At the time of writing, Gaza has suffered Israel’s constant bombardment for 500 days. Just last night I received the updates from @letstalkpalestine on Instagram about Day 499, and at the very top of the long list was: “Gaza’s hospitals face severe oxygen shortage as Israel blocks entry of oxygen stations despite destroying 10 stations amid genocide. ICU & premature babies dying from lack of oxygen; only 3 ICU beds in [the] north.” Below that it mentions freed Palestinian captives, many of whom suffered medically unnecessary amputations. Each bullet point is another ceasefire violation and another strike added to the long list of international war crimes being committed by the colonial power. At the heart of many of these offenses is a complete and total desire to dismantle healthcare infrastructure. To destroy access. To deny the act of healing to any and all that may seek it. Human Rights Watch has called Israel’s strikes on hospitals “unlawful;” the UN remarked in December of 2024 that “Israel’s deadly pattern of attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza” has pushed the healthcare system in the occupied territory to “the brink collapse.” 

But the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) don’t constrain their violence to the structures of healthcare alone, going so far as to target individual providers as well. Multiple reports from Human Rights Watch detail the torture of healthcare workers in Sde Teiman camp, Ashkelon prison, Anatot military base, and the Ofer detention facility. A surgeon in one report from August 26th of 2024 states that he and 50 other nurses and doctors were taken from the hospital and told to strip down to their underwear. A whistleblower from the Sde Teiman camp leaked information in May, revealing to CNN that Palestinians were being used as practice for unqualified medical providers, earning the camp the nickname “a paradise for interns.” Others still were denied medical care following severe beatings. Many were strapped to beds in a field hospital just outside of the camp, wearing nothing but diapers and blindfolds. 

As of September 24th, 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that Israel launched over 1,000 health attacks on Gaza, while publications from late 2024 report Israel as having killed over 1,000 healthcare workers. The WHO also claimed that 128 healthcare workers were in detention within the same account. Both The New York Times and Human Rights Watch estimate that number is higher, nearing 300. Whichever way you spin it, Israel is conducting intentional and continuous assaults on the institution of healthcare, and allowing such a transgression to continue is a threat to everyone, everywhere. 

The intention of this article is two-fold: a purposeful stare at the state of health in Gaza—a refusal to look away from what is undoubtedly a horrific catastrophe—and a recognition of only a handful of Gaza’s most dedicated physicians. Many have unfortunately been martyred. All of them have left behind a legacy that cannot be allowed to fade. As a pre-medical student myself, I find it impossible to step towards a future in medicine without bringing their stories with me. They are some of the most honorable people, whom I have never had the chance to meet. It is my hope that you will find inspiration and strength in their commitment to humanity, no matter what path you choose to take in life, and that through you, they may live on forever. 

Dr. Hammam Alloh

I remember reading transcripts from Dr. Alloh’s interview on DemocracyNow! back at the beginning of November of 2023. A prominent nephrologist at Al-Shifa Hospital, he described the conditions of working in an environment without the proper supplies, a commonality even a month into Israel’s incursion. Patients who into cardiac arrest were not resuscitated, because there were no ventilators; fuel was rapidly running out, meaning that patients in the ICU or exiting surgery were at imminent risk of dying; Dr. Alloh’s dialysis unit was being partially converted into extra space for the flood of emergency room patients. When Amy Goodman asked Dr. Alloh why he wasn’t fleeing further south with his wife and two children—a four-year-old and a five-year-old—he answered with a devastating set of questions back: “You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees, for a total of 14 years, so I [can] think only about my life and not my patients? I’m asking you, ma’am. Do you think the reason I went to med school [was] to think only about my life?”

On November 12th, Dr. Alloh was killed by Israeli airstrikes, cutting his life short at the age of 36. His father, father-in-law, and brother-in-law were martyred in the same attack. 

Dr. Iyad Rantisi

As director of the Kamal Adwan hospital’s maternity department, Dr. Rantisi spent the beginning months of Israel’s bombardment treating patients who were pregnant, laboring, or post-partum. But in early November of 2023, Dr. Rantisi joined his family—his wife and three children—in making the journey south, to land that Israeli forces had deemed a “safe area.” His 19-year-old daughter, Dina, remembers her father being called out to by a nearby soldier saying “Nurse, come,” before he disappeared. The family would have no idea as to his whereabouts until seven months later when Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, released information that he had been killed six days into his detention. 

Dr. Rantisi had been taken hostage by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, which is largely responsible for internal counterintelligence operations. While specific details have still not yet been released, the Shin Bet has a history of “systematic torture” according to various human rights organizations, and primarily target Palestinians in their violence. Despite his role as a humanitarian in times of crisis, Dr. Rantisi had been detained on suspicions of aiding in the holding of Israeli hostages, a crime for which the Shin Bet provided no proof of him committing. His death was the second recorded killing of a physician in Israel during 2023. 

 

Zakaria

         The first video I ever saw of Zakaria caught me off guard, thinking: What is this child doing working so hard, pushing patients around in stretchers, wiping down hospital beds? He was flying across the screen, running through hallways full of Palestinians sheltering in place. One of the paramedics working alongside the 11-year-old said Zakaria didn’t like being treated like a child. “He wants us to treat him like he’s one of the paramedics,” a member of the Palestinian Red Crescent says. His grandfather worries Zakaria will never feel at peace among kids his age again, that he’s grown too much, too fast. The boy estimates that he’s seen at least 5,000 bodies with his own eyes.  

Dr. Thabat Salim

In December of 2023, Jezebel interviewed a handful of Gazan healthcare workers to discuss the worsening conditions for newborns and pregnant people. In it, Dr. Thabat Salim, an OB/GYN working for the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association, discussed the more sordid details of her day-to-day work. “Premature babies are particularly vulnerable, with many dying due to a lack of oxygen and incubator availability,” she told the reporters. At the time, only 9 of Gaza’s 17 partially functioning hospitals were able to provide maternal care, alongside only 4 field hospitals. At only 30 years old, Dr. Salim was less than a decade into her medical career. In January of 2024, she was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp while treating women and children. 

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

Serving not only as a pediatrician and neonatologist, but also as the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of Gaza, Dr. Abu Safiya treated patients who were quickly losing access to the necessary supplies for survival. Northern Gaza has suffered the brunt of military attacks as well as being largely cut off from shipments of aid like fuel, food, and water. Dr. Abu Safiya experienced the violence intimately not only as a Palestinian shelter-in-place at the hospital while performing his medical duties, but also by the loss of his 15-year-old son, Ibrahim, on October 25th, 2024 during an Israeli strike on the hospital itself.  

In November, following a surgery he conducted, Dr. Abu Safiya was injured in an Israeli air strike, resulting in six shrapnel wounds to his leg. I learned of him not through his documentation of daily life on Instagram, but through an aerial photo of him. A bright white coat among the rubble, Dr. Abu Safiya walks toward Israeli tanks, soldiers somewhere off-frame rounding up over 100 medical workers from the besieged hospital. On December 27th, 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya was kidnapped by the IOF and detained. Palestinians being released from the Sde Teiman camp claimed to have seen him brought there. 

Recent interview footage released on Israel’s Channel 13 shows the 51-year-old physician being led around in handcuffs by a barrage of heavily armed guards. He is significantly thinner, his skin wan, his tone even. While the international community calls for his release, Israeli officials have given no timeline for his stay in their notorious prisons. It seems his only crime is continuing to provide care when invading forces demanded he leave his patients behind.