After receiving repeated ominous phone calls, al-Sultan and four members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Drop Site interviewed his son.
ABDEL QADER SABBAH AND KAVITHA CHEKURU
JUL 7
GAZA CITY—It had only been ten minutes since Ahmed al-Sultan, a young medical student in Gaza, left the apartment where his family was staying when he heard the sounds of an airstrike nearby.
“I did not expect, even for a second, that the strike was targeting my family,” al-Sultan, 20, told Drop Site News. “I rushed back and tried to contact anyone in the family, but there was no response from anyone. I hurried to the place, and I was shocked by the scene—our apartment had been destroyed.”
That airstrike in Gaza City last Wednesday, July 2, killed at least eight people, according to the Ministry of Health, including Ahmed’s sister, brother-in-law, mother, and his father, Dr. Marwan al-Sultan. The director of the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza, Dr. al-Sultan was also one of two remaining cardiologists in Gaza. According to a statement from Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW) dated July 2, his killing marks the 70th medical worker killed in the past 50 days.
“All the martyrs were women, in addition to my father and my sister's husband, Mohammed Imad al-Sultan. I was in shock at the scene,” said Ahmed, who is studying to be a cardiologist like his late father.
Dr. al-Sultan was not only a well-known doctor in Gaza: he was beloved. His death was a shock to an already stricken medical community. When his body was brought to Al-Shifa hospital following the attack, colleagues wept over his body, including Dr. Munir al-Bursh, the Director General of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. In footage taken in the hospital, he can be seen cradling Dr. al-Sultan’s bloodied face.
“Dr. Marwan was a father, a brother, and a beloved friend,” al-Bursh told Drop Site. “Dr. Marwan had not taken off his white coat since the beginning of the war. He was constantly by the side of patients and the wounded.”
Read the article here.