Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, known for his unwavering courage and resilience during the ongoing military operation by the Israeli Army, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize after Doctors for Gaza from the Netherlands put his name forward.
A Palestinian paediatrician and neonatologist, Abu Safiya was born on 21 November 1973 at Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, his family having been kicked out from Hamama during the 1948 Nakba.
With each passing month, the toll deepened. His son was killed, his hospital repeatedly struck, and his life threatened. Still, he remained at Kamal Adwan.
His resilience was captured in a 10-second video: a lone pediatrician in a white coat walking through rubble toward Israeli forces. To the world, it symbolized defiance. To his family and colleagues, it reflected who he always was.
By late 2024, as Israel intensified its campaign to drive Palestinians out of northern Gaza, hospitals became both sanctuaries and targets. Kamal Adwan, a 300-bed facility already battered by shortages and bombardment, became a focal point of that campaign.
On December 27, 2024, Israeli forces stormed the hospital, detaining 240 staff and patients, stripping them, and rendering the facility inoperable. Dr. Abu Safiya, who refused to abandon his post, was beaten and taken into custody under Israel’s “Unlawful Combatant Law,” with no charges or release date.
The Nobel Peace Prize nomination recognises his unwavering refusal to evacuate the hospital’s neonatal and paediatric wards during israeli military raids in late 2024, when most international and UN personnel were ordered to leave.
Under bombardment, Dr. Abu Safiya stayed beside his patients and staff, maintaining operations with dwindling oxygen, power, and medicine a decision that saved the lives of premature infants who would not have survived evacuation.
On 27 December 2024, israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital and arrested Dr. Abu Safiya along with several medical workers. He has remained detained without charge in israeli custody since that date.
Despite international appeals for his release, israel continues to hold him, accusing him of “collaboration with Hamas” a charge condemned by international legal experts as collective punishment against Gaza’s health sector.
His arrest came just weeks after his 15-year-old son was killed by an israeli drone strike near the hospital grounds an attack that also damaged its paediatric wing.
The Doctors for Gaza network in the Netherlands launched his Nobel nomination to highlight the courage of Gaza’s medical workers, who continued treating children and civilians under siege conditions.
The group stated that his nomination is “a moral call to honour humanity under fire to recognise every doctor, nurse, and paramedic who chose duty over safety in the face of genocide.”
Human rights advocates say this nomination carries global significance representing the ethical resistance of Gaza’s health professionals, many of whom have been killed, arrested, or disappeared since 2023.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s decision to remain with his patients and to provide medical care at Kamal Adwan when Northern Gaza was under siege has become a symbol of Gaza’s endurance and moral defiance, embodying the principle that life itself must be protected even in the ruins of war.
Since his arrest, Dr. Abu Safiya has reportedly been held under harsh and abusive conditions: Denied adequate medical care. Suffering serious health issues: heart enlargement, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat.
On August 28, a lawyer was able to visit Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who now held in Ofer Prison along with his nephew, Hussam Zaher, in appalling conditions: Sunlight only 30 minutes a month. Suffering from severe scabies, boils, and skin infections. Forced to wear the same clothes with only infrequent two-minute baths. Each has lost a third of their body weight. They urgently need dermatologists and medicine for treatment.
Dr. Abu Safiyas, health worsened following violent interrogations at Sde Teiman prison and poor conditions in Ofer prison, where he was subjected to solitary confinement, physical abuse including beatings and other mistreatment.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s message from prison: “I entered in the name of humanity, and I will leave in the name of humanity… We will remain on our land and continue to provide healthcare services to the people, God willing, even from a tent.”
Dr. Abu Safiya has become a symbol of Gaza’s crumbling healthcare system under dire conditions. His work and arrest have drawn international attention and concern. He served his patients under Israeli bombardment: amid hunger, deceit, and scarce medical supplies.
Even after his son was killed in the siege meant to break him, he refused to leave and was kidnapped in his white coat. If anyone embodies peace, it’s him. A truly noble man.
Every child in every school, and every medical student around the world should be able to recognize the name and face of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and learn some facts about his biography, and what Israel and its Western collaborators did to him, his colleagues, his patients, and his people. Dr. Abu Safiya is a hero and a model for humanity.
Dr Abu Safiya has now been held in Israeli captivity for 353 days, being subjected to torture, inhumane living conditions and medical neglect. No charges have been brought against him. What is Israel holding him for?
In the following,,through first hand testimony, archival footage, and on-the-ground reporting, Fault Lines investigates the assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, the raid that led to Dr. Abu Safiya’s unlawful detention, and the broader targeting of Gaza’s healthcare system.
The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya : Fault Lines Documentary
According to human rights organizations, more than 1,670 Palestinian health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and at least 362 doctors, nurses, and paramedics remain in detention.
In an open letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Doctors for Gaza described Abu Safiya as “a symbol of Palestinian medical resistance and compassion that survives even under fire.” The international petition in support of his candidacy has gathered more than 34,000 signatures in less than a week.
There's been a lot of discussion about worthy people like Francesca Albanese or Greta Thunberg winning a Nobel Peace Prize. I would like to see the prize go to a Palestinian like Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. This is not virtue signalling. He deserves it and this would send a positive message to the world.
The Nobel Peace Prize was once the world’s most prestigious recognition of leadership in the pursuit of peace. Today, its credibility is collapsing.
The prize has become an institution of the very Western powers complicit in the genocide in Gaza, and has a history of being awarded to war criminals like Obama and Kissinger. Furthermore, centering Western figures erases the Palestinian people themselves, who are the true faces of this struggle, their journalists, doctors, and families.
Our solidarity should amplify Palestinian voices, not replace them. For that reason I urge you to stand for justice and humanity by signing the international petition in support of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya candidancy and sharing the petition widely. With less than 24 hours remaining, every signature matters!.https://rightsforum.org/petitie/support-dr-abu-safiya-nobel-peace-prize/
After 733 days of genocide, ethnic cleansing, destruction, mass killings, bombings, starvation, forced displacement, and over 70,000 killed with tens of thousands injured and missing, Gaza ceasefire agreement has been reached. I am currently happy that Gaza Families might get a break in Israel's violent terrorism
let’s ensure the ceasefire is respected (last time Israel didn't), that aid flows in without barriers, Israel's illegal occupation and apartheid in Palestine are dismantled and genocide perpetrators are held accountable.
At the same time Free Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and lets not forget the 10,000 Palestinians, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and the children imprisoned without charge or trial in jails, suffering torture and inhumane abuse, and risking the death penalty reinstated by the Genocidal State. Free Palestine.
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