Gaza surgeon Abu Sitta ‘forcibly prevented’ from entering Germany

British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who was recently elected rector of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, was “forcibly prevented” from entering Germany, according to his post Friday on X.

The surgeon said he was invited to address a conference in Berlin talking about his work during the 43 days in October he spent treating patients at Al-Ahli and Al-Shifa Hospitals in Gaza.

He said preventing him from entering Germany adds to the country’s “complicity in the ongoing massacre.”

Abu Sitta was forced to flee Gaza in November after Israeli tank fire and lack of anesthetics at Al-Ahli Hospital made it impossible for him to work at the then last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City. Healthcare facilities in the beseiged enclave have continued to deteriorate at an alarming level since then due to Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s military assault on Gaza has sytematically targeted hospitals and healthcare infrastructure in the territory.

Nicaragua and Germany crossed swords at the UN’s top court this month, with Managua saying Berlin was “pathetic” to supply aid to Gazans while also providing Israel with weapons, a case the top German lawyer dismissed as “grossly biased.”

Nicaragua has hauled Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to demand judges impose emergency measures to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.

Lawyers for Nicaragua argued Germany is in breach of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, set up in the wake of the Holocaust, by furnishing Israel with weapons.

The Israeli military has long accused Hamas and Palestinian militants of using hospitals and other medical facilities as hideouts and command posts, and their patients as shields.

Israel is systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare system, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said earlier this month, describing scenes of carnage that no hospitals in the world would be able to handle.

The medical charity said children were turning up in hospitals with gunshot wounds from drones, while many patients were being crushed under rubble then suffering severe burns.