and the other Gazan doctors were wrongfully detained, and that the doctors’ health has become endangered by allegedly problematic incarceration conditions. The IDF has said that the doctors are all senior Hamas officials and that the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) found their health situation to be stable.
According to PHRI, some of the other doctors have been held in administrative detention since late 2023. This means that a military judge reviews their case every few months, but, as of yet, they have not been formally charged.
Until now, Israeli courts have either rejected requests made on behalf of the Palestinian doctors or else granted postponements to the state in responding. When the state sought another postponement on Sunday, the High Court granted it only two extra days.
Meanwhile, the PHRI says that it “views the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territory as a root cause of multiple human rights violations, including the right to health, and actively advocates for its end.”
PHRI claims Dr. Abu Safiya was subjected to severe, repeated beatings
PHRI’s most recent petition was filed on April 30 and was followed by repeated postponement requests, which the court has granted. When PHRI objected to an extended postponement on Sunday, it “stressed that new information provided by Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Attorney Nasser Odeh, indicates that he is in immediate danger to his life following severe violence, visible injuries, and a serious deterioration in his health.”
PHRI added that, “during Attorney Odeh’s most recent visit of Dr. Abu Safiya in detention, it became clear that Dr. Abu Safiya had been subjected to severe and repeated beatings, and was suffering from serious injuries that made it difficult for his lawyer to recognize him. Based on his direct observations, Attorney Odeh concluded that Dr. Abu Safiya is in immediate danger to his life.”
PHRI demanded that one of the High Court justices who was sitting on the panel conduct an urgent visit to Abu Safiya in their capacity as an “official prison visitor.” This was intended to assess his condition firsthand and prevent irreversible harm.
PHRI has said that it plans to submit requests for a cardiologist to examine Abu Safiya, as well as an additional visit by two lawyers, “amid growing concerns for his life and deteriorating health condition.”
PHRI’s visit in early June was unusual. For much of the war since October 2023, Israel has heavily cracked down on prison visits due to claims of security concerns and stretched resources.
When the war was at its worst, many Israelis believed that it made sense to hold the more potentially dangerous Palestinians to prevent them from aiding Hamas on and off the battlefield.
It also made sense to hold Palestinians connected with Hamas in extended detention; they could be traded for the 250 Israeli hostages that were taken and held by Hamas.
Most people would agree that it would be better to criminally indict such individuals. That way, they could be sent to jail via standard criminal procedures. Israeli law, as well as other legal systems, recognizes that there are cases where intelligence is able to prove, with relative certainty, that an individual is a terrorist, even when it cannot be proven in a standard criminal trial.
Usually, this occurs when intelligence sources and methods need to be revealed to both the defense and the terrorist so they can be presented as evidence in a criminal trial.
Hamas embedded in Gaza's hospitals
Critics have portrayed the cases of Israel imprisoning Palestinian doctors as black and white, completely disregarding evidence that Hamas was deeply embedded in all (or nearly all) of Gaza’s hospitals.
The Jerusalem Post, in its visits to Gaza, witnessed firsthand how deeply Hamas had integrated itself into some of Gaza’s hospitals; this included hospitals housing vast stores of weapons and interconnected tunnels for use by senior Hamas officials.
In addition, prior to the IDF’s invasion of Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza in November 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered the hostage Noa Marciano in an area near the hospital.
At the time, Israel published documentation that showed Hamas terrorists taking two hostages, a Nepali citizen and a Thai citizen, into Shifa Hospital, with one of them wounded and being led to a hospital bed while the other was walking.
Additional documentation followed, proving that hostages – including an infant – had been held in a portion of Rantisi Hospital in Gaza.
This, along with vast amounts of additional evidence, contradicts the narrative that Gaza’s hospitals were innocent of wrongdoing. The evidence supports Israel’s contention that Hamas systematically used hospitals as command centers.
Despite all of this evidence, however, Israel is under increased pressure to either charge or release officials like Abu Safiya who have spent an extended period in administrative detention.
Prior to 2023, administrative detentions typically lasted for an average of six months. Longer detentions usually lasted around two years, meaning some of these officials were detained past the pre-war cut-off.