British Doctor Bombed in Gaza by Israeli Planes Fitted with UK-Made Weaponry Speaks out for First Time

For the first time, Amer Shoaib, a decorated British military veteran and orthopaedic consultant surgeon, has spoken publicly about being bombed in Gaza by an F-16 plane.

BAE Systems has supplied Israel with electronic missile-launching kits for the F-16 aircraft.

The attack occurred in a building that had been “deconflicted,” meaning the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were informed that medics were living there, so the incident constitutes an explicit violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Detailing being bombed while working as a doctor in Gaza – targeted because, he believes, he was a British surgeon – is not something Amer has taken lightly. He has known colleagues who have been reported to the General Medical Council for their support of Palestine and has seen how fellow doctors live in fear of reprimand or censure for their views.

Amer spoke to Byline Times because he feels the other alternatives – interventions by UK politicians or complaints by Foreign Office officials that Israel committed a war crime in trying to kill him and his fellow UK doctors – are not happening. “I am not a politician and I am not stating any partisan political views”, he says. “I am just reporting as an eye-witness.”

Born and bred in Manchester, Amer boasts an impressive medical and military background. He has been a consultant orthopaedic surgeon since 2008, specialising in trauma, foot and ankle surgery, and limb reconstruction. His career includes service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he rose to the rank of Major and was involved in peacekeeping in Bosnia. He has also worked in various other conflict zones, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Ukraine and Libya, either operating or teaching war surgery courses.

On October 7, 2023, Amer was at work in Manchester when news broke of the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza.

“Whenever there is news from the Middle East, you know there will be casualties,” he says. So, when he got an email for help from the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), he agreed to go to a place where many would pay good money to flee: Gaza.

His was an invaluable offering. Unlike many doctors, Amer is used to treating bomb-blast victims. His specialist reconstructive surgical skills at Manchester Royal Infirmary – a major trauma centre – were key in getting many of the victims of the 2017 Arena suicide attack back on their feet.

Passport details were sent to Israel, and reams of paperwork and career histories shared. The Israeli government was well aware that Amer and his colleagues were asking to travel to a country they were bombing on an hourly basis.

Time ticked on, and the body count rose, but it wasn’t until mid-December that permission was granted. It took another month before Amer and the team, including three other colleagues from the UK and a trauma surgeon from the US, eventually entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing in Egypt in January 2024.

Upon arrival, Amer witnessed the chaos and trauma of a humanitarian crisis unfolding first hand. It was as desperate as Haiti was after the earthquake, he says. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) filled the hospital grounds and corridors, living in makeshift tents with limited sanitation. His phone is filled with photos of hunched tents and rubble-strewn fields, packed with thousands fleeing for their lives.

“What was striking was that within the hospital grounds, it was a refugee camp. People were living on top of each other in tents, with very limited sanitation facilities,” Amer says.

Every space was taken – even the waiting room in the outpatient department had six bread ovens baking away beside patients arriving in their bloody ranks. Every corridor in the hospital had half the width occupied by mattresses on the floor with IDPs sitting and lying – children, men and women of all ages. Even the landings on the stairwells were used as makeshift shelters. Every office in the hospital was home to a doctor or nurse and their entire family.

Amer and his colleagues quickly set to work, providing surgical care, dealing with complex and contaminated penetrating injuries from shrapnel and bullets. The patients he dealt with were from all demographics – children and elderly. There was no stream of fighting-age men under his surgical knife, as the IDF claims: the violence here, he says, was indiscriminate.