Dr. Abu Aoun, a Casualty of War
The Myth of the Ceasefire and the Board Of Peace
I’m not a big fan of Facebook but I am still on it. I often think about leaving it or muting all my notifications but then something will happen that keeps me on board.
Yesterday I received the type of email notification that keeps me attached to Facebook. I usually ignore the notifications I receive from them as most just inform me that someone who is often more acquaintance than friend has posted a comment, often on someone else’s post who is not even a Facebook connection or an acquaintance of mine. But yesterday my friend and colleague Dr. M, who is a Palestinian surgeon, had made a new post and I was interested.
I met Dr. M in 2024 when I was working in Gaza with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). We have stayed in contact through Whatsapp. I clicked on the link hoping for good news, maybe a birth announcement, as he and his wife are still young.
Instead I found his post was a memorial to a friend who had just been killed. The post read…
“Today I lost a dear colleague, a loyal friend, and a brother from another mother.
Today I lost the wise Jamal Abu Aoun (Abu Anas), head of the operations department at Jaffa Hospital, one of the pillars of the health system in the central region, and a man who dedicated his life in serving patients and colleagues with sincerity and dedication,, He left this world as a martyr to the home of eternity
And who is like you beauty!!
Who is like you as polite and creative, calm and wise, sincere in work, welcoming, knowledgeable, experience and generosity!!
Get David Lauter’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Who is like you in doing good and doing favor!!
You did not respond with a question, you did not disappoint a needy person, and you did not leave a broken heart until you compensate it with a kind word or a noble attitude.”
In Gaza, anyone who dies because of the war is considered a martyr.
I googled “Jamal Abu Aoun” and found several reports of his death from an Israeli drone strike near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on May 30. It was reported in Al Jazheera and The Times of Israel and Yahoo Canada, but no US news outlets.
I worked in Deir al-Balah at the MSF field hospital affiliated with Al-Aqsa in 2024/25. I worked with many Palestinian surgeons, anesthesiologists, and hospitalists but never met Dr. Abu Aoun. I described Al-Aqsa Hospital, the hospital where Dr. Abu Aoun was chief of anesthesia, in an email to my family:
Al Aqsa is in central Deir Al Balah and the city center was packed. Same stuff but just more of it. Everything on wheels moves at a crawl and people including little kids just weave their way through it. We passed through a security gate to park by the hospital. Despite having a security gate, the hospital compound was packed with people. The entire hospital was the second most chaotic scene I’ve ever been in. Walking through the halls was like being at a major sporting event as the stadium empties out. In the ED there were many more family members and bystanders than patients and staff. We went up a flight of stairs made of marble with the center of the treads showing years of wear to see the surgical ICU. The entire second floor was congested in the hall.
No matter your political leanings, the world is clearly worse off for the loss of Dr. Jamal Abu Aoun.
I was still in Gaza when the cease fire began. It was a time of exuberant hope for the Palestinians with whom I was working. I did not want to stifle anyone’s hope or joy so I kept my cynical opinion to myself; that the cease fire was just a political trade off between Trump and Netanyahu. A public relations win for Trump in his competition for a Noble Peace Price in exchange for a free pass from the US for Netanyahu to increase his activities in the West Bank, with the intention of both to just let the cease fire wither on the vine.
Today I googled “Board of Peace News” and found several news reports. The Financial Times had an article titled “Donald Trump’s Board of Peace fund is empty”. France24 and the Independent and Euronews had similar articles (all linked here). These articles were consistent in discussing that the so-called Board of Peace lacks funds and direction, and in stating the fact that over 900 Palestians have been killed since the start of the cease fire. Again, no results for recent reports by any of the US media outlets.
Despite Netanyahu calling it a cease fire and Trump calling it a Board of Peace, non-combatant civilians continue to die in Gaza. And the US news media, across the partisan spectrum, could be doing a better job of informing the American public about it.
And the world will remain worse off for the loss of Dr. Jamal Abu Aoun, another casualty of war.
