UK doctor urged Gazans to ‘fight and die in dignity’ after 7 October terror attack

A British doctor urged Palestinians to ‘fight back and die in dignity’ the day after the 7 October terror attack. 

London-based Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah promoted a post on 8 October which claimed civilians in Gaza should fight back as they were “going to die anyway”.

It reads: “We know Israel is going to kill us anyways. We are starving, we are being besieged, we are being dispossessed, we are being displaced. We know all of this. Israel is going to kill us anyways. Israel wants us kneeling….So why not fight back and die in dignity?”

His shared post was then shared again more than 6,000 times.

Sitting on the board of Inara, the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is described as a British-Palestinian associate professor of surgery and a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

His biography states he is an “honorary senior clinical lecturer at the Center for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College University of London and Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Conflict & Health Research Group at Kings College London University.”

Jewish News was unable to find his name among the staff members at Imperial.

Since the conflict began, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah says he has spent 43 days in Gaza treating patients at the al-Ahli and al-Shifa hospitals.

He has made several appearances on international news networks and gave a press conference on 27 November to various outlets describing the conditions he has worked under.

The Daily Telegraph quoted him saying he had “performed six amputations in one night.”

Speaking to Sky News, he said he had seen evidence of burns from white phosphorus. The IDF has denied using the internationally banned chemical agent.

He has dismissed evidence that the bombing of the al-Ahli hospital in October was due to a misfired rocket from inside Gaza that was intended for Israel.

Nor does he believe that al-Shifa hospital was used as a base of military operations by Hamas, telling reporters that “At no stage did I see any armed police at Shifa, even the security men at Shifa, they were there just to police the number of relatives trying to get into the emergency department.”

Following his various media interviews, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah and his wife were visited at home by counter terrorism officers from Scotland Yard.

He has since retained the services of legal firm Bindmans and is also supported by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, which describes him as a “renowned war surgeon“.

Following the Scotland Yard visit, Bindmans issued the following statement:

“Humanitarian doctors who risk their lives to give aid in the midst of a humanitarian crisis should not have to worry about police officers harassing their families at home.

“Professor Ghassan is a well-known and celebrated doctor who is risking his life in what can only be described as a heroic effort to save lives.

We are satisfied with the police explanation to us and that they have no further need to speak to Professor Ghassan.”

In a post to his Instagram account, which has 219k followers, Ghassan is pictured outside Charing Cross Police Station with ICJP Director Tayab Ali, having “met with Scotland Yard’s War Crime Unit to start the process of passing evidence of war crimes in Gaza to law enforcement authorities.”

He had previously co-written an 2008 article in the Lancet Global Health Network website calling for a Gaza defence force, which was removed the following year on the basis of factual errors.

To read the Bindmans statement in full, click here.