Dr Marwan Sultan, one of Gaza’s most respected physicians and director of the Indonesian Hospital in the north of the Strip, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that struck his temporary shelter west of Gaza City. His death, alongside that of his wife and relatives, has shaken a community that had come to see him as a symbol of hope amid despair.

Throughout the war, Dr Sultan remained at the Indonesian Hospital, refusing to flee even as bombs shattered its wards and power flickered out. A leading cardiologist and the holder of Gaza’s highest medical qualification, he stayed with his patients through every wave of assault. He wore his white coat not just as a doctor, but as a declaration: I will not abandon my people.

When the hospital was finally forced out of service in May after a direct strike, he lingered, trying to care for the few remaining patients while the world turned its back. He had been repeatedly threatened by Israeli forces, ordered to leave the north, but he stayed. Until the missiles followed him home.

His son, Ahmad, spoke of a father who feared not for his own life, but for his family's, terrified that one of his children might arrive at his hospital as a casualty. That fear became reality in reverse. The man who gave his life to save others was killed with his wife, hand in hand, in one final act of love and defiance.

Dr Sultan's death is not only a personal tragedy, it is a devastating blow to Gaza’s already shattered health system. Over 1,580 medical workers have been killed since the beginning of the war. But few embodied the spirit of resistance, duty, and compassion quite like Dr Marwan Sultan.

In Gaza, he will be remembered not just as a doctor, but as a lifeline, until that lifeline was deliberately severed.