The Israeli public became witness to the Abuelaish family’s tragedy on Friday night when a conversation that a television journalist was having with Dr. Abuelaish was broadcast live.

Image Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, right, in the hospital where he works in Israel. He lost three daughters, and a fourth was being treated. Credit... Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

In a video now available on YouTube, the doctor implored the journalist, whom he had called, to help send assistance, wailing, “My daughters have been killed.”

Journalists had come to know the doctor, who was already well known in the country’s medical establishment, because he has been providing witness accounts of the Israeli operation for television stations. After the broadcast, an ambulance was sent to a border crossing to pick up the doctor and the two wounded girls. His four other children remain in Gaza and are expected to join him in Israel soon.

At the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on Saturday, Dr. Abuelaish was surrounded by Israeli colleagues. Several were crying. Tammie Ronen, a professor of social work at Tel Aviv University, knelt beside the doctor. “You cannot let yourself collapse, you have your living children to take care of,” said Dr. Ronen. Dr. Ronen had worked with him in researching the effects of conflict-related stress on Palestinian children in Gaza and Israeli children in Sderot, a border town that has been the main target of Gazan rocket fire in recent years.

“Tell them who my children were,” said Dr. Abuelaish, spotting Anael Harpaz, an Israeli woman who runs a peace camp in New Mexico for Israeli and Palestinian girls that three of his daughters attended, including his eldest, Bisan, 20, who was killed Friday. The other two daughters who were killed were Mayar, 15, and Aya, 13. The doctor’s niece who died, Nur Abuelaish, was 17.

Dr. Abuelaish recalled that it was Bisan who, after her mother died of leukemia, urged him to continue his work in Israel, saying she would look after the younger children.

In a hospital room, Ms. Harpaz held 17-year-old Shada Abuelaish’s hand as a nurse placed drops of medicine on her tongue. The girl’s forehead was covered in bandages as was her right eye, which had been operated on in hopes of saving it. The niece who was wounded is in critical condition, with shrapnel wounds.