The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) joins the growing international calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian paediatrician, human rights defender and former Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who has been unlawfully detained by Israel since 27 December 2024.
Dr. Abu Safiya was abducted by Israeli occupation forces while carrying out his medical duties during the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which at the time was one of the last remaining functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. His arrest was a deliberate act of intimidation against a doctor who refused to abandon his patients in the midst of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people.
Before his arrest, Dr. Abu Safiya witnessed the systematic destruction of the hospital under his leadership. Israeli forces bombed sections of Kamal Adwan Hospital, detained patients and medical personnel, and killed his son, who was struck by an Israeli drone while seeking shelter at the hospital with his family. Despite enduring unimaginable personal loss, Dr. Abu Safiya continued to provide lifesaving medical care to the people of Gaza, embodying the highest ideals of the medical profession under conditions of war and occupation.
For more than a year, he has been held without charge or trial under Israel’s so- called Unlawful Combatants Law, legislation that has become a tool for arbitrary detention and the systematic denial of the rights guaranteed under international humanitarian and human rights law. His imprisonment reflects Israel’s broader policy of criminalising Palestinian healthcare workers whose only crime is refusing to abandon a population under siege. Reports from his legal representatives and United Nations human rights experts paint a horrifying picture of torture, prolonged solitary confinement, severe physical abuse and the deliberate denial of medical care. Dr. Abu Safiya is being held at Israel’s Rakefet interrogation facility, where his condition has deteriorated to the point that there are credible warnings he may not survive his detention if urgent intervention is not secured. Israel is not merely imprisoning a doctor, it is slowly sentencing him to death behind prison walls while the world watches in silence.
The persecution of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya exposes the true character of the Zionist occupation. Israel has criminalised the practice of medicine, transformed hospitals into military targets, and turned doctors, nurses and paramedics into enemies simply because they refuse to abandon Palestinians left bleeding under bombardment. A regime that bombs hospitals, murders patients, imprisons physicians and tortures healthcare workers has forfeited any claim to moral legitimacy. The detention of Dr. Abu Safiya forms part of Israel’s deliberate campaign to dismantle Gaza’s healthcare system and weaponise disease, suffering and death against the Palestinian people.
The imprisonment of Dr. Abu Safiya must be seen as an attack on the principle of humanity. The destruction of hospitals, the killing and detention of medical personnel, and the denial of healthcare are not unfortunate consequences of war but deliberate acts designed to make life impossible for Palestinians and accelerate their destruction as a people.
The international community can no longer hide behind carefully worded statements of concern while Palestinian doctors face torture and possible death in Israeli detention. Every government that continues to arm, finance or politically shield Israel bears responsibility for the crimes being committed against the Palestinian people. International law cannot remain something that is enforced only against the weak while Israel enjoys complete impunity under the protection of powerful Western governments. If the world waits for Dr. Abu Safiya to die before demanding his release, it will not be witnessing a tragedy, it will be complicit in a political execution. The EFF condemns Israel’s continued violations of international humanitarian law, its contempt for the International Court of Justice, and its persistent disregard for the appeals of United Nations experts, human rights organisations and the global medical community demanding an end to the persecution of Palestinian healthcare workers.
The people of Palestine have endured decades of occupation, apartheid, dispossession and genocide. Their struggle for national liberation remains one of the defining moral questions of our time, and their demand for freedom is inseparable from the universal struggle for justice, equality and human dignity.
The EFF therefore reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers who remain arbitrarily detained. We call on the South African government, the African Union, BRICS and all nations committed to justice to intensify diplomatic, legal and political pressure on Israel until these crimes cease and those responsible are held accountable. Silence in the face of genocide is complicity.
From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.
The EFF has been involved in various campaigns to mobilize voters ahead of elections.
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