BEIRUT – Dr. Hassan Hamdan was one of the few trained plastic surgeons in Gaza, specializing in wound reconstruction. His skills were in vital need when Israel’s military assault filled hospitals with patients torn apart by explosions 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, while his family took shelter in their home in a “safe zone” declared by Israel.
Israel’s 9-month-old son war with Hamas in Gaza has decimated the territory’s medical system. Israeli attacks caused physical destruction in hospitals and health facilities were hit and evacuated. But it also devastated Gaza’s medical personnel. More than 500 health professionals have been killed since October, either during attacks on hospitals or in strikes on homes, according to the UN
Israel says it is targeting Hamas, which it says is integrated into the medical system, using hospitals as military command centers and ambulances to transport fighters. Gaza health professionals deny the accusation.
Many of those killed in the campaign were experts like Hamdan.
Ahmed al-Maqadma, also a reconstructive surgeon and former fellow at the Royal College of the United Kingdom, was found shot dead alongside his mother, a general practitioner, in a street opposite the Shifa hospital in Gaza City after an two-week raid on the premises. by Israeli forces in April.
One of Gaza’s most prominent fertility doctors, Omar Ferwana, was killed along with his family in an attack on his home in October. The territory’s only liver transplant doctor, Hamam Alloh, was killed in an attack on his home in Gaza City.
Tank shelling of a hospital in northern Gaza during a siege in November killed three doctors, including two doctors who worked for Doctors Without Borders, according to the group. They are among a total of six staff at the international charity killed in the war.
Israel detained doctors and medical personnel. At least two died in Israeli detention, allegedly from mistreatment: the head of Shifa’s orthopedics department, Adnan al-Bursh, and the head of a women’s hospital, Iyad al-Rantisi. Israel did not return the bodies of either man. Hundreds of other medical workers have been displaced or completely abandoned Gaza.
Along with the personal cost, their deaths strip Gaza’s medical system of its skills when they have become crucial.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 – which left around 1,200 people dead and 250 kidnapped – Israel’s campaign has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza and injured more than 88,000, according to local health officials. Malnutrition and disease became widespread as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crowded into squalid camps.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former U.S. Army combat plastic surgeon who volunteered in Gaza in May, said Hamdan’s death “leaves a significant void that will be difficult to fill.”
Like many in Gaza, he believes Israel is deliberately destroying the health system. Israel besieged, invaded and occupied at least eight hospitals, causing great destruction, and targeting medical convoys and ambulances.
The Israeli army said in a statement that Hamawy’s accusation was “outrageous.”
Israel accused Hamas of gathering and regrouping its forces in hospitals and showed evidence of some Hamas presence in hospitals, including weapons caches, a single dead-end tunnel under the Shifa hospital, and videos of militants bringing several injured hostages to hospitals. But the evidence he has made public does not appear to show significant command centers.
Under international humanitarian law, hospitals enjoy protected status, but may lose that status if they are used for military purposes. Even so, any military operations against them must be proportionate to the threat and balanced against harm to civilians.
Twenty-three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are out of service and the rest are only partially functioning, according to the latest UN data. Only five of the nine field hospitals are operational. And more than 60% of Gaza’s primary health facilities have closed.
Hamdan’s death leaves just one more specialist in reconstructive plastic surgery in Gaza. Other doctors had to learn skills to repair serious injuries on the job, amid incessant daily waves of maimed patients.
Hamawy saw the need firsthand during his work in Gaza as part of an international medical team that came to help the territory’s healthcare 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 the treatment and reconstruction of war injuries. Two hospital colleagues were killed in attacks on their homes while he was there and he spoke to doctors who had been released from Israeli detention and described being torturedhe said.
Hamawy said a general surgeon at the hospital stepped in to meet the demand for plastic surgeons but had no formal training. Five medical students volunteered with him.
They “are doing what they can to fill the gap,” Hamawy said.
On July 2, the European General Hospital evacuated its staff and patients, fearing attack. That left Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah and a field hospital in Rafah as the only facilities capable of offering reconstructive surgery, said Dr. Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, Gaza’s last reconstructive plastic surgery specialist.
Al-Mokhallalati said he has been running between hospitals, supervising the treatment of 400 patients in one and 500 in another. At the Rafah field hospital, he performed up to 10 surgeries a day.
“It’s a very critical situation,” he said.
Hamdan founded the burns and plastic surgery department at Khan Younis’ Nasser Medical complex in 2002, after serving in the territory’s first such unit at Shifa hospital. He headed the Nasser department until 2019, when he retired.
When the Israeli army invaded Hamdan’s hometown of Khan Younis in December, he returned to volunteer at Nasser, Gaza’s second largest hospital, said his son Osama Hamdan, an orthopedic surgeon. His colleagues said he was calm under pressure. “The smile never left his face,” said Dr. Mohamad Awad, a surgeon who worked with him.
Shortly afterwards, Israeli forces besieged and invaded the Nasser Hospital, forcing its evacuation. Hamdan was displaced and took shelter in the house of one of his daughters in Deir al-Balah, further north.
Troops occupied the Nasser hospital for weeks, causing extensive damage. After they withdrew, the installation was rehabilitated. In mid-June, Hamdan returned home and discussed returning to work with hospital officials.
On July 1, Israel ordered another evacuation of Khan Younis. Hamdan and his family fled again, returning to his daughter’s home in Deir al-Balah.
Just hours after they arrived, an airstrike hit the building on July 2 – “a direct hit with two rockets on my sister’s apartment,” said Osama Hamdan. He said no one in the family was affiliated with militant groups.
The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on the attack.
Osama was on duty at the Nasser hospital emergency room when he received the call. His wife and two children – aged 3 and 5 – were among the dead.
“I was only able to collect some body parts from my children and their mother because of the size of the explosion,” he said.
One of her sisters died days later in hospital from her injuries. Another sister remains in the ICU.
Osama is feeling partially responsible. “I pressured him to leave Khan Younis,” he said in a text message, marked with two broken heart emojis.
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This story has been corrected to show that Israel ordered the evacuation of Khan Younis on July 1, not July 2, and that the airstrike that hit the building in Deir al-Balah occurred on July 2, not July 3 July.
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