This is how it sounded outside the Al Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday night. Israeli forces approached the complex, which is the largest hospital in Khan Yunis. And chaos was everywhere. Video showed people running onto the streets carrying blankets and mattresses as gunfire and explosions rang out. Eventually, the Israeli troops appeared to pull back. But this incident really underscores just how much hospitals are not a place of comfort in Gaza right now. The ones that haven't been demolished are running with very little key supplies or electricity. There aren't enough beds to treat the wounded. Meanwhile, Israel has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields by operating out of hospitals, so some buildings have been targeted in ground operations. Dire scenes like these have not deterred Israel's approach to fighting Hamas. After the October 7th terror attack, and the divide between how Israelis and Palestinians see each other remains wider than ever. But there are some people who are trying to bridge that gap. And some who have been trying for decades.

He said when it was broadcast, it was like opening a closed box showing Israelis these are the Palestinian people.

Today, the story of one Palestinian doctor whose personal tragedy shook Israelis to the core 15 years ago, and how he's still trying to break the circle of trauma in Gaza today. From CNN. This is Tug of War. I'm David Rind.

Sheena McKenzie is a senior editor with CNN opinion. She's based in London. And Sheena. Since October 7th, there's just been a ton of outrage around the world over the horrible conditions and mass death inside Gaza as a result of Israel's retaliation campaign. But I guess I'm wondering, inside Israel, are those images that reality? Is it being shown?

Not really. At least not in the mainstream media. You'd expect that after a horrific incident like October 7th, the Israeli media is going to rally around the flag, and also the government is going to want to maintain unity around the war effort. But the sense we've also gotten is that most Israeli media is not really showing the pictures from inside Gaza that the rest of the world might be seeing. So on the opinion side, we've been looking into a moment from recent history where the story of one Palestinian family was able to have a really major impact in Israel and ultimately in Gaza.

And so what did you find?

So this was almost exactly 15 years ago to the day in 2009, Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, he was a doctor from Gaza who grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp there. And his personal story even before 2009 was remarkable.

Security check after security check. He leaves behind his home and crosses into Israel.

In the 1990s, he rose to prominence as the first Palestinian doctor to hold a staff position in an Israeli hospital to work side by side with Israeli doctors over the border.

'At Israel's busiest maternity ward. Most of his patients don't even know he's Palestinian, the so-called enemy.

So fast forward to the end of 2008, start of 2009, and there was heavy fighting happening between Israel and Hamas in Gaza at the time. And over the course of around three weeks, Izzeldin then had been delivering updates on the situation in Gaza to Israel's Channel ten TV and doing it in his fluent Hebrew. Then on January 16th, 2009, the fighting that had been raging outside his home for weeks came inside those walls in the most horrific way. Izzeldin then found three of his daughters Bessan, who was 21, Mayar, 15, and Aya, who was 13, all killed along with his 17 year old niece Nolr, who had been staying with them at the time. An Israeli tank shell had struck their home, and the way is describes the horror of that discovery that mutilated bodies. It really it takes your breath away. These Israelis for their part, have said they believe they were targeting Hamas fighters there. So with all of this happening, having just discovered his daughters, Izzeldin was due to call channel ten TV with this update. And so, amid all this horror that's kind of unfolding in his home, he calls his friend and Israeli TV presenter Shlomi Eldar. And what happens next is just an utterly heartbreaking moment of television.

(Hebrew)

Izzeldin calls Shlomi, who's sitting alongside the other presenters in the studio and on live TV. Shlomi puts Izzeldin on speakerphone.

(Arabic)

And Izzeldin's voice comes through loud and clear. He says, My God, what have we done to them? My God, my God, what have we done? I wanted to try and save them, but they died, Shlomi.

(Arabic).

And he's not speaking English. But you can hear in his voice it's this anguish that really transcends language.

(Hebrew)

And so Shlomi is sitting there, visibly just shocked, but also gripped by this really raw emotion that's coming direct from Gaza.

And this is all happening on live TV.

So this is all on live TV. The other presenters are there and you can hear the horror in Iceland's voice and see it reflected in Shlomi face. It's a it's a very it's a powerful piece of TV.

(Hebrew)

And so after a few minutes of this, Shlomi excused himself from the seat and, you know, went and helped to organize for an ambulance to come to Iceland's house and take away the other family members who were also really brutally injured.

(Hebrew)

I mean, that's just it's heartbreaking to think about. So what was the reaction inside Israel to that moment that so many people saw on TV?

Yeah, I mean, it was a moment that really shook Israelis to the core. You know, he's the Palestinian doctor who would be giving regular updates in Hebrew for weeks. He had this career of treating Israeli patients, of delivering Israeli babies. So he said when it was broadcast, it was like opening a closed box showing Israelis these are the Palestinian people. And apparently some Israelis called him to apologize on behalf of their country. And then there were others. Yeah, there were others who were angry at the TV channel for giving him a platform. So it provoked a lot of different responses.

I want them to know that I am from Jabalya camp, I am Palestinian and we can live together and no difference between Palestinian and Israelis.

You know, at some point he was giving a press conference about his experience and some protesters interrupted it.

They say, because they don't want to know the truth. No you don't. No, no no, no. They don't like to know the truth.

So, you know, it did provoke an angry response from from some Israelis as well.

It's not like the majority opinion was kind of shifted on to the Palestinian plight at this point.

No, but, you know, people didn't really use this new international spotlight to push for a message of equality and peace. And days later, the Israeli prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, announced a ceasefire, which is old and believes is down to the attention his story got. So later on after this, you know, he is older and ended up immigrating to Canada with his surviving children. His wife sadly died of leukemia a year before his. His daughters died, but is old and ended up writing a memoir called I Shall Not Hate, which is when You speak to him. It's such an apt title because it's such a big part of his message. So now he works as a professor of global health at the University of Toronto, and he's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times. But sadly, you know, 15 years later, the war in Gaza has once again come for the ones he loves.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Tug of War. I'm speaking with CNN's sheena McKenzie.

So, Sheena, where we last picked up the story. You said the war in Gaza. Now in 2023, 2024 has once again come for Doctor Abdelaziz family. So what happened next?

So yes. That's right. In late October, 22 members of his extended family were killed after an airstrike on the same refugee camp where he grew up in Gaza. And one of them, actually his niece Aya, was named after his own daughter, Aya, who was killed in 2009. Dina Israel, for its part, says it was targeting Hamas in that strike.

And we are justified in our lives by the loss of the loved ones which are lost their mother. And that's we as Palestinians. We are tested on daily basis, on daily basis. No nation on earth has been tested as we are tested on our daily lives

But when I spoke to Easton by phone recently, he just got back to Toronto after visiting his brother in Cairo, Egypt, who he himself was mourning the loss of three of his children killed in Gaza. His brother just happened to leave Gaza in September for health reasons before the latest round of fighting. But you can't help but be struck by the thought of these two Palestinian brothers, both of them with three children killed in this ongoing conflict.

I'm so struck that his life's work has basically been to kind of educate Israelis about Palestinians and preaching humanity while working in a country whose military was directly responsible for the death of so much of his family. Like, how does he square that idea, that concept now, all these years later and after this most recent round of pain for him?

So Izzeldin sees things differently.

I wonder, what did you learn from working? On the other, on the other side.

What I've learned as a medical look at what is. What is the meaning of being a doctor. Doctors for me are the human messengers and messengers of humanity.

So when you talk to him, he he believes that by working alongside Israelis, he said he wanted to show them that Palestinians are educated, talented people of equal worth.

Medicine and health, as they call it, are a human equalizer stabilizer.

And, you know, as a gynecologist and a fertility expert, he's delivered many, many babies, both Israeli and Palestinian. And he's often questioned, why is it that we're all treated equal inside the hospital walls, where the only thing that matters is your diagnosis, not your name or your background? And these babies, Israeli, Palestinian, line them up in a hospital and you can't tell the difference between them. But it's only once you step outside those hospital walls that people are treated differently.

You know, there are 24,000 orphans. And then how can we start to give them the future not to be extremist or to be fanatic?

One thing that he is so keen on talking about, all that matters so much to him, is that kind of transgenerational trauma that's passed him between families over decades and decades, and just what the future looks like for Gaza's children and, you know, children. That's such a big part of his story, aren't they? From his career and then the tragic circumstances of his children's death. And I think he feels the suffering of Gaza's children.

Right now is not the past. The past is too learn from the political life is the present and the future and the present and the future are our children.

And he's often said, you know, he sees his daughters faces in those of every Palestinian child. He wants to see a brighter future for Palestinian children, and that's what he's really dedicated his life to.

Well, thank you for bringing us his story, Sheena. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Tug of War is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Taylor Galgano, Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Hailey Thomas. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director and Steve Licktieg is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Paterson and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday with another update. In the meantime, head over to CNN.com, the CNN app, or check out the CNN Five Things podcast wherever you listen for the very latest. Talk to you later.