Hossam Hamada (Ḥusām Ḥamāda) (حسام أحمد عبد المعطي حمادة), 55, was the most senior of Gaza’s five pathologists. As the head of the Pathology Department at al-Shifa Hospital, he worked to build pathology care almost from scratch, an important part of cancer care. In 2019, cancer was the second-leading cause of death in Palestine, after heart disease.

Dr. Hamada received his medical degree from Ankara University’s Faculty of Medicine in 1996, and six years later completed his specialty at the Pathology Department of Hacettepe University in Ankara, Türkiye. Upon returning to Gaza, he was on the teaching staff at the Islamic University and al-Azhar University, and in 2010, was appointed Chair of the Pathology Department at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital Complex.

The department was established in 1991, and expanded in the aughts to include two wings: cytology and histology. In 2021, Dr. Hamada indicated that the lab had analyzed 5,238 samples in that year.

Dr. Hamada did not only run the lab, he devoted time to educating the public about his work. In a 2015 interview, he explained the foundational role of pathologists in healthcare, from examining the behavior of viruses and bacteria to guiding doctors on disease treatment. He underlined the importance of building an infrastructure for scientific research, especially the building and protecting of a pathology sample archive.

At the first conference dedicated to cancer in Gaza, held at the Islamic University in 2022, he laid out the mechanisms of cancer treatment at the molecular level. And in a brief promo video, he thanked the UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians for a new automated immunostainer that would help increase the speed and accuracy of cancer testing.

During the genocide, Dr. Hamada tended to the wounded in his neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa until first responders could arrive. On 21 January, 2024, an Israeli sniper struck Dr. Hamada. Rescuers made frantic efforts to reach him, but were unable to do so before 23 January. He bled to his death on the pavement. “His body was carried on a piece of wood to Shifa hospital where he spent 25 years of his life dedicated to his community,” reported his colleague Dr. Orhan Alimoğlu.

A Turkish surgeon who made several trips to Gaza before 2023, Dr. Alimoğlu recalled, “Apart from his professional life, [Dr. Hamada] was deeply fond of painting and reading. He expressed himself with these works and had the opportunity to console himself with them against the difficulties of life in Gaza.”

Dr. Hamada’s niece Aseel, a third-year medical student, said, “He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but Gaza, even in its darkest times. If he were alive, he would still choose Gaza, again and again.” 

With the murder of Dr. Hamada and another pathologist, Dr. Mohammed Dabbour Assa`ad (see bio in this archive), and the retirement of two others, only one pathologist remains, Dr. Aziza Alkinn at the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

“It takes five years of medical school, three-four years of internal medicine, and then another four-five years as a pathologist. So that is the number of years if we start today training a new generation of pathologists,” pointed out Palestinian-British surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta at a 2025 public event.

Photo credit: Gigaza