On 21 March, Khalil Skeik, 24, and a number of doctors were summoned for interrogation by Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli military had besieged al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for four days at that point.
Skeik was a medical student in his last year. At the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza in October 2023, he had decided to volunteer at al-Shifa. He had seen the huge number of wounded and injured overwhelm staff there and wanted to do what he could to help.
The Israeli military had already targeted al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, several times before what would turn into a two-week siege in March.
In November 2023, the Israelis even convinced the US to present the hospital complex as home to a Hamas command center, an allegation the Israeli military tried to back up with a now infamous infographic detailing a James Bond villain-style lair underneath the hospital consisting of several levels.
No such command center was ever found, but Israel had begun a pattern that would see it target every single hospital in Gaza. This has resulted in the near-total destruction of more than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, leaving just 17 damaged and barely functioning, today…..more
