As Channel 4 aired the ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ documentary that the BBC refused to broadcast last night, an Israeli airstrike killed one of the Strip’s most senior doctors.
Dr Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, was killed in his apartment in Gaza City on the same day the film, presented by investigative reporter Ramita Navai, was shown.
Dr Al-Sultan is the 70th healthcare worker to be killed by Israeli attacks in the last 50 days, according to the Palestinian medical organisation Healthcare Workers Watch.
A relative of Dr al-Sultan’s said several of his family members, including his wife, his daughters and his son-in-law, died alongside him.
His death has been described as a ‘catastrophic’ loss to the besieged enclave’s already decimated healthcare system.
Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, said: ‘We are in great shock and grief. He cannot be replaced.’
The Israeli military said it had struck a ‘key terrorist’ from Hamas. They said they are ‘reviewing’ reports that ‘uninvolved civilians’ were harmed in the attack.
‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ was first commissioned by the BBC, but was dropped after a previous documentary – ‘Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone’ – sparked an impartiality row.
The documentary, which has been described as an ‘unceasing timeline of horrors’, was picked up by Channel 4 and Zeteo late in the day. The Guardian and other outlets have given it five stars.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel, in which at least 1,195 Israelis and 79 foreign nationals were killed, doctors in the enclave have been treating patients without access to proper sanitation, medication, electricity or water.
The Indonesian Hospital, which is the largest medical facility north of Gaza City, has been a critical lifeline since the start of the war. It was forced to close in January due to repeated Israeli bombardment.
When accused of targeting hospitals and medical facilities, the IDF said they ‘regret any harm to uninvolved individuals’ and ‘operate to mitigate harm to them as much as possible’.
Under Article 18 of the Geneva Convention, civilian hospitals, ambulances and field hospitals ‘may in no circumstances be the object of attack’.
International law and the Geneva Convention also prohibit the deliberate harm of medical staff who are not engaged in combat.
In April, the IDF fired on marked ambulances and a fire truck with emergency lights flashing. They later said their soldiers did not randomly attack any ambulances, insisting they fired on ‘terrorists’ approaching them in ‘suspicious vehicles’.
The only hospital fully operating in Gaza is Nasser Hospital, in the south of the Strip. The rest are either destroyed or operating at minimal capacity due to damage and the death of their staff.
The Channel 4 documentary includes footage of doctors being detained. They claim they were tortured by the IDF, but the IDF has denied this.
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Medglobal, a medical NGO based in the US, says it believes more than 300 healthcare workers are in Israeli prisons.
Since yesterday morning, Israeli attacks have killed 40 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry, with four children and seven women among the dead.
Today, Amnesty International has said the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is being used to distribute aid in Gaza, is using starvation tactics against Palestinians to commit genocide.
They condemned Israel and the GHF, which has taken over aid distribution in Gaza in place of a network led by the United Nations.
In response, Israel’s foreign ministry claimed that Amnesty – a British organisation – ‘joined forces with Hamas’ to ‘adopt propaganda lies’.
Photos and videos, along with official reports from Palestinian officials and witnesses, have shown Israeli forces opening fire at crowds of people near the sites.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, said: ‘This devastating daily loss of life as desperate Palestinians try to collect aid is the consequence of their deliberate targeting by Israeli forces and the foreseeable consequence of irresponsible and lethal methods of distribution.’
The IDF claims it has fired warning shots to control crowds and only fires at people it says are acting suspiciously.
The Foreign Ministry and COGAT, the Israeli defence body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said Israel has facilitated the entry of more than 3,000 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip since May 19.
Israel has rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic ‘blood libel’.
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