On November 5, 2023, just a couple of months after the beginning of this latest assault on Palestine, my dear friend and colleague, Dr Maisara Azmi Al Rayyes, aged 28, was brutally murdered along with most of his close family in an Israeli military missile strike on his family home in Gaza City. A brilliant and gifted young doctor specialising in women’s and children’s health, Dr Maisara had returned to serve his besieged and occupied homeland after completing his master’s degree at King’s College London as a Chevening Scholar in 2019. Until the day he was killed, he repeatedly risked his life to provide desperately needed healthcare to his people under relentless Israeli attacks.Dr Maisara was just one of more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare professionals killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.As I wrote this, I received news from Gaza that paramedic Hussein Hassan Al-Samiri, aged 48, from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, had been killed in an Israeli air strike targeting clearly identified ambulance crews in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. The strike hit the rescue team as they attempted to reach people wounded in an attack on tents sheltering displaced families – an attack that killed 21 people, including fiv …
