‘He Chose to Stay’: Wife of Detained Doctor Abu Safiya Calls for International Action
Wife of detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safia pleads for his release, recounting his refusal to abandon patients and the loss of their son in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
In a harrowing testimony that underscores the immense toll of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, Lina Abu Safiya, the wife of detained pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, recounted the events leading up to her husband’s arrest from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera, Lina described her husband as a dedicated physician who refused to leave his patients, despite being offered a rare opportunity to escape the besieged enclave.
“He could have joined me in Kazakhstan,” Lina said, referring to her country of origin, “but he told me he could not abandon his patients or his colleagues. He believed leaving would be a betrayal of his duty.”
Dr. Abu Safiya, a specialist in pediatrics and neonatology and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, remained at his post throughout the war, providing care under relentless bombardment and amid dire shortages of medicine, equipment, and electricity.
On December 27, 2024, Israeli forces stormed the hospital and arrested Dr. Abu Safiya.
According to Lina, international humanitarian organizations had arranged a safe corridor for the hospital staff to evacuate together, but this plan was not honored. The next day, fellow doctors came to her home and informed her of his arrest. Since then, there has been no word on his fate.
“I don’t know anything—where he is, if he’s alive, if he’s okay,” Lina said. “I follow the news every day, terrified by what I hear about the conditions of detainees in Israeli prisons.”
Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention comes amid a broader Israeli campaign that has devastated Gaza’s health sector, with hospitals bombed and dozens of medical workers detained or killed.
Lina and Dr. Hussam are parents to six children—now five. Their son Elias was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the hospital. “We found him among the wounded, martyred. It was the most difficult moment of my life,” she said.
With her husband detained and her family in mourning, Lina is now appealing to the international community for urgent action. “This is no longer a war,” she said. “This is genocide—against civilians, against doctors, against all of us.”
She urged international human rights groups, medical associations, and global institutions to intervene for her husband’s release and to end the systematic targeting of Gaza’s medical workers.
(PC, AJA)
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