Dr Hussam Abu Safia<\/a>, former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, who was taken from that medical facility by the Israeli army in December 2024. His lawyer and family members say he has been beaten, tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment in Israeli custody, including prolonged periods of solitary confinement.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are clear about this vocabulary \u2013 they are hostages, not like any prisoners, and our symbol today is Dr Hussam Abu Safia,\u201d said Adnan Hmidan, chair of the Palestinian Forum in the United Kingdom and the event organiser.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey collected him from the hospital while he was wearing his white coat and took him in the tank, in front of everyone in that hospital,\u201d Hmidan said, adding that some Palestinian detainees are unable to see their lawyers and do not have court dates.<\/p>\n
Addameer, a Palestinian human rights organisation tracking political prisoners, said there are 9,300 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, with the majority of them held without trial or charge.<\/p>\n
The group said the figure does not include detainees held in Israeli military camps. Addameer said there are at least 3,350 Palestinians arrested from the occupied West Bank who are classified as \u201dadministrative detainees\u201d.<\/p>\n
Israeli human rights organisation, B\u2019Tselem, said, according to official figures from the Israel Prison Service, about 10,900 Palestinians were being held in Israeli prisons or detention facilities on \u201csecurity\u201d grounds as of late 2025. This includes 2,931 people from the Gaza Strip, according to the same source.<\/p>\n
Activists and human rights advocates at the London vigil said they hoped their campaign would eventually have a tangible effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also to remind people what\u2019s going on, and that we haven\u2019t forgotten them, and I know from other sources that people in Gaza, in Palestine, appreciate that we here are doing all that we can,\u201d Eva Nazem told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who could do something are staying quiet, not doing enough, the government, and we just need to keep putting the pressure on,\u201d Nazem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur presence here is twofold. It\u2019s to remind people that it isn\u2019t over, the ceasefire is in name only. It\u2019s not effective. People like Dr Safia, who have been absolute heroes, are imprisoned and tortured, and it\u2019s not acceptable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As people stood in silence holding placards, Palestinian Forum\u2019s Hmidan was keen not to frame the London event as a demonstration or a protest march, instead describing it as \u201ca silent, peaceful act of solidarity\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many ways of lobbying and campaigning. We respect different kinds of protest, but here we have something about humanitarian issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [Palestinian prisoners] are human, they have their own stories, they have their own families,\u201d Hmidan told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of people gathered in central London on Saturday to call for the release of Palestinian prisoners held…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,299,4884,837,7424,257,839,12,1814,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-645834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-palestine","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115756475617270180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}