“No one has seen or heard of him ever again,” said his cousin, Osaid AlSerr, a surgical resident in the United States.
More than 300 of Gaza’s health workers are in Israeli detention, the enclave’s health ministry says, while others have been detained for a time and then released.
And according to the World Health Organization, 500 have been killed in the war, out of a prewar total of about 20,000.
Based on estimates of the war’s toll, that means medical workers have been killed and detained at higher rates than Gazans generally, a severe blow to a health care system whose facilities have been devastated by war, and a population weakened by hunger, lack of clean water and the rampant spread of diseases.
“That equates to an average of two health care workers killed every day, with one in every 40 health care workers, or 2.5 percent of Gaza’s health care work force, now dead,” Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity, said in a statement.
Persons:
Khaled El Serr, “, ”, Osaid, El Serr
Organizations:
Amnesty International, World Health Organization, ”
Locations:
Gaza, United States, British