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Gaza City – Dr Hussam Abu Safia, 52, remains in an Israeli prison a year after Israel detained him without charges or trial.

His family and supporters are demanding his release as his health deteriorates amid reports of the inhumane conditions under which he is being held.

Abu Safia, known for his steadfast presence as director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, has become central in international discussions on the protection of medical personnel in armed conflicts.

He insisted on staying at the hospital, along with several medical staff, despite continuous Israeli attacks on the facility.

Israel eventually surrounded the hospital and forced everyone to evacuate. Since then, Abu Safia has been in detention, and the hospital has been out of service.

He was transferred between Israeli prisons, from the notorious Sde Teiman holding facility to Ofer Prison, being mistreated continuously.

No charges have been brought against Abu Safia, who is held under the “unlawful combatant” law, which allows detention without a standard criminal trial and denies detainees access to the evidence against them.

A family’s suffering

Abu Safia is being held in extreme conditions and, according to lawyers, has lost more than a third of his body weight.

His family is worried about him as he also suffers from heart problems, an irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, skin infections and a lack of specialised medical care.

His eldest son, Ilyas, 27, told Al Jazeera via Zoom from Kazakhstan, where the family fled a month ago, about their grief over Abu Safia’s detention, adding that his father’s only “crime” was being a doctor.

Ilyas, his mother Albina and four siblings stayed with his father at Kamal Adwan through the Israeli attacks, despite opportunities to leave Gaza, especially as Albina is a Kazakh citizen.

On October 26, 2024, Israel killed Ilyas’s brother, Ibrahim, 20, while it shelled the hospital.

“The entire medical staff cried in grief for [my father] and for Ibrahim,” Ilyas said.

The taking of Dr Abu Safia

At dawn on December 27, 2024, the hospital woke up to a tightened Israeli siege with tanks and quadcopter drones.

Israeli tanks had been around Kamal Adwan since mid-October 2024, gradually moving closer – destroying parts of the infrastructure like water tanks – until that day when they were so close nobody could move outside.

Patients and staff gathered in the emergency reception corridor, according to Dr Walid al-Badi, 29, who stayed with Abu Safia until his arrest, and spoke to Al Jazeera on December 25 at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.

“The situation was extremely tense, loudspeakers were calling on everyone to evacuate, but Dr Abu Safia asked us to remain calm. Then the loudspeakers called Dr Abu Safia to come to the tank.”

Abu Safia was ordered to enter an armoured vehicle. According to al-Badi, the doctor returned carrying a sheet of instructions, dishevelled, his clothes dusty and a bruise under his chin.

Everyone rushed to check on him, and he told them that he had been assaulted.

“Israeli media showed a video claiming they … treated him with respect, but they didn’t show … how he was assaulted in the tank, threatened,” al-Badi said.

Abu Safia was ordered by the Israelis to prepare a list of everyone in the hospital, which he did and returned to the armoured vehicle, where he was told that only 20 staff could remain. The rest had to leave.

“Around 10am, the Israelis allowed some ambulances to take patients, wounded people, some displaced civilians, and the doctor’s family to the Indonesian Hospital [about 1km away] while the medical teams left on foot,” al-Badi recounts.

However, several patients remained, besieged along with the medics.

“The doctor told me to go, but I told him I would stay with him until the end.”

The only female medic who remained was intensive care unit head, Dr Mai Barhouma, who spoke to Al Jazeera from the Baptist Hospital.

Barhouma had been working with critical patients dependent on medical equipment and oxygen, and her conscience would not allow her to leave, despite Abu Safia asking her to.

The Israeli army repeatedly summoned Abu Safia for new instructions, once, according to Drs Barhouma and al-Badi, offering a safe exit for him alone.

He refused, insisting that he would stay with his staff. At about 10pm, the quadcopters ordered everyone to line up and evacuate.

During this time, Israel shelled and set fire to the upper floors and turned off the electricity.

“We were heartbroken as Dr Abu Safia led [us] out,” al-Badi recalled. “I hugged Dr Abu Safia, who was crying as he left the hospital he tried so hard to stay in.”

Testimonies from that day say medical staff were taken to al-Fakhoura School in Jabalia, where they were beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers during interrogations.

Barhouma left in an ambulance with an ICU patient, but the ambulance was held for hours at the school.

“The soldiers bound our hands and forced us to walk towards al-Fakhoura school, [2km away] from the hospital. Our colleagues who had left in the morning were still there, being tortured,” al-Badi recalled, adding that they arrived at about midnight.

“They ordered us to strip down to our underwear, tied our hands and began severely beating us with boots and rifle butts, insulting and verbally abusing us.”

The interrogation and beatings of the medics in the freezing cold continued for hours while Barhouma was in the ambulance with the critically ill patient.

“The oxygen ran out, so I started using a manual resuscitation pump. My hands swelled from pumping nonstop, terrified that the patient would die,” she said.

She described hearing the screams of the male medics being tortured, and then being ordered out of the ambulance by Israeli soldiers.

“The soldier asked for my ID and took an eye scan, then ordered me to get out, but I refused and told him I had a critical patient who would die if I left them.”

Eventually, the Israelis released the medics, including al-Badi and Abu Safia, ordering them to head for western Gaza, while sending the ambulance with Barhouma in it on an alternate route westwards.

But the relief didn’t last. They had only walked a few metres when an Israeli officer called out to Abu Safia.

“Our faces froze,” al-Badi said. “The doctor asked what was wrong. The officers said: ‘We want you with us in Israel.’”

Al-Badi and a nurse tried to pull the doctor away, but he rebuked them and told them to keep walking.

“I was crying like a child being separated from his father as I watched the doctor being arrested and dressed in the white nylon uniform for detainees.”

Calls for his release

Abu Safia’s family are appealing to human rights and legal bodies for his immediate release.

“My father’s lawyers visited him around seven times over the past year, [each visit allowed only] after exhausting attempts with the prison administration. Each time, my father’s condition has deteriorated significantly,” Ilyas told Al Jazeera.

“[He] has fractures in his thigh and shrapnel in his foot from an injury while at the hospital before his arrest. He also suffers other health problems and is subjected to severe psychological and physical abuse that does not befit his age.

“Israel is trying to criminalise my father’s work, his continued service to people and his efforts to save the wounded and the sick in an area Israel itself considered a ‘red zone’ at the time.

“My father’s presence and steadfastness inside the hospital posed a major obstacle to the Israeli army and its plan to empty the north of its residents.”

Ilyas is proud of his father.

“My father is a doctor who will be held up worldwide as an example of adherence to medical ethics and courage.

“I am proud beyond words, and I hope to embrace him soon and see him emerge from the darkness of prison safe and well.”

Dec. 21 (UPI) — Seven days after a mass shooting devastated Bondi Beach, Australians gathered on Sunday for a national day of reflection.

The commemorations come as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces intense public scrutiny and has ordered an urgent investigation into the nation’s intelligence and police frameworks.

The tragedy, which claimed 15 lives during a Hanukkah seaside event, is the deadliest mass shooting Australia has seen in nearly three decades.

Authorities have officially classified the massacre — which killed a 10-year-old girl, a British rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, among others — as a terrorist act aimed at the Jewish community.

As the clock struck 6:47 p.m., marking the exact moment the first shots rang out the previous Sunday, a minute of silence was observed. Mourners at Bondi Beach and across the country stood in unison to honor the fallen, according to the BBC.

The atmosphere in Sydney was one of high alert, NBC News reported, with a massive security detail involving rooftop snipers and water patrols.

The Sydney Opera House also paid tribute, illuminating its iconic sails with candle projections to mark the day of mourning.

Despite the somber occasion, Albanese met a hostile reception, NBC News reported. Sections of the crowd booed the prime minister upon his arrival, a sign of the growing friction between the government and the grieving Jewish community.

The BBC also reported that one protester shouted, “Blood on your hands,” while security personnel had to intercept an individual attempting to approach the prime minister.

In an acknowledgment of the criticism, Albanese said during the observation that he accepts his share of responsibility as the nation’s leader.

Addressing the crowd, David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, delivered a eulogy.

“Like the grass here at Bondi was stained with blood, so, too, has our nation been stained,” Ossip said, per NBC News. “We have landed up in a dark place.”

Ossip also shared a message of resilience from Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian shop owner who was injured while heroically disarming one of the gunmen.

From his hospital bed, al-Ahmed’s message to the mourners was, “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. Today I stand with you, my brothers and sisters.”

Unlike Albanese, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns was met with applause, the BBC reported.

Minns offered a blunt apology for the state’s inability to prevent the shooting, stating, “The government’s highest duty is to protect its citizens. And we did not do that one week ago.”

He further warned that the tragedy exposed a “deep vein of antisemitic hate” that the country must now confront.

After the ceremony, the federal government pivoted toward legislative action.

Albanese announced a comprehensive review of federal intelligence and law enforcement to determine if current powers are sufficient for the modern security landscape. He characterized the “ISIS-inspired” attack as proof of a shifting threat environment.

Additionally, the government has committed to a massive national gun buyback initiative, the scale of which has not been seen since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Oxnard Pacifica had loads of motivation heading into Saturday’s CIF state 1-A bowl game. Having fallen to Sacramento Grant in the 2-AA state final last season, the Tritons were anxious to redeem themselves against Fresno Central East in one of the weekend’s marquee matchups.

The game showcased two high-octane offenses, but every spectacular play by the Tritons was answered by the opponent as they were dealt their first defeat, 42-28, in the second of three games at Saddleback College.

“You’ve gotta win on third down and we weren’t,” Pacifica coach Mike Moon said. “Their offense is hard to stop. We thought we’d be able to score with them and we couldn’t. We wanted to go up-tempo and we weren’t able to do that.”

Pacifica scored first, marching 91 yards in 12 plays, capped by Taylor Lee’s 15-yard strike to Tyler Stewart with 3:21 left in the first quarter. The North region champions punted during their first three possessions and turned it over on downs on the fourth, but ultimately tied the game on a 25-yard touchdown pass from Jelani Dippel to Bayon Harris that finished an eight-play, 78-yard drive with 5:43 left in the second quarter.

Oxnard Pacifica quarterback Taylor Lee slings a pass to the flat in the first half of the CIF Division 1-A state championship game Saturday at Saddleback College.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

After forcing a punt, Central East moved 82 yards in 10 plays and took a 14-7 lead on Brandon Smith’s two-yard run 1:05 before halftime.

Pacifica received the second-half kickoff and drove 71 yards in seven plays, tying the game 14-14 on a one-yard rush by Isaiah Phelps and David Carranza’s extra point.

Central East moved deep into Pacifica territory on its ensuing drive before Phelps deflected the ball and PeeWee Wilson intercepted it at the Tritons’ 24. However, Pacifica (15-1) was forced to punt and on its next possession, and Central East regained the lead on Smith’s four-yard run with 4:03 left in the third quarter and upped the margin to 28-14 on Dippel’s state-leading 58th touchdown pass, a 34-yarder to Kevin Cooks.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Moon added. “They made plays when they needed to and we didn’t. Simple as that.”

Lee hit Alijah Royster in stride for a 74-yard gain to Central East’s four-yard line and Phelps powered across the goal line on the next play to cut the Tritons’ deficit in half with 10:20 left in the game.

However, the Bengals (14-1) recovered a fumble at the Pacifica 18 and took two plays to capitalize on Dippel’s five-yard keeper.

Royster’s 12-yard touchdown reception made it 35-28 with 6:25 left, but Smith scampered 15 yards for his third touchdown to close the scoring with 3:21 left.

Pacifica beat Palos Verdes 20-10 to capture the Southern Section Division 3 title Nov. 28 for its second CIF crown in a row under Moon. The Tritons defeated St. Bonaventure in the Division 4 final last year.

Fresno Central East lost to Huntington Beach Edison in the state 1-A bowl last year at Saddleback.

Lee completed 21 of 31 for 317 yards and two touchdowns but was intercepted twice and sacked three times. Phelps ran for 127 yards in 23 carries. Royster caught six passes for 114 yards and Stewart had seven catches for 93.

Pacifica has played 32 games in the last two seasons and won two section and two regional crowns, just not the ultimate prize it covets.

“It’s a long two years to not have a state championship … but we’ll try to get back next year,” said Moon, who has scheduled nonleague games with Sierra Canyon and San Diego Lincoln next fall. “This is a super group of seniors and the younger players will grow from this.”