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GAZA CITY — After Dr. Thabat Islim finished her shift at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, she would head directly to a house to treat a group of elderly women.
The 30-year-old pediatrician was known for her love and dedication to treating children — but had begun also caring for the older women amid the extremely dire situation in Gaza since the relentless Israeli bombing had begun.
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But on this day earlier this month, the young doctor wouldn’t survive her extra shift. An Israeli airstrike hit the house, killing Islim and injuring most of the older women inside the house.
Islim had studied medicine in Vinnitsa University in Ukraine in 2016, and she was fluent in English, Russian, Ukrainian along with her native Arabic, according to her colleague and cousin Ahmed.
Aside from her work in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, she used to visit medical points, clinics and shelters across central Gaza to treat displaced people. “Islim was a distinguished nursery doctor who mastered the skills and procedures of premature babies amid the harsh conditions of war,” Dr. Mourner al-Boursh, general director of the health ministry, wrote Islim on X platform after her killing.
Islim is just one of hundreds of doctors who have been killed either in hospitals or clinics where they work, or in their homes, since the 15-month war between Hamas and Israel in what rights groups say is systematic attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system.
Systemic attacks on healthcare
The Israeli military has repeatedly raided and bombed medical facilities across Gaza, claiming that Hamas fighters were there. It also imposed a nearly complete blockade on the enclave, leaving hospitals struggling to provide health care to tens of thousands of wounded and patients.
At least 1,000 healthcare workers have been killed in the war
“The dismantling of Gaza’s health system by the Israeli blockade, which is endangering people’s lives, must stop immediately,” Doctors Without Borders said last week.
Many healthcare workers, doctors and medics were either killed or detained on claims that they were Hamas operatives without charging them or referring them to trial. At least 1,000 healthcare workers have been killed in the war, according to the Health Ministry.
The Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the biggest in the enclave, was raided, burned and severely damaged twice during the war.
During the first raid in November 2023, Israel’s military detained Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital’s director, claimed that he was a Hamas officer – but then released him seven months later without charges.
Remember us
Each physician, who was killed or detained by the Israeli military, has his or her own painful story. Some managed to tell their stories while others didn’t.
Whoever survives until the end will tell the whole story
“We did everything we could. Whoever survives until the end will tell the whole story, will tell how we did what no human being on earth can do,” Dr. Mahmoud Abu Najila wrote on the wall of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza before his killing. “Remember us.”
Dr. Abu Najila was killed before he could tell the story of the pain he experienced inside the Indonesian Hospital, the horrors of the Israeli bombing, and the suffering of the wounded and patients amid lack of oxygen, and power outage.
His brief words on the hospital wall summed up the harsh days he and his colleagues lived through while they were trapped inside the facility amid relentless bombing.
A neurologist and his father
There was also Dr. Hamam Al-Louh, the sole neurologist specializing in kidney transplant in the Palestinian enclave. He was working in Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility which the Israeli military raided and destroyed twice.
Al-Louh didn’t heed orders to evacuate the hospital early in the war. He said in an interview: “If I left, who would treat the patients? They are human beings who deserve health care, not animals. Do you think that I studied medicine for more than 14 years, just to think about my own life and leave the patients? No, I won’t leave.”
A few days after this interview, an Israeli warplane struck al-Louh’s home in Gaza City on November 12, 2023. He was killed along with his father.
Where is Abu Safiya?
Most recently in northern Gaza where the Israeli military once again launched a major new ground offensive, hospitals were besieged, bombed and forced to evacuate.
For about three months Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya, resisted the Israeli threats, bombing and the killing of his colleagues and his son inside the hospital.
Late last month, the Israeli military stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital, detaining hundreds of Palestinians, including Abu Safiya and many of his colleagues. A photo showing Abu Safiya, wearing his white coat and walking towards an Israeli tank amid the rubble in a Hollywood-like scene went viral.
Witnesses said the forces mistreated and beat Abu Safiya during his detention.
The military denied the claims, but has offered no information about the physician, nor revealed his whereabouts.
