IT’S BEEN TWO months since Osaid Alser has heard from
his cousin, Khaled Al Serr, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital
in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis.
Before late March, they had been in regular contact — or
as regular as the shredded communication infrastructure
would allow. Al Serr had created a telemedicine WhatsApp
group where he and Osaid, a surgical resident in the
U.S., recruited doctors from stateside, the U.K., and
Europe to give advice to their overstretched colleagues
in Gaza.
“He reported on a gunshot injury in a 70-year old,”
Osaid said, of Al Serr. “It was in her head. And really,
there were no neurosurgeons at that time.”
“He was sharing those cases, and he was asking for
help,” Osaid went on. “It was like, ‘Is there any
neurosurgeon that can help me? How can I fix this?’”
Khaled Al Serr in a selfie taken in front of Nasser
Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, in Jan. 2018.
Courtesy: Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine
Al Serr was a natural vessel for the collective medical
knowledge of the group chat. “He always wanted to help
out, always liked to use his hands, to kind of fix a
problem and have an immediate impact,” according to
Osaid.
In February, the Israeli military invaded Nasser
Hospital. The attack left the hospital hollowed out,
just one of the destroyed health care centers in a
medical system savaged by an overwhelming caseload and a
relentless military assault by Israel.
Still, Al Serr maintained some optimism. His last post
on Instagram was uploaded in mid-March, a short video
showing the exterior of the hospital from the day
before, captioned with a triumphant message:
Finally!! After more than a month of cutting electricity
in Naser hospital, our staff was able to fix the
generator and get the electricity again to Nasser
Hospital. For the last two weeks, we are trying to clean
and prepare the hospital’s departments to reopen the
hospital again.
Six days later, on March 24, Israeli forces stormed the
hospital again. Osaid had asked a few days earlier if Al
Serr was alright. No response ever came. It was their
last exchange.
His relatives believe that Khaled Al Serr, along with
what was left of the hospital’s dwindling staff, was
taken prisoner by Israel.
AS EARLY AS November, reports emerged of doctors being
detained and going missing in north Gaza. According to
the World Health Organization, at least 214 medical
staff from Gaza have been detained by the Israeli
military. In early May, the detention and alleged
torture of medical staff from Gaza made headlines when
Israeli authorities announced the death of Adnan Al-
Bursh, a well-known surgeon and the head of orthopedics
at Al-Shifa Hospital. After being taken into custody in
December, officials said Al-Bursh died in April while in
Ofer Prison, an Israeli detention facility in the
occupied West Bank.
“Dr. Adnan’s case raises serious concerns that he died
following torture at the hands of Israeli authorities.
His death demands an independent international
investigation,” Tlaleng Mofokeng, the United Nations
special rapporteur on the right to health, said in a
statement last week. “The killing and detention of
healthcare workers is not a legitimate method of
warfare. They have a legitimate and essential role to
care for sick and wounded persons during times of
conflict.”
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IDF Sent in Handcuffed Prisoner to Evacuate Hospital,
Then Killed Him When He Left
Al-Bursh is one of at least 493 Palestinian medical
workers who have been killed in Gaza since October 7,
according to the Ministry of Health. The Israel Defense
Forces has systematically targeted hospitals from the
north to the south of the strip, claiming that Hamas
operates in the facilities. Medical staff in Gaza’s
hospitals have repeatedly denied this claim. This week,
Israeli forces have launched new attacks on Kamal Adwan
Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital in the north, with reports
on Wednesday and Thursday of medical staff being
detained from Al Awda.
As ground troops made their way into southern Gaza by
the end of the year, attacks on hospitals in the
southern city of Khan Younis ramped up. In February,
when the Israeli military was laying siege to Nasser
Hospital, Al Serr was the only general surgeon there.
“He’s a very dedicated doctor,” Ahmed Moghrabi, a
plastic surgeon who previously worked at Nasser
Hospital, said of Al Serr.
Both doctors frequently posted to social media about the
horrific cases that were flooding into Nasser Hospital,
especially as attacks on the facility increased and
international media coverage was scarce.
“I saw children, women in torn pieces,” Moghrabi told
The Intercept, explaining why he began posting on social
media. “I wanted to show the world what is going on on
the ground.”
The last time he saw Al Serr was in February. “They” —
the Israeli military — “surrounded the hospital and we
were trapped,” Moghrabi recalled. “And the hospital came
under siege for three weeks. We couldn’t really move
from one building to another. We couldn’t have a look
through the windows. Otherwise the snipers could shoot
us.”
“We couldn’t have a look through the windows. Otherwise
the snipers could shoot us.”
Moghrabi left the hospital in mid-February, during the
first invasion. “We evacuated at midnight that day,” he
said. “The IDF established a checkpoint not far from the
hospital gate. They checked everybody actually. My
nurse, they took him at the checkpoint. He was detained
for two months.”
As for Al Serr, Osaid said his cousin left shortly after
the February evacuation to go to Rafah and check on his
parents, but that he returned to Nasser Hospital to help
reopen it and treat patients.
Since the attack on the hospital in late March, there’s
been hardly any news about Al Serr. The only crumbs of
information have been more alarming than reassuring. The
first is that Al Serr was last seen signed into his
WhatsApp in mid-April. “He was last active online on
April 12,” Osaid said, “which, to me, tells me that they
confiscated his phone and they basically accessed his
phone as well.”
Then, a few days later on April 17, the news outlet Al
Mayadeen released an interview with a Palestinian who
identified himself as Ahmed Abu Aqel and said he had
been detained and released by Israel. Moghrabi told The
Intercept that Abu Aqel was previously a nurse at Nasser
Hospital.
Clothed in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, a common
outfit for released Palestinian detainees, Abu Aqel said
he had a message from the doctors of Nasser Hospital who
were being held in detention.
“They are subjected to daily beatings and killing and
torture,” Abu Aqel said. “There is a message in
particular from the doctor, Dr. Nahed Abu Ta’imah,
director of surgery at the Nasser Medical Complex. His
situation is very difficult and he is suffering under
very difficult, tragic circumstances. He needs treatment
and needs to be seen by the Red Cross and released
urgently.”
“A colleague of mine was being held next to me,” Abu
Aqel said. “His name was Khaled. They plucked his entire
beard with pliers in front of me. His beard was plucked.
This is one of hundreds I know.”
Osaid believes he is referring to Khaled Al Serr.
While Abu Aqel did not say where he was held — where Al
Serr may still be — Osaid thinks it was likely Sde
Teiman, a military base and detention center in Israel’s
Negev Desert. There have been numerous allegations of
abuse, torture, and detainees dying at Sde Teiman.
In a statement to The Intercept received after
publication of this article, a spokesperson for the
Israeli military did not answer specific questions about
healthcare workers in detention, but denied any
widespread abuse of Palestinians in custody. “The
mistreatment of detainees during their time in detention
or whilst under interrogation violates IDF values and
contravenes IDF orders and is therefore absolutely
prohibited,” the spokesperson said. “Concrete complaints
regarding inappropriate behavior are forwarded to the
relevant authorities for review.”
Aside from Abu Aqel’s vague testimony and the one blip
on WhatsApp, there has been no information or updates on
Al Serr’s whereabouts or condition.
“It’s just heartbreaking to know nothing about your
loved ones,” Osaid said. “We don’t know if he’s alive or
not. We don’t know if he’s OK or not.”
Empty corridors inside the Nasser Medical Hospital in
Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Sunday, April 21, 2024.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have died, according to
the Hamas-run health authority. Photographer: Ahmad
Salem/Bloomberg via Getty Images
THOSE PALESTINIANS LUCKY enough to be released from
imprisonment offer harrowing glimpses of what happens
inside Israeli detention centers.
In December, Khaled Hamouda, another surgeon, was
working in Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. A
month earlier, he had been displaced from the Indonesian
Hospital, where he normally practiced. At Kamal Adwan,
Hamouda was also a patient, receiving treatment for
injuries he sustained in an airstrike on his family home
in Beit Lahia. His wife, daughter, father, and a
brother, among other relatives, were killed in the
attack.
It was about 10 days after the strike that Israeli
forces ordered both medical staff and civilians
sheltering at Kamal Adwan Hospital to leave. Hamouda
said the hospital administration was told that people
would be able to leave and go to a different hospital
without being arrested.
That was not what happened. Hamouda and some of his
colleagues were instead taken into custody by the
Israeli military.
“When they attacked the hospital, they asked all the men
and youth older than 15 years old and younger than 55 to
hold their ID and to get out from the hospital,” Hamouda
said. Their eyes were covered, their hands bound, and
they were taken to another location, though Hamouda is
not sure where.
Soon after they were taken, images began to spread on
social media of dozens of detainees being held by
Israeli soldiers in north Gaza. In one photo, a group of
men stand shirtless in the foreground as a soldier
appears to take their photo. It wasn’t long before
people were able to identify one of the men as Hamouda.
“This is on the day they took us from Kamal Adwan
hospital and they asked us to look at the camera,”
Hamouda said. “It’s the only evidence that I was taken
on this day. Nobody knew what happened to us until this
photo went to the media.”
Hamouda said he was eventually taken to Sde Teiman,
where he and other detainees were forced to remain on
their knees. If they didn’t, they were punished. “They
ask him to stand with his hand above his head for about
three or four hours,” he said of one prisoner.
“Unfortunately, when they knew that I am a doctor and
general surgeon, they treated me more badly.”
“Unfortunately, when they knew that I am a doctor and
general surgeon, they treated me more badly,” he
recalled. “They attacked me, and they beat me in my back
and my head.” Hamouda said the soldiers wanted to know
if he knew about Israelis held captive in Gaza, but he
didn’t know anything.
While he was detained, he also saw someone he knew from
the medical community: Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh. “They brought
Dr. Adnan in at about 2 or 3 a.m.. He was horribly
treated. He was in pain,” Hamouda said. “He told me,
‘Khaled, they beat me. They attacked me violently.’”
According to Hamouda, Al-Bursh also said he had a
fractured rib. Hamouda was able to procure medicine and
some food for Al-Bursh but, two days later, the injured
doctor was taken away.
Despite his condition and the harsh circumstances of
prison, Al-Bursh brought news for Hamouda. “Your mother
is present in Al-Awda Hospital, and she is fine, I
treated her,” Hamouda recalled Al-Bursh telling him.
Hamouda was grateful for the message: “This information
was very, very precious for me because I didn’t know any
information about my family, specifically my mother. So
I hugged him and kissed his head and thanked him because
it’s the only hope that when I get out, I will find
her.”
DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA - NOVEMBER 7: Civil defense teams
and citizens continue search and rescue operations after
an airstrike hits the building belonging to the Maslah
family during the 32nd day of Israeli attacks in Deir
Al-Balah, Gaza on November 7, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf
Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Read Our Complete Coverage
Israel’s War on Gaza
After three weeks, Hamouda was released. He told The
Intercept he and other detainees were driven to the
Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south and eventually
went to Rafah. His surviving children and his mother
were still in the north, and it would be two months
before they were able to reunite. He considers himself
fortunate because he was released.
“All my colleagues, doctors who were arrested with me or
after me or before me, they kept them there for about
three or four or five months,” he said. “Some are still
being held.”
EVEN BEFORE THE war, doctors were crucial in Gaza,
especially amid the ebbs and flows of Israeli border
restrictions and military attacks.
“Every two to three years,” Hamouda said, “we become
trapped in some war or some attack from the Israeli
Army. So our work is important for people who present
there.”
Hamouda’s father had also been a doctor and wanted his
son to follow in his footsteps. “He advised me to be a
doctor,” Hamouda said, “because it’s a benefit to
people.”
Fulfilling the necessity of caring for people, Hamouda
believes, is why health care workers have become such
common targets in this war. “It’s not a coincidence,” he
said “They mean to attack the houses of the people who
can treat the wounded people and that can change
something in the condition in the north.”
A destroyed ambulance is seen at the Nasser Hospital in
the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Feb. 28,
2024. Nasser Hospital, the second-largest hospital in
Gaza Strip, stopped operating after an Israeli military
operation on Feb. 15. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua
via Getty Images)
The sentiments were shared by Osaid, who said his cousin
Al Serr would have agreed: They became doctors to help
people. “With the amount of killing that has been going
on for a while, we’re always in need for surgeons to fix
traumatic injuries that people sustain,” Osaid said.
“And so to me, [it] was a natural response growing up in
Gaza, the desire of helping out and healing injured
people.”
Al Serr’s posts on Instagram mostly show how he
documented the flood of horrific cases that arrived in
front of him: a steady stream of civilians torn apart by
shrapnel and bullets, punctuated by repeated and
escalating attacks on Nasser Hospital. One of his last
posts, however, offered a glimmer of hope: two babies
born on the day the hospital was invaded in February.
For his next post, Al Serr ventured outside the
hospital, a reminder of how the war has left no one in
Gaza untouched. It was a short video of his
neighborhood, homes, and buildings turned to piles of
rubble, with the path to his own home buried underneath
it all.
“He always wanted to form a family,” Osaid said of his
cousin, “have kids, build a life and live in peace.”
With no word from Al Serr for two months, that chapter
of his life feels like an ever more distant possibility.
“He was very brave. He was doing his job. Pretty much
our job as a surgeon is not just to heal the wounds and
to fix wounds, but also to advocate for our patients. So
he was advocating for them.”
“I really hope that he’s OK.”
Update: May 27, 2024
This article has been updated to include a statement
from the Israeli military received after publication.
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