Renowned doctor at Al-Shifa Hospital killed in Gaza City, health ministry official says
Hospital director calls Dr. Hammam Alloh an important witness to the military siege
An internal medicine physician who told the world about the dire hardships in frequent dispatches from Gaza'sAl-Shifa Hospital has been killed, an official with the territory's Health Ministry said Tuesday.
Reports that Dr. HammamAllohdied in an Israeli airstrike last weekend near the hospital have been circulating for the past few days, but reports of a missile strike as the reason for his death havenot been confirmed. Reports about others killedvary.
Alloh, a kidney specialist who lived in Gaza City,was killed with his stepfather, said Dr. Medhat Abass, spokesperson for Gaza's Health Ministry, on Tuesday.
The doctor's sister, Shaymma Alloh, told The Associated Press that the house where 26 members of her family were sheltering was hit by a missile strikelate Saturday. She said thedead included her brother, father and two in-laws.
According to Shaymma, her entire extended family was staying with her brother at their in-laws' house, a 10-minute walk from the hospital.
Doctor described dire hospital situation to outside world
News organizationDemocracy Now!, which has publishedseveral interviews with the doctor,reported on Monday that he died onSaturdaywhen an artillery shell struck his wife's home, killing him, his father, brother-in-law and father-in-law.
"Yes, he died," the hospital's director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, told CBC News on Tuesday.
Salmiyasaid he did not have further detailsbut thathe had heard there was bombing near the hospital and near Alloh's home.
"We lost an important medical staff [member]," Salmiya said.
Hedescribed the doctor as awitness for the world to the dire conditions at the hospital, which has run out of fuel and power,making it difficult to tend to the 500 patients inside.
In one of his last interviews, the 36-year doctor spoke to CBC last Friday, telling the networkhe was planning to go into work the next day. The nephrologist said his patients needed daily care if they had renal failure and needed dialysis.
At the same time, he was trying to care for his wife andtheir three young children at home. Still, he felt compelled to keep working at Al-Shifa, he said.
"I can't even think of not going," he said. "I don't have an option ... because if I don't go, this means I'm giving up on life. I took an oath as a physician, and I will not betray that oath."
Hospital staff deny knowledge of Hamas tunnels
Gaza's largest hospital has become a focal point in the five-week-old war between Israeli forces and Hamas, which began after a surprise and deadly multi-front attack by Hamas militants on several communities insouthern Israel.
Spokespeople for the Israel Defence Forces haverepeatedly said Hamasruns its headquarters from tunnels beneath Al-Shifa, while hospital staff say they've seen no evidence of that.
Thousands fled Al-Shifaover the weekend as Israeli troops encircled it, and doctors said gunfire and explosions raged all around it on Monday. Israeli troops appeared to be only a few blocks away from the facility.
The doctor was asked during a CBC interviewon Oct. 31 if he had a message for the international community.
"We have the right just like you to live in peace and freedom," Alloh said. "Help us get this.Otherwise, you'll need to revise the definition of humanity and your humanity."
With files from CBC's Brishti Basu and Briar Stewart, and The Associated Press
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