CrossFireArabia
In the latest crime added to the systematic Israeli targeting of medical personnel, Dr. Marwan Sultan, the Indonesian Hospital director in northern Gaza, was killed with his wife and five children in an Israeli airstrike targeting his home in Tel al-Hawa, west of Gaza City, Wednesday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza mourned Dr. Sultan, describing him as a “martyr of humanitarian with a medical duty.” It emphasized that his killing is a “heinous crime confirming the bloody methodology and premeditation Israel insistence while directly and deliberately targeting medical personnel.”
Dr Sultan, who was a cardiologist and one of two heart specialists in the hospital, was described as “a symbol of dedication, steadfastness, and loyalty, in the most difficult circumstances and most difficult moments experienced by our people under the ongoing aggression.” A Ministry statement emphasized that “the ongoing attacks on medical personnel represent a flagrant violation of all humanitarian norms and international laws.”
Pre-martyrdom testimony: “Why are they targeting us?”
In late May, Dr. Sultan launched a media outcry, warning of the catastrophe looming at the besieged Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
He stated that the medical staff were working under constant threat, and that the hospital was subjected to a stifling siege and continuous shelling, including direct targeting of the intensive care unit, which exacerbated the damage and made it difficult to provide any kind of medical care.
He pointed out “the humanitarian situation inside the hospital has reached an extremely critical stage,” adding that the occupation forces were shooting at anyone moving in the vicinity of the hospital. He asked with sorrow: “Hospitals only house patients and medical staff, so why are the occupation forces targeting us?”
At the time, Sultan called on international human rights and humanitarian organizations to take urgent action and pressure Israel to stop targeting hospitals, warning of the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip if the violations continued.
More than 1,400 medical personnel have been killed since the beginning of the aggression after 7 October, 2023 according to statistics by the Health Ministry. These include doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, and logistics support workers, most of whom died while performing their humanitarian duties inside hospitals or while treating the wounded at bombardment sites.
The Ministry also documented the arrest of at least 360 health sector workers by the occupation forces, most of whom were arrested from inside hospitals or during their field work. They were arrested without formal charges or access to lawyers or families. According to numerous human rights reports, they are subjected to various forms of torture.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, including killing, starvation, destruction, and displacement, ignoring international appeals and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt the offensive. The genocide left approximately 191,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands were displaced, and famine claimed the lives of many, including children, as well as widespread destruction as reported in Qudspress.
