Dr Hussam Abu Safia’s life is in imminent danger. This is what his lawyer Nasser Odeh said after visiting him on Thursday in an underground interrogation facility, part of Israel’s Nitzan Prison.

If we do not act immediately, Gaza may lose yet another brilliant doctor, and Israel may get away with yet another brutal crime.

Abu Safia, a Palestinian paediatrician and hospital director, first captured the global spotlight on December 27, 2024. That day footage surfaced of him wearing a white doctor’s coat and walking through the bombed-out rubble of what was once a northern Gaza street towards an armoured vehicle where Israeli soldiers were waiting for him.

He was not surrendering an army; he was surrendering the small but critical Kamal Adwan Hospital after 85 days of siege as his staff and patients were forced to leave at gunpoint. A hospital that should have been protected by international law, international leaders and the United Nations but instead was attacked, deprived of medicine, electricity and supplies.

At least 30 people were killed and 20 injured in the hospital when Israeli troops stormed it on December 6, 2024. When his teenage son Ibrahim was killed outside the hospital, Abu Safia said the funeral prayers himself before rushing back to his child patients.

The photo and video of Abu Safia’s last moments of freedom were shared globally on social media, capturing the attention of millions and demonstrating the limits of social media activism. The global spotlight didn’t change his or Gaza’s fate or the politics of the rogue state of Israel.

Abu Safia is not a “terrorist” nor a “combatant”. If anything, he is the defender of life who stands by his patients: Palestinian children under Israeli occupation, targets of bombing, sniper fire and the sadistic Israeli siege causing widespread starvation, thirst, disease and premature death among them.

Israel claims Abu Safia is “affiliated with........

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