The doctor the media trusts: He justifies Hamas's terror and considers Palestinian dissidents traitors. Yet he remains a sought-after expert for journalists and universities.

In March 2025, Ghassan Abu-Sittah will appear at the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival. For the Palestinians, he explains to the audience, the fight must be waged against the "ideology of Zionism." Zionism, which led to the founding of the State of Israel after the crimes of the Nazis, is "a genocidal ideology." It aims to exterminate the Palestinian people.

What the British-Palestinian doctor is spreading is a classic conspiracy theory intended to legitimize the destruction of Israel. But such words don't provoke any negative reactions at the Geneva festival. For the organizers, Ghassan Abu-Sittah is one of many experts "recognized for their ability to shed light on the major issues of our time." The event is largely funded by the public sector, the City and Canton of Geneva, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), universities, and state-affiliated NGOs.

Guests who usually endorse the views of a left-wing audience are invited. These include the communist Angela Davis, whistleblower Edward Snowden, who fled to Moscow, and Angelina Jolie. In peacetime, Abu-Sittah works as a plastic surgeon in London. After the Hamas massacre on October 7, Abu-Sittah traveled to Gaza with the help of Doctors Without Borders, where he stayed for 43 days. When asked at his appearance in Geneva whether he had also treated Hamas fighters, he replied that all wounded combatants were entitled to medical treatment under international law. Refusing to provide it would be "a violation of my Hippocratic oath." The audience applauded.

Since his deployment in the Gaza Strip, Ghassan Abu-Sittah has become a media star. He gives interviews in Arabic and English and appears as a key witness for alleged Israeli war crimes – including before the International Criminal Court . The University of Glasgow has elected him as its rector. He runs a fund that, according to his own description, organizes the transport and treatment of severely injured children from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon.

Abu-Sittah doesn't see this medical assistance as an apolitical humanitarian act, but rather as a form of "resistance" against Israel. The healthcare system plays a fundamental role in Palestinian nationalism, he explains in media appearances. He rejects any kind of understanding with Israel. His career as an "expert" is astonishing, and not only because of his activist stance.

Ghassan Abu-Sittah repeatedly demonstrates a striking proximity to terrorist organizations. In 2020, he appeared at a memorial ceremony for Maher al-Yamani, a leader of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was also involved in the October 7 attacks. In his speech, Abu-Sittah praised the terrorist's actions, which he said had instilled fear in Israelis.

Abu-Sittah's reaction to the anti-Hamas protests in the Gaza Strip, which broke out a few days after his appearance at the Geneva Human Rights Festival, is also significant. Thousands of Palestinians are demanding an end to the war and the rule of the Islamists who have controlled the Gaza Strip since 2006. The terrorist organization is suppressing the protests with arrests, torture, and executions. Instead of showing solidarity, Ghassan Abu-Sittah calls the demonstrators traitors in a discussion program on the Russian propaganda channel RT Arabic.

During his stay in Gaza, Abu-Sittah not only provided humanitarian aid, but also became the central figure in a media scandal. After arriving in Gaza City, he worked at the al-Shifa and al-Ahli al-Arabi hospitals, located just a few kilometers apart. He was operating there on October 17, 2023, when a massive explosion occurred in the parking lot in the early evening.

That same evening, he appeared at a press conference . Next to him stood the Hamas Deputy Health Minister. Abu-Sittah explained that he heard the sound of a rocket followed by a massive explosion that caused devastation in the operating room. "When we went to the emergency room, we saw the bodies of the dead and injured." He immediately blamed Israel for the attack.

The Qatar-funded, pro-Hamas broadcaster al-Jazeera is broadcasting his remarks worldwide. It adds that 500 people were killed and hundreds injured in the attack. Al-Jazeera took the figures directly from the Hamas health authority .

Almost all media outlets, including those in Switzerland, picked up the report. The consequences were drastic: protests against Israel, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, and setbacks for the Abraham Accords. But the very next day, image analyses showed that the explosion was most likely caused by a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad. The actual number of victims remains unclear, but is likely far lower than Hamas claims.

Swiss media outlets are also beginning to question the situation. According to Deputy Editor-in-Chief Matthias Chapman, the Tages-Anzeiger is discussing "whether and where we made mistakes." SRF, which also reported hundreds of deaths, still sees no errors in its reporting at the time.

Despite his role in the Al-Ahli affair and his proximity to Hamas, Abu-Sittah continues to be sought after as an expert in many media outlets. For example, ORF, which features him as a protagonist in a "Weltjournal" program about Gaza without mentioning his ties to Hamas. Or the British "Guardian," which has Abu-Sittah complain about entry bans in France and Germany, as if these measures were completely unfounded.

In an interview with the French-speaking Swiss SRG broadcaster RTS in March, the doctor was able to claim without contradiction that Israel was committing genocide and that the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital was part of the "Israeli military strategy to combat the health care system."

This view fits with Abu-Sittah's worldview, in which Israel is to blame for everything. Including the war in the Gaza Strip, which he believes has nothing to do with Hamas's decision to attack Israel on October 7. In March 2024, he told the Hezbollah broadcaster al-Mayadeen that the "Zionist movement" had long ago decided to "physically exterminate the Palestinian people."

In another interview , Abu-Sittah explains the background to October 7, as he understands it. Israel is facing a historic crisis, similar to the French colony in Algeria in 1958. This is why Hamas and Hezbollah decided to attack Israel on October 7: "We have reached a historic moment in which the initiative must be taken against the Zionist project, because its internal crisis will sooner or later shift externally."

Ghassan Abu-Sittah regularly describes the inhabitants of Israel as settler-colonialists who would disappear like the "Crusaders, the Mongols." According to this, the Palestinians are a kind of indigenous Islamic people oppressed by foreign imperialists. Abu-Sittah's own family history demonstrates how false this image is.

The Abu Sittah clan was only settled by the Turks at the end of the 19th century, in the area surrounding the newly founded city of Beersheba.

The clan absorbed early influences of pan-Islamism and pan-nationalism from Egypt through the well-educated Sheikh Hussein Abu-Sittah (1885–1970), Ghassan's grandfather. The family assumed a leading role in the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt in British Mandate Palestine—supported by Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany. After the Egyptians were repulsed in their invasion of Israel in 1948, the family withdrew to the Gaza Strip with the remnants of the Egyptian army.

In the abandoned family home, a few kilometers from the new border, Israeli soldiers found many treasures, including a truck, a silver Bedouin sword, and a cache of weapons. Letters from Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the anti-Semitic and radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, were also discovered. Abu-Sittah explained in an interview with a Lebanese talk show host that the fight against Israel has been a "priority" in his family for several generations. His children are to continue the fight.

Some members of the clan are now closely linked to Hamas, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network. Ghassan's uncle, historian Salman Abu-Sitta, spoke at a conference in September 2021 where Hamas representatives presented plans to expel Israelis and establish an Islamic Palestinian state. The killing of Jews was also openly discussed.

When asked, Doctors Without Borders stated that Abu-Sittah's missions in the northern Gaza Strip were carried out independently and that he has not worked for the aid organization since the end of 2023. The organization did not explain why there was no further cooperation.

The NZZ asked Abu-Sittah for a statement on his role as an expert. The "nature of your questions," he said through a colleague, "leaves no doubt that you are a supporter of genocide." Therefore, he has no interest in answering. The doctor seems to prefer appearances where he doesn't have to fear critical questions. He recently served as a keynote speaker at the University of Geneva, which is harassed by pro-Palestinian activists. The topic of the event: "Attacks on the healthcare system: from the Syrian civil war to Gaza and Khartoum."