British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta stated that Israel’s aim is to render Gaza unfit for life by specifically targeting hospitals.
Abu Sitta, an expert in plastic and reconstructive surgery, told Anadolu Agency that he traveled to Gaza through Egypt with Doctors Without Borders on October 9, just two days after the onset of the Israeli war on the enclave.
He highlighted the considerable efforts he made to aid the residents of Gaza despite the scarce medical resources available in the local hospitals, up until November 18.
The surgeon, who won the Turkish TRT World Citizen Award, accused Israel of deliberately depriving Gaza of life-saving services.
Abu Sitta, who is in the Netherlands to pursue legal proceedings at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague, detailed the state of the hospitals in Gaza and the medical challenges he faced during his time there.
He also recounted the story of an unpublished interview he had with Anadolu Agency photographer Muatasim al-Sawaf just days before Sawaf was martyred in an Israeli airstrike.
Sawaf lost his life alongside his brother Marwan in an Israeli airstrike in front of their home at the beginning of the previous month.
Abu Sitta, looking at a photograph on the front page of Anadolu Agency’s evidence book, captured while he was giving a press statement among the bodies of children on the night the Baptist Hospital was bombed, said, “This photo was taken on the night of the Baptist Hospital massacre.”
Missile Strike
Abu Sitta continued, “I entered the area where the photo was taken with one of the wounded. There were many families taking shelter in the hospital. Around 18:00, a missile was fired at the area where these families had sought refuge, killing about 480 people.”
He explained that Israeli politicians and military leaders act with extreme clarity in their intentions to make Gaza uninhabitable.
“They want to cleanse Gaza of its inhabitants. One of the most effective ways to make a place uninhabitable is to destroy the health sector,” he added.
According to Abu Sitta, many medical supplies have been unavailable in Gaza since the beginning of the war, with morphine and anesthetics being depleted, which were used to relieve pain during surgeries.
“Unfortunately, we could not take many patients into the operating room since many of the injured were becoming infected. The only way to prevent these wounds from becoming infected and save the patient’s life was to conduct very painful debridement surgeries without anesthesia,” he added.
He pointed out that working conditions in Gaza became extremely difficult due to the bombings and evacuations of hospitals.
“We were transferring the injured from one hospital to another, and I was also moving from one hospital to another. For this reason, we lost track of patients.”
Abu Sitta continued, “After Al-Shifa Hospital fell, and the Baptist Community Hospital became the only functioning hospital in Gaza, we were trying to treat 500 wounded people, and we were cut off from the outside world for several days. Sawaf came to us and met me and another surgeon colleague, and I was very impressed by his bravery.”
Abu Sitta mentioned that the interview was about the conditions in the hospital, and afterwards, Sawaf proceeded to film the wounded in the facility.
Despite Israeli threats of launching new attacks, Sawaf filmed the condition of the wounded and the destruction following the Israeli forces’ attack on the Baptist Community Hospital, Abu Sitta said. “He (Sawaf) was a very brave young man.”
“Unfortunately, I heard that a colleague of mine, who was a burn unit nurse at Al-Shifa Hospital, was killed alongside her brother. A few days later, we learned that the director of the emergency department at Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Haitham Abu Hani, was killed along with his wife and children,” Abu Sitta added.
Targeting Medical Staff
Every three days, we hear about our colleagues being wounded or killed by the Israelis. During this war, Israelis have killed 300 medical staff, Abu Sitta said.
Describing his day in Gaza: “As a father, taking care of all these injured children was psychologically very difficult for me. I was conducting 10 to 12 surgeries daily, finishing around 01:00 at night,” he added.
He also mentioned that he would soon travel to Turkey to receive the award granted to him by the English-speaking Turkish channel TRT World.
Since October 7, 2023, Gaza has been enduring a devastating war launched by the Israeli army, leaving, until Friday, 24,762 martyrs and 62,108 injured, and causing the displacement of around 1.9 million people, which is more than 85% of the enclave’s population, according to the local authorities and the United Nations.
