GAZA, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has condemned an Israeli court decision to extend the arbitrary detention of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, describing it as a move that “entrenches a policy of unlawful detention against hundreds of Gaza residents who have been arbitrarily held since the start of the crime of genocide.”
The PPS said that the continued detention of Abu Safiya, who has been held since December 2024, “constitutes a grave crime under international law and falls within the core of the genocide, amid the unprecedented and systematic targeting of medical personnel and healthcare facilities as part of an organized policy aimed at erasure, destruction, and undermining the means of survival.”
It added that, according to the Israeli Prison Service, 1,251 detainees from Gaza are classified as “unlawful combatants,” a designation used to legitimize arbitrary detention without charges or legal safeguards. This, the group said, represents “a blatant violation of peremptory norms of international law,” similar to the situation of thousands of administrative detainees in the West Bank.
The PPS stressed that the crimes committed against Gaza detainees represent “the most extreme level of brutality and danger,” based on hundreds of documented testimonies exposing a systematic regime of abuse. These include widespread acts of physical and psychological torture, starvation, humiliation, and sexual violence, including rape, practices it described as among “the most organized and brutal forms of violence,” constituting a central aspect of the ongoing genocide.
The organization renewed its urgent call on all human rights and international bodies to take immediate and effective action and to exert real pressure on Israel to secure the release of Dr. Abu Safiya and end his targeting.
It also called for holding those responsible for these crimes accountable and ensuring international protection for Palestinian prisoners and detainees, who it said are subjected to a systematic campaign of abuse within the prison system.
The statement noted that more than 100 prisoners and detainees have died in Israeli custody as a result of torture, starvation, and sexual abuse. The identities of 89 have been confirmed, including 52 from Gaza. Among them were three doctors, Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, Dr. Iyad al-Rantisi, and Dr. Ziad al-Dallu, highlighting what the group described as the systematic targeting of medical personnel.
