Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish rests his head on his son Abdullah, 6, in a car near his house in Jebaliya, in the northern Gaza strip, Jan. 21, 2009. Three of his daughters and a niece were killed by an Israeli shell which struck his house, and he returned to Gaza to collect his remaining children. (AP)

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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was, and is, that remarkable Palestinian welcome on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

A resident of Gaza, fluent in Hebrew, deeply devoted to peace. An obstetrician who treated both Palestinians and Israelis — who was welcomed by Israeli medical colleagues, one of whom called him a “magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.”

On January 16, in the Israeli invasion of Gaza, an Israeli tank shell hit his home — and killed three of his daughters. Three. And still he calls for peace.

This hour, On Point: A conversation with Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.

You can join the conversation. Do you remember the news report back then? Of Dr. Abul Aish and his family’s tragedy? Could you keep reaching out for peace?

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish joins us in our studio.  He is a Palestinian physician, an obstetrician, living in Gaza and has worked closely with Israeli doctors for years treating patients and doing research at Soroka University Hospital in Beersheba in southern Israel. He lost three daughters and a niece when his home was shelled during the Gaza conflict in January.

Joining us from Tel Aviv is Gadi Taub, a writer, essayist and historian. He writes a regular op-ed column for Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest daily, and teaches at the Department of Communications and the School for Public Policy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is author of “Allenby,” “A Dispirited Rebellion: Essays on Contemporary Israeli Culture” and the forthcoming “The Settlers & the Struggle for the Meaning of Zionism.”

Dr. Abuelaish’s reaction to his daughter’s deaths was heard on Israeli TV:

Egyptian activists are confronted by police during a protest in Cairo against the Israeli attacks in Gaza, on Dec. 31, 2008. (AP)

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Israel announced today it will pause its attack on Gaza three hours a day for humanitarian relief. The other 21 hours a day, the Israeli action goes on. The pounding. From the air. On the ground.

The whole world is watching — the Arab world, closest of all. Arab television is wall-to-wall images of Gaza death and destruction: women, children, hospitals, morgues soaked in blood, Hamas counterattacks framed as defiance, the United States and Israel linked as one. Arab leaders portrayed as ineffectual.

Where does this go? This hour, On Point: Israel’s neighborhood, the Arab world, watching Gaza.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Roula Khalaf, Middle East editor of The Financial Times.

Labib Kamhawi, Jordanian political analyst.

Tamara Wittes, director of the Middle East Democracy and Development Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution.

Smoke rises following an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 30, 2008. (AP)

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Nightmare scenes in Gaza, where for five days F-16s and Apache helicopter gunships have rained fire on one of the poorest, most crowded enclaves on Earth.

And nightmares across southern Israel, where rockets out of Gaza have now reached as far as an empty kindergarten classroom in Beersheba. Four Israelis dead since Israel’s assault on Gaza began. Nearly four hundred Palestinians dead. Many more injured.

After grinding seasons of embargo and tunneling and Hamas defiance, Israel’s defense minister now speaks of “war to the bitter end.”

This hour, On Point: Bloody showdown over Gaza.

You can join the conversation. Did Hamas make this inevitable, with its rocket fire and its fury? Did Israel make this inevitable, with its chokehold and its demands? Will this turn Palestinians away from Hamas, or more deeply against Israel? What should the U.S. have done? What should it be doing now? Tell us what you think.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Margaret Coker, Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Aaron David Miller, public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He advised six U.S. secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations, from 1978 to 2003, and is the author of “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”

Shai Feldman, chair of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and professor of politics at Brandeis University.

Issam Nassar, professor of history at Illinois State University.