BEIRUT: 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 UN.
Among them were many specialists like Hamdan.
Dr. Ahmed Al-Maqadma, also a reconstructive surgeon and a former fellow at UK 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 working with Doctors Without Borders. They are among six staffers killed from the international charity, which focuses on reconstructive and orthopedic surgeries, physiotherapy and burn care in Gaza.
Israel has detained doctors and medical staff. At least two have died in Israeli detention, allegedly of ill-treatment: the head of Shifa’s orthopedics department, Adnan Al-Bursh, and the head of a women’s hospital, Iyad Al-Rantisi. Israel has not returned either man’s body. Hundreds of other medical workers have been displaced or left Gaza altogether.
Along with the personal toll, their deaths rob Gaza’s medical system of their skills when they have become crucial.
Since the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7 — which left some 1,200 people dead and 250 kidnapped — Israel’s campaign has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to local health officials. Malnutrition and disease have become widespread as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians cram into squalid tent camps.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former US Army combat plastic surgeon who volunteered in Gaza in May, said Hamdan’s death “leaves a significant void that will be hard to fill.”
Like many in Gaza, he believes Israel is deliberately destroying the health system, pointing to how Israeli forces have raided hospitals, destroyed medical complexes, fired on medical convoys and hit ambulances. Israel says it is targeting Hamas, which it says uses hospitals as command centers and ambulances for transport. The military has provided limited evidence for its claims.
Twenty-three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are out of service, and the rest are only partially functioning, according to the latest UN figures. Only five field hospitals out of nine are operational. And more than 60 percent of Gaza’s primary health facilities have shut down.
Hamdan’s death leaves only one other specialist in reconstructive plastic surgery in Gaza. Other doctors have had to learn the skills of repairing major wounds on the job amid relentless daily waves of maimed patients.
Hamawy saw firsthand the need during his work in Gaza as part of an international medical team that came to help the territory’s health workers.
During three weeks at the European General Hospital in Khan Younis, he said he performed 120 surgeries, more than half of them on children, and all but one of them for treatment and reconstruction of war wounds. Two colleagues at the hospital were killed in strikes on their homes while he was there, and he spoke to doctors who had been released from Israeli detention and described being tortured, he said.
Hamawy said a general surgeon at the hospital stepped in to fill the demand for plastic surgeons, but he had no formal training. Five medical students volunteered with him.
They “are doing their best to fill in the gap,” Hamawy said.
On July 2, the European General Hospital evacuated its staff and patients, fearing it would be attacked. That left Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah and a field hospital in Rafah as the only facilities able to offer reconstructive surgery, said Dr. Ahmed Al-Mokhallalati, Gaza’s last reconstructive plastic surgery specialist.
Al-Mokhallalati said he has been rushing between hospitals, at one point overseeing treatment for 400 patients in one and 500 in another. At the Rafah field hospital, he was doing up to 10 surgeries a day.
“It is a very critical situation,” he said.
Hamdan founded the burns and plastic surgery department in Khan Younis’ Nasser Medical complex in 2002, after serving at the territory’s first such unit, at Shifa hospital. He headed the department at Nasser until 2019, when he retired.
When the Israeli army invaded Hamdan’s home city of Khan Younis in December, he returned as a volunteer at Nasser, Gaza’s second largest hospital, said his son Osama Hamdan, an orthopedic surgeon. His colleagues said he was cool under pressure. “The smile never left his face,” said Dr. Mohamad Awad, a surgeon who worked with him.
Soon after, Israeli forces besieged and raided Nasser Hospital, forcing its evacuation. Hamdan was displaced, taking shelter in the home of one of his daughters in Deir Al-Balah, further north.
Troops occupied Nasser hospital for weeks, wreaking extensive damage. After they withdrew, the facility was rehabilitated. In mid-June, Hamdan returned home and was discussing returning to work with hospital officials.
On July 2, Israel ordered another evacuation of Khan Younis. Hamdan and his family fled again, returning to his daughter’s home in Deir Al-Balah.
Only hours after they arrived, an airstrike hit the building on July 3 – “a direct hit with two rockets on my sister’s apartment,” Osama Hamdan said. He said no one in the family was affiliated with militant groups.
The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on the strike.
Osama was on duty in the emergency room at Nasser hospital when he received the call. His wife and two sons – 3 and 5 years old – were among those killed.
“I was only able to collect some body parts of my kids and their mother because of how huge the explosion was,” he said.
One of his sisters died days later in the hospital from her wounds. Another sister remains in intensive care.
Osama is feeling partially responsible. “I had pressed him to leave Khan Younis,” he said in a text message, marked with two broken hearts emojis.
As Gaza’s doctors struggle to save lives, many lose their own in Israeli airstrikes
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As Gaza’s doctors struggle to save lives, many lose their own in Israeli airstrikes

- Israel’s 9-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza has decimated the territory’s medical system
- One of Gaza’s most prominent fertility doctors, Omar Ferwana, was killed along with his family in a strike on his home in October
Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say
Officials said this is the first attack of its kind in months
BAGHDAD: An unidentified drone attack killed a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and injured another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah on Saturday, security sources and local officials said, the first attack of its kind in months.
Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire

- The ministry said: “There was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut
- Three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained
BAGHDAD: Iraq has detained six local officials and suspended other public employees following a fire that killed 61 people at a shopping mall earlier this week, authorities said Saturday.
The blaze, which broke out late Wednesday in a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern city of Kut, is the latest fatal disaster in a country where safety regulations are often ignored.
After an initial investigation, the interior ministry said “there was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut, located around 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
It added that three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained, and 17 employees suspended from work until further notice.
The Commission of Integrity, an anti-graft body, said later that security forces had detained three more officials “over the violations that led to the fire” at the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, including the head of the violations department at Kut’s municipality.
Officials say their investigation is ongoing, and the number of detainees may change.
Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often ignored, and the country — its infrastructure weakened by decades of conflict — frequently experiences fatal fires and accidents.
Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
The cause of the mall fire was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before the five-story building was rapidly engulfed in flames.
Several people told AFP they lost family members — and in some cases whole families — who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened.
Syrian government urges parties to respect truce in Druze region

- Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a separate speech said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm
DAMASCUS: Syria’s Islamist-led government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire after days of factional bloodshed that has left hundreds dead.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a separate speech said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticized Israel for airstrikes against Syrian government forces in the south and Damascus during the week.
Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence, which began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, before Damascus sent in government security forces.
Israel has carried out airstrikes in southern Syria and on the defense ministry in Damascus, saying it is protecting the Druze minority, of whom there are a significant number in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to end hostilities immediately.
The interior ministry said internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida.
Sharaa called for calm and said Syria would not be a “testing ground for partition, secession, or sectarian incitement.”
“The Israeli intervention pushed the country into a dangerous phase that threatened its stability,” he said in a televised speech.

US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkiye, Jordan and neighbors.
Barrack, who is both US ambassador to Turkiye and Washington’s Syria envoy, urged Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons “and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity.”
Israel has attacked Syrian military facilities and weaponry in the seven months since Sharaa’s forces toppled President Bashar Assad, and says it wants areas of southern Syria near its border to remain demilitarized.
On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for the next two days.
At least 32 killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid in Gaza, hospital says

- The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots at suspects who approached its troops
- Gaza resident Mohammed Al-Khalidi said he was in the group approaching the site and heard no warnings before the firing began
GAZA: At least 32 people were killed by Israeli fire while they were on their way to an aid distribution site in Gaza at dawn on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots at suspects who approached its troops after they did not heed calls to stop, about a kilometer away from an aid distribution site that was not active at the time.
Gaza resident Mohammed Al-Khalidi said he was in the group approaching the site and heard no warnings before the firing began. “We thought they came out to organize us so we can get aid, suddenly (I) saw the jeeps coming from one side, and the tanks from the other and started shooting at us,” he said.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund, a US-backed group which runs the aid site, said there were no incidents or fatalities there on Saturday and that it has repeatedly warned people not to travel to its distribution points at dark.
“The reported IDF (Israel defense Forces) activity resulting in fatalities occurred hours before our sites opened and our understanding is most of the casualties occurred several kilometers away from the nearest GHF site,” it said.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
DEATHS NEAR AID SITES
GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the accusation.
The UN has called the GHF’s model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards, which GHF denies.
On Tuesday, the UN rights office in Geneva said it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks in the vicinity of aid sites and food convoys in Gaza — the majority of them close to GHF distribution points.
Most of those deaths were caused by gunfire that locals have blamed on the Israeli military. The military has acknowledged that civilians were harmed, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions with “lessons learned.”
At least 18 more people were killed in other Israeli attacks across Gaza on Saturday, health officials said. The Israeli military said that it had struck militants’ weapon depots and sniping posts in a few locations in the enclave.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza.
The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed around 58,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis, leaving much of the territory in ruins.
Israel and Hamas are engaged in indirect talks in Qatar aimed at reaching a 60-day ceasefire though there has been no sign of any imminent breakthrough.
Trump says more hostages to be released from Gaza shortly

- Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive
- Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities
WASHINGTON: Another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, without providing additional details.
Trump made the comment during a dinner with lawmakers at the White House, lauding the efforts of his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since July 6, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire.
“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said.
Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive.
A spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, on Friday said the group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, but could revert to insisting on a full package deal if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations.
The truce proposal calls for 10 hostages held in Gaza to be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.