BEIRUT (AP) — Dr. Hassan Hamdan was one of the few trained plastic surgeons in Gaza, a specialist in wound reconstruction. His skills were vitally needed as Israel’s military onslaught filled hospitals with patients torn by blasts and shrapnel, so the 65-year-old came out of retirement to help.
Earlier this month, an Israeli airstrike killed him along with his wife, son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, six grandchildren and one other person, as his family sheltered in their home in an Israeli-declared “safe zone.” Israel’s 9-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza has decimated the territory’s medical system. It has not only wreaked physical destruction on hospitals and health facilities, it has devastated Gaza’s medical personnel.
More than 500 health care workers have been killed since October, according to the U.N. Among them were many specialists like Hamdan.
Dr. Ahmed al-Maqadma, also a reconstructive surgeon and a former fellow at U.K.
Royal College, was found shot to death alongside his mother, a general practitioner, on a street outside Gaza City’s Shifa hospital after a two-week raid on the facility by Israeli forces in April. One of Gaza’s most prominent fertility doctors, Omar Ferwana, was killed along with his family in a strike on his home in October. The territory’s only liver transplant doctor, Hamam Alloh, was killed in a hit on his home in Gaza City.
Israeli strikes in November on a northern Gaza hospital killed two doctors workin.