I Shall Not Hate

Title: I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Author: Izzeldin Abuelaish
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781408813676

From the publisher: The extraordinary story of a Palestinian doctor who, despite witnessing the death of three of his daughters in the Israeli incursion into Gaza in January 2009, continued his medical and humanitarian work aimed at bringing the people of the region together in peace.

Heart-breaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is a Palestinian doctor’s inspiring account of his extraordinary life, growing up in poverty but determined to treat his patients in Gaza and Israel regardless of their ethnic origin.

A London University- and Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lives in Gaza but works in Israel. On the strip of land he calls home (where 1.5 million Gazan refugees are crammed into a few square miles) the Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life – as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose three daughters were killed by Israeli shells on 16 January 2009, during Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip.

It was his response to this tragedy that made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, Izzeldin Abuelaish called for the people in the region to start listening to each other.

From The Guardian interview: Two years ago, Israeli shells fell on Dr Abuelaish's family home in Gaza, killing three of his young daughters and their cousin. The horror was caught live on Israeli TV when the doctor phoned his broadcaster friend. Amazingly, the loss did not embitter Izzeldin Abuelaish. Instead he decided his girls' deaths must not be in vain – and slowly he has turned his family tragedy into a force for peace. Read on...