Gaza Doctor Pleads with World to Stop Israel’s Genocide
By Democracy Now
HAVANA TIMES – As Israel continues its campaign to erase Gaza City by systematically bombing residential buildings, schools, homes and tent encampments, we speak with Dr. Mohammed Saqr, the director of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza. He says medical workers, who are starving like the rest of the population, have nothing left to give amid hundreds of deaths and injuries each day.
“We are psychologically unstable, because we see [the] execution of civilians on a daily basis,” says Saqr. “We have no beds. We have to put patients on the ground — no supplies, no instruments. And things will go worse when the Israeli evacuation orders [displace] the Gaza City [residents] to come here to Khan Younis concentration camp.”
Saqr also describes the daily challenges of life in Gaza, saying he only owns a single pair of shoes that he shares with his five sons. “Please stop humiliating us. We are not animals,” he says.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its campaign to seize Gaza City and forcibly displace its residents. An estimated 1 million people are believed to be sheltering there. Over the weekend, Israeli forces bombed more than 30 residential buildings, as well as several schools and tent encampments.
DISPLACED GAZA CITY MOTHER 1: [translated] I was sitting, preparing some food for the children. People came and said that we have to evacuate the school. We took our things and put them outside. Minutes later, they started to strike the school. We only could get what we’re wearing. I’m sitting in a tent, nothing left for my children. I have no pillow, no blanket, nothing. Should I sleep in the streets with my children? Where should I go?
AMY GOODMAN: Targets struck on Sunday included the Islamic University and the Ro’ya Tower, which housed media and U.N. offices. Israeli officials claim a quarter of a million Palestinians have left Gaza City in recent days, but residents of the city say there’s no safe place to go.
DISPLACED GAZA CITY MOTHER 2: [translated] My home, my safety, my life. My whole life has been spent in this house. It’s the safety of my children. Now I can no longer feel safe for myself or my home. I don’t know where to go. I’m standing here with nowhere to go. I have no place in the south, no place in Gaza. I have found nowhere. Where do we go? Someone, please tell us where to go. There is no safe place. Everywhere they say is safe, but the bombing continues, and death is everywhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel killed at least 53 Palestinians Sunday and another 25 so far today, including 6-year-old twins. Meanwhile, the number of Palestinians who have starved to death has reached 422.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. continues to stand by Israel despite calling Israel’s targeted military strike on Qatar, targeting Hamas negotiators last week — the U.S. has called it “unhelpful.” Five lower-ranking members of Hamas died in the attack in Qatar’s capital Doha; a Qatari security staffer was also killed.
We go now to Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where we’re joined by Dr. Mohammed Saqr. He’s director of nursing at Nasser Hospital.
Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor. If you can describe what’s happening in, right near Nasser Medical Complex? If you can describe what’s happening with the displacement of the population from Gaza City?
DR. MOHAMMED SAQR: Yeah. Hi. Thanks for having me on your channel.
For the current situation now inside Nasser Medical Complex, the current situation really is very catastrophic now. For medical staff, as you know, very little amount of food are allowed to enter Gaza City, so most of the medical staff here work in a very bad condition. Most of them are really hungry, and the amount of food is not enough, so all of the staff suffering from moderate or mild malnutrition. For, as you know, it has been a long time, for more than 23 months, working continuously, we are physically very tired and exhausted. And by the way, we can’t, like, tolerate any more burden on us. As you know, we are psychologically unstable, because we see execution of civilians on a daily basis. Every day, we receive in Nasser Medical Complex nearly 100 civilians murdered, whether by tanks or gunshots or snipers.
And for the medical staff themselves, as well, we are unsafe, and we are targeted sometimes even inside the hospital. Last month, the Israeli air forces attacked the hospital and killed four of our medical staff. One was a doctor, and the other a nurse and two administrative staff inside the compound. So, as I have just said, the situation we are working in is very catastrophic, and Israel doesn’t respect the international law and regulations, especially when they target us and kill us even inside the hospital.
Let me tell you about the seating capacity of Nasser Medical Complex. Nasser Medical Complex was designed to receive and deal with 350 patients only. Now the current patients inside the complex is 1,000 patients. So, we have no beds. We have to put patients on the ground — no supplies, no instruments. And the things will go worse when the Israeli evacuation orders the Gaza City to come here to Khan Younis concentration camp. So, it will be more and more tragic to deal with such high number of civil civilians and populations.
Actually, let me say something important the world must know. We are here deprived from everything, every human rights. For example, let me say that I don’t have the right now to buy shoes. You know, there are no shoes in the city, for example. So, for me, let me say — for me, I have just one shoes, sharing it with five sons, five of my sons. So, if I have now — I have maybe $1,000, but I can’t find just one single shoes in the whole city to wear. So, sometimes at night, I have to walk barefoot, without shoes. Something is happening here, must stop. This genocide must stop. We are deprived from everything in human rights.
Sister, let me just explain another thing important here: no gauze inside the hospital. Sometimes we stop the service of dressing because there is no medical gauze to change dressing for patients. That leads to spread of infection among many of our patients. Sometimes there are no thermometers, so we try to guess the temperature of patients by palpation and touching the skin of patients in order to guess the temperature of patients. At the time, we don’t have CTG machines for fetuses to estimate and measure their heartbeats. Other times, no CBC kits in order to continue investigations, lab investigations. The things now inside the Gaza Strip, and especially in Nasser Medical Complex, is really catastrophic and violate every single human rights, and this is really against international laws and regulations, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mohammed Saqr, you’re the director of nursing at the Nasser Medical Complex. Al Jazeera is reporting the Palestinian Health Ministry says at least three people died in the last 24 hours from hunger, bringing the total number of people dead due to starvation to 425, including 125 children. And we also have the reports Israeli forces killed five people seeking food in southern Gaza. At least five Palestinians waiting for food were killed by gunfire south of Khan Younis. What does it mean to treat people who are dying of starvation, who have been bombed? I mean, the effect of malnutrition and hunger on the body?
DR. MOHAMMED SAQR: Yeah. As you know, to explain it more for your audience to understand what is happening here, first let’s start with the distribution points, food distribution points. The Israeli army, they throw the cartons of food on the ground and asking the people to come. When they take the cartons of food, they start shooting at them. That’s why, upon a daily basis, we receive 100 or 200 wounded people, sometimes 300 and 400, from the distribution sites.
When people come to our emergency department, we have two [inaudible]. The first is the bullets which penetrated their bodies. The second is that the people are really physically deteriorated. They’re now deteriorated. They are physically unfit. They are really very, very malnourished. So, you just see people, skin on bones, you know? These people were seeking for just food to feed themselves and their children, and when they attacked by missiles, tanks’ missiles or snipers’ bullets, they come here to our emergency department, so we have to deal with two challenges. The first is the injury, and the second is the severe malnutrition they are suffering from.
And by the way, maybe you don’t have a comprehensive view of what is happening here in Gaza Strip. Now we have three — three — main concentration camps: Khan Younis concentration camp and the middle concentration camp and Gaza concentration camp. I’m from Khan Younis concentration camp. This camp is nearly 25 kilometers square, 25 only. The number of population inside this camp is more than 1 million people, more than 1 million people moving only in 25 kilometers. And there is red line. If you cross this line, you will be directly attacked by tanks and military aircrafts. So, imagine 1 million or more than 1 million people in just 25 kilometers suffering from severe malnutrition, a lack of a medical, public healthcare system, spread of infection, a lot of things. So, now Nasser Medical Complex, really we are — we are in a critical stage now, because we don’t know how to focus on wounded, targeted people, malnourished populations, spread of infections. By the way, people here don’t find anything to eat. If they find, they find some very minimum amount of food in a very high cost. Really, these concentration camps kill the people gradually.
And we have made urgent appeal to the international community: Please stop this genocide as soon as possible. This is a fight not against Palestinians. This is a fight against humanity all over the world. This must end and stop soon. This is — this is like a shame on humanity to make camps like this, focusing people and concentrating people in, like, this way, million, more than 1 million in 25 kilometers, and killing them inside these camps by tanks and aircraft, military aircrafts, killing them inside these camps by snipers, killing these people inside this camp by preventing them from food access and medical access or healthcare access. This is insane. This madness must stop.
Sister, I’m not just sad at what is happening here for Palestinians. I’m really sad at Israelis themselves, because their government is putting them at the dark side of the history. This must stop. And the international community and general counsel must question the Israeli government. Please stop humiliating us. We are not animals to be collected in very poor concentration camps like this, killing us and destroying our houses. And by the way, you know what is — what makes these camps? When they destroyed our houses, when they destroyed our hospitals and health facilities, we have no homes, we have no houses, no infrastructure, nothing, so we escaped to the west of the city. Now, this camp is 25 kilometers. We are not allowed to pass or cross this camp. If anyone crossed, he will be directly targeted.
Sister, they have taken away every single human right from us. We are not allowed to eat. We are not allowed to dress. We are not allowed to buy shoes. We are allowed to eat a very minimum amount of food. Two months ago, we were completely deprived from food, but now just very minimal amount of food. We are not allowed to wear shoes. We are not allowed to eat vegetables. We are not allowed to eat fruits. We are dying.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mohammed Saqr, I want to thank you very much for being with us, director of nursing at the Nasser Medical Complex near Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza.