Dear Professor Turner and the Leadership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH),

As members of the public and UK paediatric community and healthcare professionals, we are writing to demand urgent advocacy for our colleague, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian Paediatrician and the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in North Gaza. Dr Abu Safiya was detained by the Israeli military on 27 December 2024 after heroically refusing to abandon his neonatal and paediatric patients and colleagues during the siege of his facility, which was subsequently burned and severely damaged rendering it non-functional to date. 

He has now been held for over 17 months without charge. In late April 2026, his detention was extended again, this time indefinitely under the notorious "Unlawful Combatants Law."  Recent reports from released detainees describe a man reduced to a state of exhaustion and semi-consciousness due to prolonged torture and starvation. Eyewitnesses report Dr Abu Safiya is suffering from extreme weakness and is frequently heard screaming during beatings. He currently faces an imminent risk of death, if not from torture but also from the recent Isreali parliamentary law allowing for the  death penalty for  Palestinalian detainees. 

The detention of a physician for remaining with his patients and upholding medical neutrality is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions. His case is part of a broader, catastrophic pattern: over 1,700 health workers in Gaza have been killed and hundreds more detained and tortured, with several, including Dr  Adnan Al Bursh, a renowned Orthopedic surgeon trained in Kings College Hospital London, dying due to torture while unlawfully detained in Israeli custody.  His body has still not been returned to his family.

We call upon the RCPCH to take the following immediate actions:

Public Advocacy: Issue a formal statement calling for the immediate release of Dr Abu Safiya and all healthcare workers held without charge in Israeli Army detention centres and prisons. 

Professional Pressure: Contact  the Israeli Medical Association and the Israeli Paediatric Association to demand they intervene to secure the prisoners' release.  

Contact other national Paediatric Associations as well as World Medical Association to ask they too intervene urgently in this alarming and disconcerting matter. 

Diplomatic Engagement: Contact  the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Foreign Secretary , and Middle Eastern minister to demand they also intervene to secure the release of Dr Abu Safia and the other Healthcare worker prisoners .

The RCPCH’s silence to date on this matter, including the decision not to sign the January 2025 International Paediatric Association appeal, must be rectified. The voice of this College carries significant weight; and could save a fellow paediatrician’s life.

Dr Abu Safiya stayed behind with his patients and the local community, in the best traditions of physicians serving their patients, when the world turned away. He did so to ensure that no child died alone or without care.  Now, it is our turn to ensure he is not forgotten. Update 18 May 2026 The Abu Safiya's family has appealed to the international community and global medical institutions to intervene immediately to save their father's life and ensure his release and the release of his detained colleagues. The family stresses that the continued detention of medical personnel under vague legal pretexts constitutes a war crime that requires prosecuting those responsible in international courts to ensure that these tragedies are not repeated.

Dr Abu Safia's son Ilyas, said "My father is living in tragic circumstances and is subjected to systematic starvation, and we live in constant anxiety and treat every call as if it were the last."  

Update 10 June 2026

Dr Abu Safiya was transferred to Ganot prison in early June and has been placed in solitary confinement. His son Ilyas said “We were told that he is [now being] held in an extremely small solitary cell, no larger than one metre by one metre, a space barely enough to move or sit properly,”  Under the UN Nelson Mandela Rules, solitary confinement is a form of torture. It is now 529 days that Dr Abu Safiya has been illegaly detained without charge by the Israeli authorities.

Update 7 July 2026

"This is the last time you will see me. They brought me here to kill me. I don’t see myself surviving. This is the end."

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya to his lawyer, as reported by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel · 2nd July 2026. Interview with Dr Abu Safiya's son Ilyas with Middle East Eye journalist Amara Sophia Elahi https://www.instagram.com/reel/Daf1HuQBQ3U/?igsh=MWcyczdtcnplY20yaw%3D%3D

We look forward to your urgent response and action.

Sincerely,

Signed,

- Child Health Advocates for Palestine (CHA4P) 

- UK Healthcare Petitions to Royal Colleges (UKHPRC)

- Global Health BDS for Palestine (GH BDS4P)

- Health Workers For Palestine (HW4P) 

- BMA Doctors Against Genocide (BMA-DAG)

-  International Child Health Group (ICHG) UK

-International Society for Social Paediatrics and Child Health (ISSOP)

- Medact UK

-Palmed Academy UK

- Nurses 4 Palestine (N4P) - Health Workers and Allies for Palestine (HW&A4P)

- Doctors in Unite (DiU)

- Health Workers For a Free Palestine (HW4FP)

- British Arab Nursing and Midwifery Association (BANMA)

-UK Palestine Mental Health Network (UKPMHN)

Date of Submission 10 July 2026