Born in a Palestinian refugee camp, Izzeldin Abuelaish has devoted his life to medicine and to reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, even though his three daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli shelling. Here, he discusses what drives him.
Izzeldin Abuelaish, MD, MPH, is a Palestinian physician and infertility expert who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then received a diploma from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of London. He completed a residency in the same discipline at the Soroka Medical Center in Israel, followed by a subspecialty in fetal medicine in Italy and Belgium. He then undertook a masters in public health at Harvard University. Dr. Abuelaish has worked as a senior researcher at the Gertner Institute at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He now lives with his family in Toronto, where he is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.