Indonesian Hospital Director Dr. Marwan Sultan and Family Killed in Gaza Airstrike
F-16 Strike on Tal al-Hawa Apartment Claims the Lives of Humanitarian Doctor, His Wife, Daughter, Sister, and Brother-in-Law.
Watan-Dr. Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in the Gaza Strip, was martyred alongside several members of his family as a result of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential apartment in the Tal al-Hawa area southwest of Gaza City, according to the Ministry of Health and Civil Defense in the Strip on Wednesday.
Dr. Sultan had been displaced from the town of Jabalia to “Area 17” in response to evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army, yet F-16 fighter jets struck his home on Wednesday morning, resulting in the martyrdom of him, his wife Dhikra Sultan, his daughter Lamis, his sister Amina, and Amina’s husband, the freed detainee Muhammad Imad Sultan.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said:“With deep sorrow and grief, we mourn the martyr of humanitarian and medical duty, Dr. Marwan Sultan, who ascended as a martyr alongside his wife and several of his children following the occupier’s targeting of his home in Gaza City.”
استشهد قبل قليل الدكتور مروان السلطان، مدير
المستشفى الإندونيسي شمال قطاع #غزة, استهدف الدكتور مع عائلته، زوجته وبناته، داخل منزلهم، وهو الذي كرس حياته لخدمة المرضى وتسهيل علاجهم في ظل حرب الإبادة، هذه أفعال إسرائيل التي لا تتردد في استهداف المشافي وطواقم الأطباء والمرضى!
By @… pic.twitter.com/gAfaEsc5GR— Wissam Shabat 𓂆 🇵🇸 (@wissamshabat) July 2, 2025
Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital Director Killed in Airstrike
It added that “every crime committed against medical and humanitarian personnel confirms the bloody methodology and premeditated determination to directly and deliberately target them.”
A relative named Ahmed Sultan said, “I heard the explosion, went up to the apartment, and found them all as martyrs.”
Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, described the scene: “The martyr Dr. Marwan Sultan arrived at the hospital with his wife and several family members; there were no facial features left—we could barely identify him.”
The Israeli army announced that it carried out a strike targeting a prominent Hamas figure in the Gaza City area and claimed that it is investigating “the allegation that the strike resulted in casualties among uninvolved civilians.”
Hamas condemned what it called a “horrific crime,” affirming that “the martyrdom of Sultan, his wife, and five of his children constitutes a war crime that falls within the framework of the continuous brutal extermination plan against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.” It called for the prosecution of Israeli leaders for their crimes against humanity.
Dr. Sultan had been detained more than once inside the Indonesian Hospital, which the Israeli army besieged repeatedly during the war, before it became non-operational last May as a result of its generators being targeted and damaged, forcing medical teams to evacuate patients by force.
#شاهد | وداع مؤثر لجثمان الطبيب مروان السلطان، مدير المستشفى الإندونيسي، الذي ارتقى برفقة أفراد من أسرته جراء قصف الاحتلال لمنزله في غزة. pic.twitter.com/lCUQ7QrI0m
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) July 2, 2025
Funeral and Reactions
Dozens participated in the funeral procession of Dr. Sultan amid an atmosphere of deep sorrow. Mourners chanted Takbir and prayed for God to accept him and the other martyrs, as relatives and colleagues wept.
The funeral prayer was led by Dr. Munir al-Barsh, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, in the presence of health sector workers and the late doctor’s family—he was known for his steadfastness at the Indonesian Hospital, which faced repeated shelling and siege.
In a moving farewell, one of his daughters recounted: “A rocket struck my father’s room directly, causing him to pass away alongside his family members. My father remained stationed at the Indonesian Hospital until the last moment, attending to patients and the wounded, before the strike reached him and ended his humanitarian journey.”
Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed 1,580 members of medical teams in the Gaza Strip, according to the Government Media Office. Official statistics indicate that Palestinian casualties have exceeded 191,000 (martyrs and injured), most of whom are children and women, along with over 11,000 missing and hundreds of thousands displaced.
