The last time Nadia Almukayed saw her husband, Dr. Hassan Khalil Almukayed, was inside the Gaza hospital he refused to abandon as Israel’s war intensified. By October 2024, the conflict had trapped the Almukayed family in Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where Hassan worked as a vascular surgeon.
"We could not evacuate quickly," Nadia told Al Jazeera. "We moved from place to place until we became trapped inside the hospital."
Hassan is one of at least 15 Palestinian doctors from Gaza currently in Israeli detention, including Kamal Adwan’s director, Hussam Abu Safia, who has been held without charge for over 18 months. Rights groups report credible evidence of severe abuse and torture against Abu Safia.
Both doctors refused to leave newborn infants when the Israeli military ordered evacuation of northern Gaza. Nadia recalled her husband working nonstop as casualties mounted. "From the war's start until he was taken, he never stopped serving patients," she said.
When Israeli tanks stormed Kamal Adwan in October 2024, soldiers ordered families out but promised doctors they would not be harmed. "The occupation was not truthful," Nadia said. As she bid her husband farewell, she told him, "We both know what will happen, but we must accept God’s will."
Communication ceased the next night. Naji Abbas of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel dates Hassan’s arrest to October 25, 2024, under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, which permits indefinite detention without trial—a category Abbas says does not exist in international law.
Hassan was initially held at Sde Teiman for seven months. His brother Mahmoud, a nurse detained with him, was released in a 2025 prisoner swap, but Hassan remains at Ktziot (Negev Prison). Neither brother knows their father, Khalil, died months after a brief detention during which soldiers confiscated his medicine and gave him a punctured water bottle. He died "of sadness and grief over his sons," the family said.
Nadia has not told Hassan of his father’s death, fearing for his mental state. "I have not told him, out of fear for him."
Hassan was born in Jabalia camp in 1972, studied medicine in Romania, practiced in Sweden, and returned to Gaza in 2010 to care for his parents. He ran a free clinic from home, treating anyone who knocked. "He served everyone without expecting anything in return," Nadia said. "There is no malice in his heart."