Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian Canadian physician, author, academic and researcher. He was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, and has built his career on using health as a route to peace and reconciliation.
Abuelaish is founder, director and distinguished visiting professor of the Global Institute for the Study of Socio-Endemic Diseases, Hatred, Health and Peace (GISED) at KU Leuven in Belgium, set up with WHO Europe. He is also professor emeritus at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
His research, teaching and writing span global health, public health, women’s health, health equity, conflict and war, peacebuilding, and hatred as a public health threat, a determinant of health and a socially contagious disease.
In 2010 he published I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, a memoir of loss, resilience and forgiveness. The book has been translated into 23 languages and became a national and international bestseller.
Abuelaish has been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Many have compared his moral leadership to Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, and he is sometimes called the Martin Luther King of the Middle East.
He holds 19 honorary doctorates and has received numerous national and international honours, including the Order of Ontario, the Meritorious Service Cross, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Governor General’s Medallion, the World Citizenship in Action Award, the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada, the Foundation P&V Citizenship Award, the Calgary Peace Prize, the Lombardy Region Peace Prize and the Stavros Niarchos Prize for Survivorship.
He has also been named one of Canada’s Top 25 Immigrants, one of the 500 Most Powerful Arabs and one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world.
