Fears grow for Gaza hospital chief who walked toward Israeli tanks before arrest

Surrounded by bomb-struck buildings, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya walked down the middle of a road strewn with debris, his white medical coat standing out against the rubble as he made his way toward Israeli tanks.

The footage, taken in late December and verified by NBC News, is the last time the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza was seen before he was taken into custody by Israeli soldiers laying siege to the complex.

Before his detention, Abu Safiya, 51, who became the head of Kamal Adwan in 2024, was the lead physician in Gaza for MedGlobal, a Chicago-based nonprofit that has partnered with local health care workers since 2018 and arranges volunteer medical missions to the enclave.

The organization’s co-founder, Dr. John Kahler, told NBC News in a phone interview on Thursday that he was “very afraid” that Abu Safiya won’t “make it out alive” from detention. He added that the physician was “a friend of mine, a hero, mentor,” who, among other things, had helped to establish nutrition stabilization centers in the Gaza Strip.

On visits to Gaza, Kahler said, he had never seen any indication that Abu Safiya was linked with the Hamas militant group that has run the enclave since 2007, or any suggestion that it was operating inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Five other members of MedGlobal’s team have also been detained, and on Monday, the organization called for the release of scores of health workers detained by Israel, including Abu Safiya.

“Israeli authorities have repeatedly and blatantly violated international humanitarian law in repeated detentions of and attacks on health care workers,” it said in a joint letter published on Monday alongside several other organizations, including Human Rights Watch.

Their call for the “immediate, unconditional release” of detained health workers came as concern is growing for the health of Abu Safiya, who has been detained for more than six months without charge, according to his colleagues, family and legal team.

Abu Safiya’s son Elias Abu Safiya said in a WhatsApp message that he was concerned for his father’s physical and mental health, which he said legal advocates had told him were in a “difficult” state, although he added they had not been able to visit him for some time.

After initially denying he was in custody, the Israeli military said in a January statement that Abu Safiya had been involved “in terrorist activities” and held “a rank” in Hamas that it said had made the Kamal Adwan Hospital a stronghold during the war.

But according to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for the people of Gaza and has been providing legal support to Abu Safiya, no formal charges had been made against the hospital director as of Thursday.

Asked for an update on Abu Safiya’s case on Friday, the Israeli military did not immediately respond.

But a spokesperson for the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said Thursday that he was still being detained in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, where he faced dire conditions, inadequate food and overcrowded cells.

In a statement to NBC News on Friday, the Israeli Defense Forces said it acts in accordance with both the country’s “and international law, and protects the rights of individuals held in detention facilities under its responsibility.” It added that “any abuse of detainees, whether during their detention or during interrogation, violates the law and the directives of the IDF and as such is strictly prohibited.”

Abu Safiya’s family and colleagues have staunchly denied the allegations against him, while United Nations officials and rights groups have also questioned the accusations and called on Israel authorities to release him.

Calling the accusations “ridiculous,” Kahler said his colleague was a “heroic physician” whose “moral compass is directly pointing due North.”

While he remains behind bars, Israeli forces have continued their assault on Gaza’s health care system, which has led to the destruction of or damage to hospitals in the enclave, according to World Health Organization data.

Israel launched its offensive following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.

Since then, more than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza, with thousands more seriously injured, according to Palestinian health officials in the enclave.

Thousands of Palestinians are held by Israel under a controversial practice known as “administrative detention,” which Israeli authorities use to hold people without trial or other usual legal proceedings, often based on alleged secret evidence they do not share with detainees, their families or legal representatives.

The practice has been roundly criticized by human rights groups that say it is used to hold Palestinians indefinitely without charge and due process, while Israel has defended the practice as a necessary security measure.

In their letter on Monday, MedGlobal and the other organizations said that as of February 2025, at least 185 health care workers from Gaza and the West Bank remained in Israeli custody. Their conditions were “unknown,” it added.

“Many of those released have reported severe abuse, while some have died in custody,” it said.