Ghassan Abu-Sitta: A Surgeon Whose Passion Is Shaped by Humanity

“Gaza will heal—if it is allowed to heal. My fear stems from the realization that the purpose of this war is to drive Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. And I fear that Israel, as always, will attempt once again to achieve through this war what it has failed to accomplish in all previous ones.” — Abu-Sitta

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitta

Ghassan Abu-Sitta is a British-Palestinian aesthetic and reconstructive surgeon and academic. He is the first Arab doctor to design an academic curriculum in the field of Conflict and War Medicine for medical education. Dr. Abu-Sitta has volunteered as a surgeon numerous times in conflict zones including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip. Most recently, he survived the massacre at Al-Ahli Hospital, targeted by the Israeli army during its assault on Gaza—a tragedy in which he bore direct witness as both a doctor and survivor.

The story of Palestine can be summed up as a relentless cycle of occupation, genocide, and exile—an unending chain of injustices that repeats itself across generations. Yet from this recurring ordeal, Palestine continues to resist: persistently reconstituting itself, stubbornly taking root in the land. The life of Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitta is no exception to this pattern. His father was born into a family displaced in 1948. The Abu Sitta family had been a prominent and affluent landowning family in Bir al-Sabiʿ (Beersheba), in the southeastern Gaza Strip, where they owned the lands of Maʿin Abu Sitta. His grandfather had even built a school on their land, maintaining it at his own expense by paying the teachers’ salaries until it was destroyed by Israeli terror. In 1948, the family came under attack by the Zionist paramilitary organization known as Haganah, which stormed the area with 24 jeeps and tanks. Everything they owned, including the school and the family home built in 1920, was destroyed. The occupiers looted everything of material value, from motors and mill equipment to water pumps. His uncle, Salman Abu Sitta, records that the Haganah killed anyone who stood in their way.[1] Forced from their lands, the family was driven into exile in the refugee camps of Khan Younis. Later, his father migrated first to Kuwait in 1953, and in the 1980s to the United Kingdom. born Dr Ghassan Abu-Sitta  was born in 1969 in Kuwait for a happy family. Interesting enough his father was married to a Lebanese lady but this was against his family Traditions and background of his family where men are supposed to get married from their own families!

Dr Gassan’s father, was a doctor who believed that Palestine’s liberation would be achieved through education, sought to shield him from politics and ensure he received the best education possible. Yet Ghassan came from a family of resistance fighters and politically active figures in Gaza. One of his uncles was a prominent figure in both the 1929 al-Buraq[2] Uprising—an eruption of violence triggered by severe provocation—and the 1936 Great Revolt[3] led by Izzeddin al-Qassam. After the Nakba[4] of 1948, his uncle and other family members played leading roles in organizing resistance. He is also the nephew of the renowned Palestinian scholar, writer, and engineer Salman Abu Sitta.[5] Thus, despite his father’s efforts to distance him from politics, it was inevitable that Abu-Sitta, alongside his education, would remain deeply engaged with the Palestinian issue. Indeed, throughout his youth he pursued not only a distinguished academic path but also closely followed, engaged with, and contributed to developments concerning Palestine.

In 1988, Ghassan began his medical studies at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom and graduated as a physician in 1993. Following his graduation, he worked for a period within the National Health Service (NHS) in London. During this time, he earned fellowships in three specialized fields: craniofacial surgery and cleft palate surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and trauma reconstruction at the Royal London Hospital. In the early years of his career, he concentrated particularly on pediatric surgery and operations, dedicating his practice to the treatment of child patients.

His return to London for academic work marked the beginning of a new chapter in his life, both professionally and politically. During this period, he immersed himself in political literature that profoundly shaped his worldview. This coincided with the peak of the Second Intifada (the al-Aqsa Intifada) [6]. In those challenging years, Abu-Sitta balanced the demands of his medical profession and academic research with active political engagement, often finding the two spheres in tense conflict with each other. Perhaps as a result of these tensions, he focused his academic work on issues of war and conflict, contributing numerous new conceptual approaches to global medical literature, such as conflict medicine, blast injuries, and the children in war injuries program. Abu-Sitta is also the editor and co-author of two works that have become key references in global medical education: Reconstructing the War Injured Patient (2017) and The War Wounded Child: From Injury Management to Continuity of Care (2023).

To be closer to war and conflict zones, to study related cases more directly, and to observe the political issues to which he was committed from within, Abu Sitta joined the American University of Beirut Medical Center in 2011. A year later, he assumed leadership of both the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Program for Children Injured in Wars at the same institution, positions he held until 2020. He later took on the directorship of the multidisciplinary war injuries clinic. In 2015, he became one of the founders of the “Conflict Medicine” program at the Global Health Institute of the American University of Beirut, and subsequently served as its director.

In both his practical and academic work, Abu Sitta closely followed technological developments while also contributing to the advancement of medical technologies. His pioneering use of augmented reality in surgical procedures via an interactive online platform was the first of its kind in Lebanon and the wider region. During this period, a surgery he performed in Gaza, in which he reconstructed the hand of a child born with a congenital deformity, earned widespread recognition in the global medical community.[7]

In 2020, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he relocated from Lebanon to the United Kingdom, where he continued his career in plastic and reconstructive surgery within the private sector. In 2021, he began lecturing at the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London.

Through all these professional experiences, Abu Sitta came to the conviction that medicine is a powerful instrument for organizing, mobilizing, and empowering society in ways that political efforts alone cannot achieve. Guided by this belief, he sought to view medicine and politics not as conflicting realms, but as complementary ones, and he worked to reconcile the two. His efforts have had a profound impact in the field of global humanitarian aid. Indeed, in recognition of his contributions, the American University of Beirut, together with Dr. Mads Gilbert, established the global Abu Sitta–Gilbert Humanitarian Award Program in his honor.[8]

Today, the testimonies and reports of physicians and healthcare workers regarding issues that should be considered crimes against humanity—such as war, violence, and genocide—have proven far more effective than propagandist media in informing the public and decision-makers accurately. The efforts of doctors like Dr. Abu Sitta and Dr. Mads Gilbert have demonstrated this clearly. One of the most critical examples is the report prepared by Abu Sitta’s team, which entered Karbala and Najaf after the Iraq War to examine and document the healthcare conditions on the ground. This report challenged the American narrative claiming that the Iraq War was “clean and ethical” in terms of civilian casualties, human rights, the destruction of civilian settlements, and similar issues.[9] Dr. Abu Sitta carries out his academic and practical medical work alongside global advocacy, documentation, and awareness-raising efforts against genocide, violence, and war. In this field, he has served as a founder, director, or active member of professional and civil society organizations across many regions of the world, especially in Western societies. On March 27, 2024, he was elected as the President of the University of Glasgow for a three-year term, securing 80% of the student vote.

From the First Intifada in 1987, even as a medical student, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta felt a strong desire to participate in the treatment of the wounded in Gaza. After completing his surgical specialization, he returned to Gaza in 2000 during the Second Intifada to work as a specialist physician treating injured patients.