Izzeldin Abuelaish

Izzeldin Abuelaish
Born	February 3, 1955 Jabbalia Camp, Gaza
Residence	Toronto, ON Canada
Nationality	Palestine
Education	University of Cairo MD University of London OB/Gyn Harvard School of Public Health MPH
Occupation	Professor
Title	Michael and Amira Dan Professor in Global Health

Izzeldin Abuelaish (Arabic: عزالدين أبو العيش‎‎), OOnt is a Canadian-Palestinian medical doctor and author. He was born in Gaza, and was the first Palestinian doctor to work in an Israeli hospital. He was active in promoting Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. His daughters attended a peace camp with Israeli children in the United States. During the Gaza war, his three daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli tank fire directed at his home. He had been calling in reports about the effect of the war by phone to a TV station. In his regularly scheduled report, in tears, he described their killing on-air, in a video that was widely circulated in Israel and the world.^[1] The Israeli army first said that his house was targeted because snipers were firing from his house. Then a day later they said they were targeting militants. Then another unproven justification given was that one of the dead girl's bodies contained shrapnel from quassam rockets.^[2]

He left Israel/Palestine for Canada, but wrote a book, I Shall Not Hate.

Life and career

Abuelaish was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received his elementary, preparatory and secondary education in the refugee camp schools.

Abuelaish received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, Egypt and then a diploma in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the University of London.^[3]

From 1997–2002 completed a residency in OB/Gyn at the Soroka University hospital in Beer Sheva, Israel, followed by a subspecialty in fetal medicine in Italy and Belgium; then a master's degree in Public Health (Health Policy and Management) from Harvard University.^[3]

He has written a book named I Shall Not Hate.

He founded the "Daughters for Life Foundation" in memory of three of his daughters, who were killed by Israeli tank fire during the Gaza War. The organisation provides scholarship awards to encourage young women to pursue their studies at universities in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria.^[4]

Dr. Abuelaish was the first Palestinian doctor to receive a staff position at an Israeli hospital, where he treated both Israeli and Palestinian patients. Immediately before the war he was a researcher at the Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv^[2] and already an important figure in Israeli-Palestinian relations.^[5] The death of his children strengthened his resolve to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.^[6] He is currently Associate Professor of Global Health at the University of Toronto.^[7]

In February 2013, he attended the Karachi Literature Festival in Pakistan where he narrated the events surrounding the death of his daughters killed in the Israeli airstrike. According to The Express Tribune, "there was hardly anyone in the audience who did not choke or wipe away a silent tear while listening to Palestinian doctor and author Izzeldin Abuelaish..."^[8]

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: "We are standing in the scene of the tragedy, in the place where four lovely girls were sitting, building their dreams and their hopes, and in seconds, these dreams were killed. These flowers were dead. Three of my daughters and one niece were killed in one second on the 16th of January at a quarter to five p.m. Just a few seconds, I left them, and they stayed in the room — two daughters here, one daughter here, one daughter here, and my niece with them.

The first shell came from the tank space, which is there, came to shell two daughters who were sitting here on their chairs. And when I heard this shell, I came inside the room to find, to look. I can’t recognize my daughters. Their heads were cut off their bodies. They were separated from their bodies, and I can’t recognize whose body is this. They were drowning in a pool of blood. This is the pool of blood. Even look here. This is their brain. These are parts of their brain. Aya was lying on the ground. Shatha was injured, and her eye is coming out. Her fingers were torn, just attached by a tag of skin. I felt disloved, out of space, screaming, "What can I do?" They were not satisfied by the first shell and to leave my eldest daughter. But the second shell soon came to kill Aya, to injure my niece, who came down from the third floor, and to kill my eldest daughter Bessan, who was in the kitchen and came at that moment, screaming and jumping, 'Dad! Dad! Aya is injured!'"^[2]

He became a Canadian citizen in 2015.^[9]

Honours and awards

• 2009: Stavros Niarchos Prize for Survivorship ^[10]
• 2009: Search for Common Ground Award; Washington ^[11]
• 2009: Middle East Institute Award; Washington ^[12]
• 2009: Sakharov Human Rights Prize nominee ^[13]
• 2009 & 2010: Named one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims for two consecutive years by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre
• 2010: Uncommon Courage Award; Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious Understanding at Queens College, NY, USA ^[14]
• 2010: Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada ^[15]
• 2011: Lombardy Region Peace Prize^[16]
• 2012: Calgary Peace Prize^[17]
• 2013: Member of the Order of Ontario^[18]
• 2014: Winner in the internationally reputed category of The Public Peace Prize^[19]
• 2016: Honorary degree, Simon Fraser University^[20]

Works

• Izzeldin Abuelaish (4 January 2011). I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-0-8027-7917-5. Retrieved 30 August 2012. 

References

External links

• Izzeldin Abuelaish Two Years After Israeli Attack that Killed 3 Daughters & Niece – video report by Democracy Now!
• Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish – I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Path to Peace and Human Dignity, book tour presentation at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, Jan. 18, 2011.