When It Stopped Being A War: The Situated Testimony of Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah

On 17 October 2023, a devastating explosion took place in the courtyard of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 471 people were killed and 342 injured. In the hours after the explosion, doctors who treated the wounded held a news conference at nearby al-Shifa Hospital, among the bodies of some of those killed in the blast. There, the British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah spoke, flanked by colleagues. ‘This is a massacre’, said Dr Abu-Sittah, before predicting that ‘more hospitals will be targeted’. Later, Dr Abu-Sittah would tell us that the blast at al-Ahli Hospital was the moment when it seemed clear to him that Israel’s military campaign ‘stopped being a war, and became a genocide’.