An Israeli airstrike has killed one in every of Gaza’s most senior docs in a “catastrophic” loss to the already decimated healthcare system. Quite a lot of relations had been reported to have been killed alongside him.
Dr Marwan al-Sultan, a famend and extremely skilled heart specialist and director of the Indonesian hospital within the Gaza Strip, is the seventieth healthcare employee to be killed by Israeli assaults within the final 50 days, in keeping with Healthcare Staff Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical organisation.
“The killing of Dr Marwan al-Sultan by the Israeli army is a catastrophic loss to Gaza and the complete medical group, and could have a devastating affect on Gaza’s healthcare system,” mentioned Muath Alser, director of HWW.
“That is a part of a for much longer and systematic atrocious focusing on of healthcare employees sanctioned by impunity. It is a tragic lack of life, but in addition an obliteration of their a long time of lifesaving medical experience and care at a time when the state of affairs dealing with Palestinian civilians is unfathomably catastrophic,” Alser added.
“We’re in nice shock and grief. He can’t be changed,” mentioned Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. “He was a outstanding scholar and one of many two remaining cardiologists left in Gaza. 1000’s of coronary heart sufferers will endure because of his killing. His solely fault was that he was a physician. We’ve no possibility however to be steadfast, however the sense of loss is devastating.”
Earlier this month, al-Sultan spoke to the Guardian in regards to the vital state of affairs he and different workers on the Indonesian hospital had been dealing with as they struggled to deal with the variety of civilian casualties after the escalation of Israeli assaults in Could.
Among the many healthcare employees killed prior to now 50 days had been three different docs, the chief nurses of the Indonesian hospital and al-Nasser youngsters’s hospital, one in every of Gaza’s most senior midwives, a senior radiology technician and dozens of younger medical graduates and trainee nurses. On 6 June, the primary day of Eid, 9 healthcare employees had been killed in in the future in airstrikes within the north of Gaza, the place they had been sheltering with their households, in keeping with HWW.
Fares Afana, who leads ambulance providers in northern Gaza, misplaced his son in June. Bara’a, who was additionally working as a paramedic, was at an condominium block in Gaza Metropolis’s al-Tuffah neighbourhood on 9 June treating individuals injured in an Israeli airstrike when the constructing was hit for a second time by Israeli artillery, killing everybody inside.
Fares Afana, proper, together with his son Bara’a, a paramedic who was killed in an airstrike in June. {Photograph}: Handout
“They had been instantly focused,” mentioned Afana, who says that Bara’a died alongside two different paramedics. “After I went to the place, it was a horrible sight and merciless to see their our bodies torn to items. If there had been some response from the world when healthcare employees had been first focused by the Israeli forces, they might haven’t dared to commit extra of those assaults.”
He mentioned his son had devoted his life to the medical occupation and had desires of being a physician. “He was type and cherished by everybody who knew him.”
The entire variety of healthcare employees who’ve misplaced their lives in army assaults for the reason that struggle started in October 2023 now exceeds 1,400 in keeping with UN figures.
Insecurity Perception, a battle information NGO, says it has verified the deaths of lots of of healthcare employees who’ve been killed inside well being amenities, whereas making an attempt to succeed in wounded civilians, by Israeli sniper hearth, when travelling in ambulances, whereas evacuating sufferers, at checkpoints and inside colleges and refugee camps used as short-term shelters since October 2023.
It’s believed that lots of extra healthcare employees from Gaza stay in Israeli detention, the place they’ve reported being tortured, overwhelmed and held with out cost.
Medglobal, a medical NGO based mostly within the US that gives medical providers and care in Gaza, says it believes greater than 300 medical workers are in Israeli prisons, amongst them senior physicians together with Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital who has been held in detention since December 2024.
