by Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat

Dr Marwan al-Sultan was not a soldier. He was one of Gaza’s last remaining cardiologists, and the director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza—a facility built with donations from ordinary Indonesians. For months, he worked amid airstrikes, shortages, and siege, refusing to abandon his patients even when he had the chance to leave.

On 2 July, an Israeli airstrike killed him, along with his wife, daughter, and sister, in the apartment where they had sought shelter. The missile struck only the room where he was sitting. His son-in-law is missing and presumed wounded. None of them posed a threat. None carried weapons. Their deaths are not collateral—they are calculated. This is part of a wider pattern: the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system. Since October 2023, over 1,400 healthcare workers have been killed, according to the United Nations. Some died while performing surgery. Others were struck inside ambulances, refugee camps, and even while evacuating the wounded. At least 300 medical workers are currently imprisoned by Israel without charge, according to medical NGOs. The few hospitals still functioning have been bombed repeatedly or surrounded until unusable.