Gaza doctor who vowed not to leave his patients behind killed in Israeli airstrike

In one of his last interviews before being killed in an Israeli airstrike over the weekend, a Palestinian doctor had shown resilience and defiance to the dire situation in Gaza, saying he was not going to leave his patients behind to die.

Dr. Hammam Alloh’s haunting words from his interview with Democracy Now on October 31 resurfaced after he was killed on Saturday in an airstrike that reportedly hit his wife’s home.

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Alloh was a nephrologist at the Al-Shifa Hospital, northern Gaza’s biggest hospital that has recently been at the center of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza that was launched after Hamas militants stormed across the Israeli border on October 7.

The conflict has pushed many civilians to seek refuge at the hospital that has been struggling to care for critical patients amid the shortage of fuel, electricity, water, and basic medical supplies.

“If I go, who treats my patients?” Alloh replied when asked why he wouldn’t respond to calls to leave northern Gaza to the south. “We are not animals, we have the right to receive proper healthcare. We cannot just leave.”

Alloh went on to say that he wouldn’t choose his own life over his patients’ who needed his care, telling the interviewee that evacuating the hospital would go against the principles of why he became a doctor.

“You think I went to my medical school and for my post-graduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?” he responded. “Do you think this is the reason I went to med school, to think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor.”

During the interview, Alloh also touched on the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital, saying that many of those who sought refuge at the medical center have been staying in its vicinity.

“Many of them do not have enough space to go into hospital hallways, so they are living around the buildings and in the garden,” he said.

Israel has said that the hospital sits atop tunnels housing a headquarters for Hamas fighters who are using patients as shields, a claim denied by the Palestinian movement.

When asked about the Israeli claims, Alloh said that he has been working at the hospital for two years and never had doubts that would back such a statement.

“I’m no lawyer, I’m no attorney, but this is how I am simply replying. I never saw this for over two years. If this is true, I would see at least a clue,” he said.

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