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- Israeli airstrikes killed Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, a top cardiologist and hospital director, alongside his family, intensifying Gaza’s healthcare collapse.
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- More than 70 healthcare workers have been systematically targeted and killed by Israel in 50 days, with medics and hospitals repeatedly bombed.
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- Global medical groups condemn the assassination as catastrophic, highlighting Israel’s deliberate strategy to dismantle Gaza’s healthcare system.
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- Families of slain doctors endure unimaginable trauma, with survivors facing lifelong physical and psychological scars.
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- Gaza’s civilians, including thousands of children, continue to die in designated “safe zones” as Israel faces accusations of genocide under international complicity.
The Israeli military’s ruthless campaign of annihilation in Gaza has claimed yet another innocent life — this time targeting one of the strip’s most vital physicians. On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes obliterated the home of Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City, murdering him alongside his wife, daughter, and son-in-law in a brutal assassination that further cripples Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system. His death marks the 70th healthcare worker killed by Israeli forces in just 50 days, underscoring what medical organizations call a “systematic” slaughter of lifesaving personnel.
This is not collateral damage. This is not a “mistake.” This is a deliberate strategy to ensure Palestinian suffering reaches unimaginable levels. Israel’s war machine, funded and armed by the U.S. government, continues to eradicate Gaza’s capacity to heal itself while the world watches in complicit silence. The Indonesian Hospital, once a lifeline for the wounded, has been non-functional since May after Israeli attacks destroyed its generators, proving that no facility, no medic, and no civilian is safe from Israel’s barbarity.
“A catastrophic loss”
The international medical community is reeling from al-Sultan’s assassination. “The killing of Dr. Marwan al-Sultan by the Israeli military is a catastrophic loss to Gaza and the entire medical community,” said Muath Alser, director of Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW). “This is part of a much longer and systematic atrocious targeting of healthcare workers sanctioned by impunity.”
Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, described al-Sultan as irreplaceable: “He was a prominent scholar and one of the two remaining cardiologists left in Gaza. Thousands of heart patients will suffer as a result of his killing. His only fault was that he was a doctor.”
But Israel doesn’t target doctors by “accident.” It targets them precisely because their work undermines Israel’s genocidal objective: to grind Gaza into dust. Al-Sultan had repeatedly warned the world about Israel’s deliberate dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system, yet the global response has been nothing but empty condemnations as body bags pile up.
The systematic extermination of Gaza’s healers
The numbers tell the horrifying story. Seventy healthcare workers executed in 50 days. Among them are three doctors, chief nurses, midwives, radiologists, and young trainees, all of whom were slaughtered while trying to save lives. On June 6 alone, nine medics were massacred in airstrikes while sheltering with their families.
This is far from an isolated incident. In May, Israeli bombs killed nine out of ten children belonging to pediatrician Dr. Alaa al-Najjar and her husband, Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar, both dedicated healers. Hamdi later succumbed to his wounds. Alaa and her sole surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, now bear physical and psychological scars no human should endure.
Fares Afana, a paramedic who lost his son Bara’a in another Israeli strike, said his son and two other medics were “directly targeted” while treating wounded civilians. “When I went to the place, it was a horrible sight and cruel to see their bodies torn to pieces,” Afana recalled.
Israel shamelessly claims it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals,” yet the evidence is irrefutable: hospitals, ambulances, and medical teams are systematically obliterated. The Indonesian Hospital, now a gutted ruin, was declared non-functional months ago after repeated Israeli attacks — attacks justified by baseless accusations of “terrorist infrastructure.”
Dr. Lubna al-Sultan, the slain doctor’s daughter, refutes Israel’s lies: “All the rooms in the house were intact except for his room, which was hit by the missile. My father was martyred in it.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s civilians — half of them children — continue to be killed in so-called “safe zones.” Just hours before al-Sultan’s murder, an Israeli strike on the al-Mawasi displacement camp killed five, including children.
Gaza is a graveyard of the innocent. More than 57,000 Palestinians — 15,000 of them children — have been massacred since October 2023. Healthcare workers like al-Sultan are murdered not despite their healing hands but because of them.
There is no “conflict.” There is only occupation, apartheid, and extermination, fueled by U.S. tax dollars and shielded by media deception.
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