{"id":463860,"date":"2026-09-03T11:24:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/03\/abu-safiya-dopo-quasi-due-anni-lue-chiede-a-israele-un-equo-processo-ma-senza-disturbare\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:12:55","slug":"abu-safiya-after-almost-two-years-the-eu-asks-israel-to-ensure-a-fair-trial-but-without-making-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/03\/abu-safiya-after-almost-two-years-the-eu-asks-israel-to-ensure-a-fair-trial-but-without-making-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Abu Safiya: after almost two years, the EU asks Israel to ensure a fair trial, but without making waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 \u201cThe EU has been following closely the case, and it has been raised with the Israeli authorities and called on Israel to ensure full respect for fair trial guarantees<\/strong> and prisoners\u2019 rights.\u201d Full stop. The European Union\u2019s response is all here, in the almost stammering words of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, Kaja Kallas<\/strong>, regarding the case of Hussam Abu Safiya<\/strong>, a Palestinian paediatrician and former director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, who has been arbitrarily detained by the Israeli authorities since 27 December 2024, without charge.<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

The story is one of those that should trigger reactions and pressure. Abu Safiya is not a Hamas fighter; he went to the Israeli military to ask them not to bomb the hospital, as operations and medical procedures involving children were taking place. He went in peace and for the sake of peace. Yet, he was arrested and never released. The episode, in itself, says a lot about the deterioration of the rule of law in Israel \u2014 a country considered a democracy to which the EU, by Kallas\u2019s own admission, has asked to be a democracy: a request that, on its own, shows how democracy in the Jewish state is effectively suspended.<\/p>\n

In addition to the “abduction” of the Palestinian doctor, there is also the matter of his conditions of detention. According to his lawyer, Amnesty International and also according to the United Nations<\/a>, Abu Safiya is said to have been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, torture, ill-treatment and denial of medical care. These are certainly not conditions typical of a democratic system.<\/p>\n

 https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/03\/israel-orders-demolition-of-sports-field-in-west-bank-refugee-camp-eu-says-it-will-monitor-developments\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 In the European Union that is strong with the weak and weak with the strong<\/a>, the Abu Safiya case clashes with the Navalny case: on the one hand, indifference and leniency; on the other, outrage and restrictive measures adopted in the blink of an eye, first against the judges<\/a> who imprisoned him and then against Russia<\/a>, proving that, contrary to what Kallas has said on other occasions<\/a>, the EU does apply double standards<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

As proof of this, the \u201cbuts\u201d used by Kallas when addressing the Israeli\u2011Palestinian issue are never used when speaking about Russia. “<\/strong>The EU acknowledges Israel’s legitimate security concerns and its right to investigate credible allegations of involvement with terrorist organisations,<\/strong>\u201d states the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who then nevertheless dares to add that \u201csuch investigations should be conducted in full compliance with Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law <\/strong>and international human rights law, including with regard to the treatment of detainees and due process guarantees.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 In short, in the case of the paediatrician Hussam Abu Safiya, the EU has issued a token expression of outrage, but only because it was prodded by 18 MEPs from five different political groups who drafted a parliamentary question<\/a> to which the Commission had to respond. Yet, after almost two years of arbitrary detention, the EU has merely called for, at the very least, a trial \u2013 whilst taking care not to upset Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government too much. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High Representative Kaja Kallas has commented \u2013 having been compelled to do so by a parliamentary question \u2013 on the case of the Palestinian paediatrician who is in prison without having been charged<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":459241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29788],"tags":[25890,28646,31310,34758,33830,26302,33394],"class_list":["post-463860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diritti-en","tag-democracy-en","tag-gauze","tag-hussam-abu-safiya","tag-kaja-kallas","tag-state-of-right-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463861,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463860\/revisions\/463861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}