Palestinians carry a dead body at al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the medical complex following a two-week siege, in Gaza City, April 1, 2024. (Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)
A reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ahmad Maqadmeh, was found killed at al-Shifa Hospital on Monday along with his mother, who was also a doctor, said his friend and colleague, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah in an interview with Democracy Now. The Israeli army withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital on Monday after a two-week raid that left most of the medical complex in ruins.
The government media office in Gaza announced that roughly 400 people were killed during the operation, while the World Health Organization stated more than 100 patients still remain in the compound, at least 28 in critical condition.
Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, spent over a month treating patients at al-Shifa Hospital and al-Ahli Hospital as a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and is also a founding member of the International Network for Aid, Relief & Assistance. He told Democracy Now that Maqadmeh and his mother had been "executed by the Israeli army while trying to escape Shifa."
He told the American news outlet that he blamed Western journalists “who perpetuated the narrative that militarized the hospital as a justifiable and acceptable target.”
Abu-Sittah also posted on X, paying tribute to Maqadmeh, saying: "He spent this war going from al-Shifa hospital to al-Quds Hospital and when he was free, he would join me at al-Ahli. Always dedicated, always wanting to learn. He refused to leave the north and kept sending me photos of his surgeries. He leaves behind a wife and baby."
Abu-Sittah also mentioned that Maqadmeh was a former recipient of the UK's Royal College of Surgeons' humanitarian innovation fellowship.
Even prior to the army’s second raid of al-Shifa Hospital, starting two weeks ago, the Gaza Health Ministry said that more than 100 medical professionals had been detained since Oct. 7. The number has certainly risen following the recent detention of hundreds of people from al-Shifa Hospital.
As Palestinians walk through the charred-out buildings of al-Shifa, once the flagship facility for healthcare services in Gaza, and carry bodies left scattered throughout the complex by the Israeli troops, an Israeli government spokesperson tells reporters that he believed the operation at al-Shifa “will be studied by future generations of military strategists at West Point and Sandhurst as the gold standard for urban warfare.”
In late February, the Washington Post interviewed an anesthesiologist working at Nasser Hospital, located in Khan Younis, who described being forced to leave his post to flee south, needing to care for his family of six children. He left Nasser with three colleagues but was the only one to complete the journey. The others were spooked by the Israeli army’s heavy patrolling along the main road used by those fleeing the fighting. They turned back toward the hospital. One colleague was shot and the other two he believed were among the 70 healthcare workers from Nasser detained by the Israeli army.
He told the American newspaper that he thought maybe he had survived passing through the army checkpoint because he was carrying a baby he found abandoned amid the chaos of the hospital’s evacuation.