‘Medicine can be imported, doctors cannot’: IDF killing hundreds of Gaza medical workers deepens crisis
A clinic that was converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians after an Israeli airstrike 7 July 2025
Nir Hasson and Jack Khoury report in Haaretz on 8 July 2025:
An Israel Air Force jet fired a missile at a tent in northwest Khan Yunis on Saturday. At least four men were killed in the strike: Dr. Musa Khafajeh, a top gynecologist in Gaza, and three of his children. Besides Dr. Khafajeh, Israeli fire has killed many other medical personnel in recent months: For example, three days earlier, a missile hit an apartment in western Gaza City, killing seven people, including Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, and four of his relatives.
On June 6, the first day of the Eid Al-Adha holiday, dozens of people were killed across Gaza, including Dr. Eyda Khader, head of the midwifery department at the Gaza Health Ministry; her sister Faten, a nurse; Deib Al-Batah, the chief nurse at the Indonesian Hospital, who was killed with his two children; and other medical personnel.
In late May, Dr. Ahmad Nabhan, head of the emergency department at the Indonesian Hospital, was killed when a missile fired from a drone hit his house in Jabalya, according to Palestinian sources. Three days earlier, nurse Ahmed E’dal Abu Khalal was killed by an airstrike on Al-Mawasi. Two days before that, a missile hit the house of the couple Dr. Hamdi and Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar in Khan Yunis, killing nine of their 10 children. The father later died of his wounds.
On April 22, Dr. Rawya Al-Harazin was wounded by shots fired as she got off a bus at Abasan al-Kabira in southern Gaza. Her husband, Dr. Nahed Abu Taima, the director of Nasser Hospital, has been detained for 18 months.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 1,580 doctors and medical personnel have been killed by Israeli fire since October 7, 2023. Several of them were killed while carrying out their duties: The best-known cases are the death of 15 paramedics in Rafah in March, and the killing of an ambulance crew that tried to rescue 6-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024.
But many medical personnel have been killed along with their families in their homes or displaced persons tents. The IDF rejects the claims of deliberately harming healthcare workers, calling it “collateral damage.” Nonetheless, the army is not offering alternative explanations for its multiple strikes on hospitals, ambulances and medical personnel.
There is a disagreement over the exact number of casualties. Over a year ago, Reuters reported that Israel had killed 55 specialist doctors in Gaza. In October, Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine reported that it had documented the death of 587 medical personnel and that hundreds of other cases were being checked. It said that the rate of deaths had increased in recent months, claiming that in the past 50 days, Israel had killed 70 doctors and medical personnel. It said that in the wave of strikes on June 5-6, nine medical personnel were killed in IDF strikes.
Of all the damage the war has caused Gaza’s health system, the killing of senior doctors appears to be the hardest to cope with. Following the death of the Indonesian Hospital’s Al-Sultan, Aseel Aburass, the managing director of the Occupied Palestinian Territory Department at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said, “Medications can be imported, doctors cannot. He was killed, and we’ll have to wait 30 years until a specialist can be replaced.” Dr. Al-Sultan was the last hospital director in northern Gaza who was not killed or arrested.
Early in the war, the directors of the Kamal Adwan and El-Awda hospitals were arrested. Kamal Adwan Hospital’s replacement director was arrested in December. Al-Sultan was also one of the last two cardiologists in northern Gaza, and his death greatly reduced the chances of cardiac patients in Gaza surviving.
In a photo of the Islamic University’s medical school graduation ceremony in 2022, Al-Sultan is standing next to three other senior doctors. All have since died: the director of the Internal Medicine Hospital, Dr. Rafat Labad, and the former dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Omar Farwana, were killed in bombings early in the war. The fourth doctor, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, died in detention at Ofer Prison in the West Bank. His family says that he was completely healthy before his arrest and died of torture and starvation.
HWW says that the following Shifa Hospital department heads have been killed since the outbreak of the war: internal medicine, maternity, emergency, pathology, radiology and orthopedics. The Shifa Hospital director was arrested and released, and three replacement department directors have also been arrested.
Dr. Al-Sultan was a very well-known figure in northern Gaza. Like the directors of other hospitals in Gaza, he became a symbol of sacrifice for his patients. The IDF put the hospital under siege in early May. A few weeks later, in an interview with an Indonesian news station, he said, “We’re standing with our patients at the hospital. Our message is for you to pressure your governments to make the Israelis cease firing.” He was forced to evacuate with the patients days later. The families of patients dragged the beds of their beloveds through Jabalya’s broken streets, the patient’s limbs dragging.
Dr. Ezzideen Shehab, a colleague, eulogized Al-Sultan, “He did not believe in force, only in being present. He would walk among the wounded as if their pain was his. His hands are soaked in the blood of strangers, yet his hands did not shake. He did not stand over us, but beside us, shoulder-to-shoulder, not as a director, but as a brother in despair. When the sirens sounded, he did not flee; he only looked to heaven and whispered, ‘Get ready.’ Not in fear, but in readiness, because he knew that the world isn’t a place for delicate people.”
The IDF besieged the hospital for months before forcing everyone to leave. Afterward, Al-Sultan established medical aid stations in private homes and public buildings in Shujaiyeh and Sheikh Radwan. “We were constantly ordered to evacuate, we constantly had to improvise anew, but he did not leave and did not remove his gown,” said Salah Haj Yahya, Director of the Mobile Clinic at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
The strike that killed Al-Sultan also took his wife, sister, daughter and son-in-law. The Guardian quotes another daughter, Lobna, as saying that the family had rented the apartment shortly before the strike, after it was evacuated from their home near the hospital. The airstrike specifically targeted the room her father was in. “All the rooms were fine except for his, the missile hit it precisely,” she told The Guardian. His son Ahmed said there was “no other explanation.”
In response, the army told The Guardian that “The IDF struck a key terrorist from the Hamas terrorist organization in the area of Gaza City. The claim that as a result of the strike uninvolved civilians were harmed is being reviewed.” The army did not clarify whether Dr. Al-Sultan was the targeted “terrorist.”
Criticism is growing in Israel and around the world against what is perceived as deliberate Israeli strikes against medical personnel in Gaza. Last week, in an extraordinary step, the British Medical Association cut ties with the Israel Medical Association until it condemns the attacks on Gaza’s health system. In Israel, 600 medical personnel signed a petition calling for an end to attacks on Gaza’s health system and for a clear IMA statement on the subject.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Office declined to respond to questions about the recently killed doctors and asked Haaretz to provide the exact coordinates of the strikes.
As for Al-Sultan’s death, the army said, “The IDF struck a key terrorist from the Hamas terrorist organization in the area of Gaza City. The claim that as a result of the strike uninvolved civilians were harmed is being reviewed. The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to mitigate harm to them as much as possible. The Hamas terrorist organization systematically violates international law while using civilian infrastructure for terrorist activity and the civilian population as human shields. The incident is under review.”
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