DUBAI: For more than a year, the family of detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya has clung to the hope of seeing him again, sparing no effort to campaign for his release.
But after Israel approved the death penalty for Palestinians accused of terrorism last week, his family says that hope is beginning to fade.
“We flinch at the sound of every phone call and every update from Gaza. We fear that every word might carry the end,” his eldest son, Elias Abu Safiya, told Arab News on WhatsApp from Kazakhstan.
“We live every moment like it’s the last. We don’t want these decisions to turn into a final goodbye.”
Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, became a prominent voice during the war, documenting Israeli attacks on medical facilities that he said were putting patients, medics and sheltering displaced civilians at risk, and calling for the international community to protect the healthcare system.
