The bodies of two of Gaza’s most respected doctors, a mother and son, have been found among the dead after the Israeli army’s withdrawal from al-Shifa hospital, following its two-week siege of the medical complex.
Ahmad al-Maqadmeh, a Palestinian plastic surgeon in his early thirties, and his mother Yusra al-Maqadmeh, a general practitioner, were found dead alongside their cousin Bassem al-Maqadmeh at the roundabout next to the Carrefour Mall in Gaza City, a short walk from al-Shifa.
Both doctors were working at al-Shifa when the Israeli siege of Gaza’s largest medical complex began. They had lost contact with their family six or seven days ago and it is thought that they were executed by Israeli forces as they were trying to escape the hospital. Their bodies were found riddled with bullets.
Israeli military officials said that its forces had killed 200 people and arrested 900 during the 15-day assault on the hospital. Gaza’s civil defence said that around 300 people had been killed.
The army said it conducted its raid without harming civilians and medical personnel. Medical organisations and eyewitnesses strongly rejected that claim, with the deaths of Ahmad and Yusra al-Maqadmeh backing up these rejections.
I used to think there is no way the world of today could allow a Holocaust to happen. I used to think the entire world would rise up and stop it.
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” - Aaron Bushnell
RIP
I’m trying to figure out how 12 days of fighting happened but these guys didn’t leave? And patients still kept coming or something? How much Hamas was in there that it took 12 days of fighting to clear them out? So many questions.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor rights group said on Saturday that it documented “a series of crimes systematically committed by Israeli forces” in the area of the hospital in Gaza City over the past week.
“Initially assuring us no harm would come, they proceeded to kill at least 300 civilians. We were mere toys in their hands,” he said.
Over 500 individuals, including women and children, were also detained, he told MEE.
Men were stripped, beaten, blindfolded and handcuffed. We were herded into the courtyard and later subjected to interrogation,” he added.
Soldiers asked him whether he had encountered any Palestinian fighters. Following 45 minutes of interrogation per person, they were left naked outside the hospital, and received nothing for iftar except a small bottle of water.
"They stripped me and my brother down to our underwear and moved my wife and children downstairs after taking away her phone. My children were begging the soldiers to take me with them but they refused. They pushed my daughter to the floor and told her to go with her mother.”
"They took some of the men to another room and then we heard gunshots. The soldiers returned from that room without the men they took with them.”
"If anyone dared to request water, they were shot in the legs. We faced extreme hunger for two days.”
He added that he witnessed an eight-year-old boy being shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier after requesting to see his family.
The Israeli military has announced that it has killed and detained dozens of Palestinians during the ongoing raid. It claimed that those killed were fighters, and those arrested were suspected members of Hamas. The army, however, did not provide any evidence to support those claims.
War on Gaza: How Israeli soldiers assaulted Palestinians during the raid on al-Shifa hospital
