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
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.
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