Maisara AlRayyes
Maisara AlRayyes (al-Rayyis) (ميسرة الريس), 28, was a physician of exceptional promise. In his foreshortened life, he made tangible contributions to his two fields of expertise: emergency medicine and women’s and children’s health. “He absolutely was destined to be a leader in the field,” said Kim Jonas, Senior Lecturer in Reproductive Physiology at King’s College London (KCL).
Born in 1995, Dr. AlRayyes graduated with honors from Gaza’s al-Azhar University medical school in 2018. At the same time, he worked as a project coordinator for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), leading the training of medical students as lifesaving first aid instructors.
This coincided with Gaza’s weekly demonstrations of the Great March of Return, when Israeli snipers deliberately shot scores of unarmed demonstrators with live ammunition. Dr. AlRayyes “was among the volunteers at the tents to provide health services, despite the fact that the medics at these tents were also often injured,” said Bahzad Alakhras, a psychiatrist at Gaza Community Mental Health Program.
In 2019, Dr. AlRayyes won the prestigious UK Chevening Scholarship and headed to London to pursue an MSc in women and children’s health at KCL. During his time there, he met fellow Chevening scholar Laura Hayek, who was studying for a human rights degree. They became engaged in 2022.
MSc in hand, he could have joined the emigration train of doctors leaving Gaza. Instead, Dr. AlRayyes returned to work with Médecins du Monde, an international humanitarian organization.
(AlRayyes with Dr. Mads Gilbert)
His research and clinical work offer a sobering picture of a society subjected to unremitting state violence. One study, coauthored with the Norwegian emergency physician Dr. Mads Gilbert and others, describes an innovative method they dubbed “a chain of survival” for preparing communities to handle emergencies.
Another study assesses the emergency preparedness of 16 Primary Health Care Centers in Gaza, finding that the percentage of prepared nurses was significantly higher than doctors. Only 29% of emergency drugs were available at the centers.
Three weeks into Israel’s 2023 bombardment of Gaza, Dr. AlRayyes sent a handful of haunting text messages to a friend:
Every moment I’m living with my family
as we’re talking or laughing I imagine the last moments of people
who were alive moments before they were bombed
all those who were martyred were like us
sitting at home talking and laughing
to be honest the past few days my feelings of fear
have heightened
I imagine myself under the rubble
and I feel fear that I’d be still alive
On 5 November 2023, Israeli strikes demolished the home of the AlRayyes family in Gaza City, killing Dr. AlRayyes, his parents, two sisters, and their three children. His two brothers Muhammad and Muayyad dug desperately to try and retrieve the bodies. Another Israeli strike then killed the brothers and a volunteer.
Dr. Osaid Alser mourned his peer: “We have lost a fantastic doctor who could have changed the whole situation for children’s and women’s health in Gaza.” Dr. Mads Gilbert remembered Dr. AlRayyes as “My very close friend, brilliant medical student, then colleague, my inspiration—my beloved brother Maysara.”
In 2024, King’s College London announced the Dr. Maisara AlRayyes Scholarship to support one Palestinian student for a one-year Postgraduate Master’s Degree in health.
At the announcement event, Dr. AlRayyes’s fiancé Laura said, “We never forget our martyrs. We never forget our beloved ones. We’re made of our memories with them. We’re made of them. Just like Palestine, which is made of us.”