State asks High Court to dismiss petition seeking release of detained Gaza doctors

The state rejected PHRI’s position, saying updated reviews had found that the legal grounds for the doctors’ continued detention remained in place and that there were no “special reasons” justifying their release.

The state said the detainees’ cases are examined periodically by authorized security officials based on their individual circumstances and updated intelligence. When those reviews find that the legal grounds for detention no longer exist, or that another reason justifies release, detention orders are canceled, the state said.

According to the state, there have been cases in which periodic reviews led to detention orders being canceled and detainees being released.

The response also addressed PHRI’s recent claim that Abu Safiya may be in life-threatening danger following allegations of violence in detention.

The state said Abu Safiya’s lawyer had submitted a signed affidavit to the detention facility claiming that Abu Safiya was in life-threatening danger. The affidavit - together with PHRI’s response to the state’s request for an extension - was transferred for review by authorized officials, the state said.

The state said that, after a review, no indications were found supporting the claims raised in PHRI’s response.

It added that Abu Safiya was received at Nitzan Detention Center on June 24, was examined by medical staff upon arrival and several times afterward as needed, and remains under regular medical follow-up.

“At no stage was there any indication of danger to life,” the state wrote.

However, the state’s response did not explicitly deny that the alleged beatings took place. It also did not say what prompted the repeated medical examinations, what those examinations found, whether the injuries described by Abu Safiya’s lawyer were documented, or whether they were recorded in his medical file.

PHRI said the response failed to answer the central questions raised by the affidavit of Abu Safiya’s lawyer, attorney Nasser Odeh, who visited him last week.

According to PHRI, Odeh said Abu Safiya had visible injuries to his head and neck, struggled to breathe, had difficulty remaining seated, and appeared close to losing consciousness. PHRI said the state’s response offered only a general denial while failing to address most of the factual allegations in the affidavit.

“An independent medical examination and an independent judicial review of Dr. Abu Safiya’s condition are urgently required,” PHRI said, adding that the court should schedule an urgent hearing on the petition concerning the continued detention of the doctors.

The petition was filed on April 30. The state had received repeated extensions to respond, but when it requested another extension on Sunday, the court gave it only until Tuesday.

PHRI had opposed another postponement, citing what it described as new information from Odeh regarding Abu Safiya’s condition. The organization also asked that a High Court justice urgently visit Abu Safiya as an official prison visitor in order to assess his condition firsthand.

The petition also raises a broader legal question over whether the IDF chief of staff must personally review requests to cancel detention orders under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

PHRI argued that the chief of staff’s authority to cancel detention orders is independent from the periodic judicial review process, which provides for review by the district court every six months and an appeal before a Supreme Court justice.

The organization argued that periodic court review does not replace the chief of staff’s duty to reconsider whether the detention orders remain necessary and lawful, particularly after what it described as a change in circumstances.

The state rejected that argument.

It said that, under a temporary wartime amendment to the law, powers assigned to the chief of staff may be exercised by a brigadier-general acting under the chief of staff’s authority.

As a result, the state argued, the law does not require the chief of staff himself to conduct a separate review.

The authority to cancel detention orders remains in force and is used in appropriate cases, the state said, but it does not create a parallel mechanism meant to bypass the periodic judicial review process.

The state said the same core considerations are examined in both frameworks: whether release would harm state security and whether special reasons justify release.

Some detainees have used their right to appeal periodic review decisions to the Supreme Court, the state said. It noted that Abu Safiya’s case was recently heard by the court on June 10.

According to the state, the detainees’ cases were also reviewed after the framework agreed in October 2025, and the authorized officials again found that the grounds for detention continued to apply.

The case comes amid continuing scrutiny of Israel’s detention of Palestinians from Gaza during the war, including medical personnel. PHRI and other critics have argued that prolonged detention without charge is especially difficult to justify in the case of doctors, given Gaza’s severe shortage of medical personnel and the collapse of much of its healthcare system.

Israel has argued throughout the war that Hamas systematically embedded itself in Gaza’s hospitals and used medical facilities for military purposes. The IDF has said that some of those detained from Gaza’s medical system had security ties, while Israeli officials have maintained that some cases cannot be handled through ordinary criminal indictments without exposing classified intelligence sources and methods.

The issue has become more acute as the war has moved further from its most intense stages and as pressure has grown on Israel to charge or release Palestinians held for extended periods without trial.

PHRI rejected the state’s position, saying the response did not provide concrete information justifying the continued detention of the doctors and failed to address the impact of their detention on Gaza’s healthcare system.