Hamama to Jabalia is the story of millions of Palestinians. A journey of hardship, loss, and longing to return, and of love and faith in the face of it all.

Nestled in the coastal plain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the Palestinian town of Hamama was surrounded by fertile fields of grain and fruit like no other. Their homes followed the roads leading towards their neighbors in Isdud, Bayt Daras, Julis, al-Majdal, and Barbara. These towns and villages were among the most prosperous farming and fishing communities in Palestine.

But they are all gone today. Depopulated and occupied after the Nakba.

Detailed 1948 Survey of Palestine map sheet for Hamama, showing the built-up village, roads, fields and surrounding landscape.

The village record keeper consulting Aref al-Aref and the Earl of Oxford and Asquith at Hamama, 20 April 1943

A mosque stood at the heart of Hamama, and a boys’ elementary school was established in 1921; later, a girls’ school opened too. By 1931, Hamama contained 865 homes, each with its own story, a kitchen, a garden, a doorway—a place where someone had been born, and someone else had grown old.

Eventually, however, all the great families of Hamama would be forced to leave their homes and lives behind or suffer at the hands of the occupiers who swept across their lands.

Pre-1948 photo of the original town mosque.

Twenty-five long years later, in what was once Gaza’s most densely populated area, Jabalia camp, Hussam Abu Safiya was born, alongside an entire generation of displaced Palestinian children.

Growing up, Hussam saw no fields around him. Instead, he walked narrow streets surrounded by concrete walls, with more people in that small area he called ‘home’ than it seemed able to hold. The water he drank wasn't the same clear water he had heard about in Hamama; it was harder to find and sometimes contaminated.

Beach and Jabalia refugee camps, and Israeli checkpoint during the First Intifada (1987-1993)

The main street of Jabalia refugee camp, April 1957: shelters, small shops and everyday movement through the camp.

As he grew, he began to understand that he lived in Jabalia, and that Hamama was a faraway place he knew only in stories. He didn’t give it much mind; after all, he had his family and his friends, and he liked his school. But he often dreamed of his parents’ old home, and whether he would ever be able to visit.

He also dreamed of seeing the world.

After completing high school in the sciences, he left Gaza for Kazakhstan, where he studied medicine and eventually specialized in pediatrics.

There, he fell in love with a Kazakh woman. They soon married and had their first child.

A school class in Jabalia refugee camp photographed by Inge Morath in 1960.

Eventually, he decided to return home to Jabalia and put everything he had learned into practice, dedicating his knowledge to caring for children and becoming a well-known doctor at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Convincing his young wife to leave Kazakhstan and build a life with him in Gaza was perhaps easier than one might imagine. She had already seen the kind of man he was through the affection, kindness, and support he showed her.

And she was not the only one who remembered him this way. One of his former patients, who had also been his neighbor in Jabalia refugee camp, later recalled the care he showed his patients. In the eyes of his colleagues, he was a truly great man. But he was more than the white coat he wore.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya with his wife, Albina Abu Safiya

Hussam loved reading and was always buying books, carrying his curiosity far beyond his years of medical study. He was a husband who never allowed the distance between Gaza and Kazakhstan to separate his wife from her family. She remained connected to them while growing close to his Palestinian family, remembering the love and respect with which they welcomed her.

Together, they built a family and a life.

Then came 7 October 2023, and everything around him began to fall apart. Once again, Hussam and his family had to leave their home behind.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya becomes the Director of Kamal Hadwan Hospital in Gaza

War now surrounded the hospital, and as life in Gaza became increasingly uncertain, Hussam’s family eventually also came to live with him inside the hospital. His wife recalled seeing him for only about four hours a day. The rest of his time belonged to his patients, their families, his colleagues, and a hospital he was determined to keep functioning. He worked ceaselessly, day and night, as the hospital then stood as the last remaining medical facility in northern Gaza.

During the siege of Kamal Hadwan Hospital, overrun by wounded

Then he experienced a loss nothing could protect him from: his son was martyred in a drone strike, by the hospital’s entrance.

The doctor who had spent years caring for other people’s children was now grieving his own. His heart was shattered. And as he buried his son outside the hospital walls, in that moment the physician the world would eventually come to know was stripped away, and there remained only a father mourning his child.

Still, he continued.

His passion had always been to help people, and even when everything around him changed, that part of him remained untouched. He continued caring for his patients and remained committed to his duty until the very end.

He looked death in the eye in order to embrace life. He lived through displacement, loss, fear, and grief, yet continued to devote himself to others. Perhaps he understood something many spend their entire lives searching for: that a life devoted to something greater than oneself is a life worth living.

The last time Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is sighted in Gaza before his capture

After over 70 days of total siege by occupation forces, the hospital was shut down on December 27, 2024. Hussam was with his patients when he was abducted by soldiers, and he remains arbitrarily detained to this day.

The world eventually came to know Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya as a hero. But in this moment, we want to remember him as a Palestinian.

Not only as the doctor in a white coat.
Or as the man whose image traveled around the world.
Or for what happened to him.

We honor the boy whose family carried the memory of Hamama with them to Jabalia and beyond.

The young student who left home carrying a dream.

The man who found comfort in books.

The husband whose wife crossed the earth to build a life beside him.

The doctor who devoted his years to caring for children.

And above all, the father whose heart could break for his own.

And for all his love, care, and devotion, grief upon grief burdens everyone who witnesses. The ongoing Nakba took Hamama, Jabalia, his son, and his patients. And today, after almost two years of detention without warrant or trial, the world risks losing Dr. Safiya.

“This is the last time you will see me … They brought me here to kill me. I don’t see myself surviving. This is the end.” (Dr. Abu Safiya, reported July 4, 2026)

Help us free Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s life is at risk. He has been held in an Israeli prison since his arbitrary detention on 27th December 2024. He has lost over 40 kilograms, sustained injuries from multiple beatings, and is being denied medical treatment in critical condition.

Add your name to Amnesty International's call for his immediate and unconditional release.