Watermelon Pictures says it is “appalled and devastated” by the Israeli airstrike on a hospital in Gaza that killed a Palestinian surgeon featured in the documentary “American Doctor.”
“We are horrified and heartbroken by the killing of Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira. This is yet another devastating example of the continued violence against Gaza’s medical community,” Hamza Ali, the co-founder of Watermelon Pictures, the North American distributor of the film, said in a statement Thursday. “Hospitals are places of healing, not targets of war. We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and call for accountability and an end to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.”
Directed by Poh Si Teng, “American Doctor” follows three American physicians who travel to Gaza to provide medical care during the Israel-Hamas conflict before and after the 2025 ceasefire. Abu Shaaira was among the surgeons that the doctors worked with at Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza. The surgical wing of the hospital was hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed six people, including Abu Shaaira as well as a 13-year-old boy, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. At least 28 people were wounded.
“Dr. Abu Shaaira was among the extraordinary medical professionals whose courage and humanity we sought to honor through ‘American Doctor,’” Teng said in a statement. “His death is devastating and a painful reminder that the crisis documented in our film continues. Those who dedicate their lives to saving others deserve protection, not violence.”
Among those critically injured in the strike on the hospital is Dr. Mohammed Odainy, another Palestinian surgeon featured in the documentary. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon from California who had worked with both Abu Shaaira and Odainy during his time in Gaza, described the attack as “an unforgivable crime.”
“Operating with another surgeon is an intimate partnership. You learn their cadence, their strengths and weaknesses, and even glimpse their confidences and fears,” Sidhwa said in a statement. “Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira and I performed a complex surgery on a man with shrapnel injuries, while Dr. Mohammed Odainy and I operated on a teenager after an American-made bomb tore a hole in his abdominal aorta. Remarkably, the child lived. These two men were my friends, colleagues and an inspiration. Now Dr. Rizk is dead and Dr. Mohammed is fighting for his life. It was an unforgivable crime.”
In its media release, Watermelon Pictures notes that hospitals, medical personnel and patients are protected under international humanitarian law. “Deliberate attacks against protected medical facilities and personnel are prohibited and may constitute war crimes,” it said.
The Israeli military said the strike was targeting a Hamas commander that is using the hospital as a base. It did not provide evidence for the claim and the commander was not among the dead. Israel has carried out near-daily strikes in Gaza despite its October 2025 ceasefire agreement with Hamas. A group of U.N.-commissioned experts have described Israel’s ongoing acts in the territory as genocide and has also accused Israeli forces of crimes against humanity in the West Bank. Israel has denied these allegations and rejected the findings as misinformation.
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