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STORY: Doctor Sireen Al-Attar, obstetrician Doctor Medhat Saidam, plastic surgeon Doctor Hammam Alloh, kidney specialist They are among at least 490 Gazan healthcare workers killed since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Fifty-five of these healthcare workers were specialists, part of a vanguard improving public health for Gaza’s fast-growing population. A network of knowledge that it will take Gaza years to recover died with them. Reuters could not independently verify the circumstances of their deaths. Even before the war, the health service in Gaza was fraught with difficulties. Israel had imposed a blockade on the Palestinian enclave after Hamas seized control there in 2007. But the health sector was making advances in some fields, thanks to investment and support from abroad and the persistence of doctors like Al-Attar, Saidam and Alloh. They wanted to create a healthcare system for a future Palestinian state. Then came the war. Dr Sireen Al-Attar was killed in an Israeli airstrike days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to Gaza’s health ministry. She was sheltering at her parents’ home in Bureij, a refugee camp, with her three children. In 2008, she’d won Gaza’s only scholarship for specialty training in obstetrics and gynecology – in Amman, Jordan. Over the following years in Gaza, she passed on the skills she had learned. Dr Deborah Harrington is a British obstetrician who helped instruct Al-Attar and others. “She was really passionate about improving outcomes for women and their babies. She was passionate about teaching and she wanted to do something a little bit different, in that she wanted to bring the multidisciplinary team, she wanted to involve midwives and doctors together to make a better experience for women, to make safer and better outcomes for them.” The killing of even one doctor like Al-Attar could cripple the services they led where specialists were few, doctors and experts say. Specialist doctors were part of a strategic effort by Hamas to build a self-sufficient health system for Gaza, the enclave’s first health minister told Reuters. Hamas and its allies have long argued that Israel has a goal of destroying its health system, an allegation Israel’s military denies. Reuters found that seven of the 55 specialists were killed in hospitals. Twenty-three died while away from work. Israel’s military did not comment on the deaths of the doctors named in this story. But it said in a statement to Reuters that the Israel Defense Forces had “overwhelming and irrefutable” evidence that Hamas made military use of hospitals and medical infrastructure. Reuters was unable to independently verify those competing claims. Kidney specialist Dr Hammam Alloh is another case in point. The day Hamas attacked Israel last October, he contacted Dr Tarek Loubani, who is based in Canada and medical director of The Glia Project, which makes medical devices for conflict zones. Alloh recalled how in Gaza’s 2014 war, patients had died because hospitals couldn’t obtain dialyzers. “He knew that the work we did with Glia (Project), was to make devices in nearly impossible situations. We have been doing this for several years and so he instantly recognized that his patients on dialysis were going to need equipment, a lot of it." But they could do little to help. And five weeks later, Alloh was killed in an airstrike on his in-laws’ house near Al Shifa Hospital, his sister and four colleagues told Reuters. He was one of just three kidney specialists. Another has left Gaza, leaving only one. In mid-October, the body of plastic surgeon Medhat Saidam, who had three daughters and a son, was pulled from the rubble of his home in Gaza City after an Israeli airstrike, his colleague Hasan Eljaish said. Saidam specialized in burns, limb reconstruction and cleft palate. He was like a big brother or a father to all his colleagues, whom he mentored in burn management at Al Shifa hospital, Eljaish said. “Becoming a plastic surgeon does not happen overnight, that someone can become capable of doing such work. This takes years. I believe that finding a replacement for Saidam in terms of his value and abilities, it will take years. It will take years – no less than ten to fifteen years to get someone with such experience." Gaza had only five practicing plastic surgeons with the same experience and training, Eljaish said. Another, Ahmad al-Maqadma, was killed in April in an Israeli raid on Al Shifa hospital, friends and colleagues said, so now there are three.

The three-phase plan would stop the fighting, release all hostages and help civilians caught in the middle of the war.

The White House says the U.S. expects Israel to accept a cease-fire deal if Hamas agrees. However, Netanyahu is facing pushback from his coalition.

STORY: As smoke rose over Gaza’s skyline… :: File :: Jabalia, Gaza :: May 31, 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday there would not be a permanent ceasefire there until Hamas is destroyed. His office called the idea quote, “a non-starter.” :: May 31, 2024 U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: “It's time to begin this new stage…” The day before, U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel proposed a deal involving an initial six-week ceasefire. It would include a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while negotiating “a permanent end to hostilities.” BIDEN: “It's time for this war to end, for the day after to begin.” :: File :: GPO Netanyahu’s comments have raised questions over the details of the plan and its timing. Hamas has cautiously welcomed talks on a deal. Biden had signalled that Hamas would not stay in power in Gaza, without elaborating. But the Iranian-backed Islamist group has not indicated it might step aside or disarm voluntarily. :: Tel Aviv, Israel In Tel Aviv, protesters rallied, calling for the release of Israeli hostages in the Palestinian enclave. :: File And opposition leader Yair Lapid said his party would support the agreement. That means it would likely pass in parliament, though Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened on Saturday to bring down the coalition government if Netanyahu enters a Gaza deal that would entail ending the war without the elimination of Hamas. :: May 31, 2024 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone with top officials from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt regarding the proposal, a State Department spokesperson said on Saturday. Ceasefire talks have stumbled for months over a clash in core positions. :: October 7, 2023 The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led Palestinian fighters rampaged into southern Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. :: Rafah, Gaza Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins, led to widespread starvation, and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Patients lying shackled and blindfolded on more than a dozen beds inside a white tent in the desert. Surgeries performed without adequate painkillers. Doctors who remain anonymous. These are some of the conditions at Israel's only hospital dedicated to treating Palestinians detained by the military in the Gaza Strip, three people who have worked there told The Associated Press, confirming similar accounts from human rights groups. Eight months into the Israel-Hamas war, accusations of inhumane treatment at the Sde Teiman military field hospital are on the rise, and the Israeli government is under growing pressure to shut it down. The military denies the allegations of inhumane treatment and says all detainees needing medical attention receive it.

President Biden announced Friday a potential phased deal for a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that would include the release of the remaining Oct. 7 hostages. Mr. Biden said Israeli officials have agreed to this proposal and that the world should urge Hamas to accept the terms. CBS News' Imtiaz Tyab reports.

STORY: :: Israeli Army Israeli forces have taken control of a buffer zone along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, giving Israel effective authority over the Palestinian territory's entire land border. That’s according to Army spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Wednesday. He said that Israeli forces has gained "operational control" over the so-called 'Philadelphi Corridor', which he said had served as the "pipeline through which Hamas engaged in smuggling in Gaza strip on regular basis," referring to the armed Palestinian group that governs the blockaded territory. :: Israeli Army Hagari did not spell out what he meant by 'operational control,' but an Israeli military official earlier said there were "boots on the ground" along parts of the nearly 10-mile-long corridor. This video released by Israeli army is said to show operations in Rafah. Reuters was not able to independently verify the location or the date when the videos were filmed. The area along Gaza's southern edge is the territory's only land border that previously was not directly controlled by Israel. :: May 29, 2024 Hagari said Israeli forces located some 20 tunnels along the corridor, and that soldiers discovered and destroyed a near mile-long tunnel route in eastern Rafah containing "large quantities of weapons," with the entrance shaft found near the Rafah Crossing. Egyptian state-affiliated media reported that a "high-level" Egyptian source denied Israeli reports on the existence of tunnels along the shared border. :: May 28, 2024 Hagari's statement came as Israel continued its deadly raids on Rafah in southern Gaza, despite an order from the International Court of Justice for a halt to the attacks on the city, where half of Gaza's 2.3 million people had previously taken refuge. The United Nations says a million Gazans, most already displaced, have been forced to move again since Israel launched its assault on Rafah in early May. The assault has also cut off aid routes, worsening the humanitarian catastrophe from malnutrition and a collapsed health system.