Among those murdered since the genocide began are Gaza’s most distinguished medical minds. They include Dr Omar Farwana, former dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza; Dr Rafat Lubbad, director of Hamad Hospital for Artificial Limbs; Dr Soma Baroud, prominent obstetrician-gynaecologist; Dr Ahmed al-Maqadma, a prominent reconstructive surgeon; Dr Sayeed Joudeh, the last orthopaedic surgeon in northern Gaza; Dr Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopaedic surgery in al-Shifa Hospital; and Dr Iyad al-Rantisi, head of a women’s hospital in Beit Lahiya.
Dr Soma and Dr Sayeed were killed on their way to work. Dr Adnan and Dr Iyad died under torture in Israeli detention.
More than 180 are in Israeli detention centres, including Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been detained since December 2024.
Medical infrastructure – protected under international humanitarian law – continues to be a primary target. The World Health Organization has documented 734 such attacks since the war began. Hospitals have been turned into graveyards.
This is not collateral damage; this is medicide – the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s capacity to live. Each murdered doctor represents the loss of years of training, commitment and the potential to save lives. Each bombed hospital is the dismantling of Gaza’s capacity to heal itself, to survive, to endure. These are not just lives lost; they are futures destroyed.
This is the reality in Gaza right now. It has little to do with Israel’s declared military objectives of eliminating the Islamic resistance movement – Hamas – or securing the return of the captives taken on October 7, 2023.
Rather, it is what I termed al-Ibādah – the Destruction. Al-Ibādah is the comprehensive annihilation of a people’s social, cultural, intellectual and biological continuity – a process of total erasure. And exterminating medical workers is a key element of it.
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