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We're here in solidarity with our
Palestinian health care workers and with

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the Palestinian people.

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You cannot witness what is happening in
Gaza and not emerge enraged and

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determined to stop it. There are no
independent witnesses allowed, no

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investigators, no international
journalists allowed in. So as health

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care workers, we're the only independent
witnesses allowed on the ground. Well,

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there are lies, and I think that... The
world media need to call them out for

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these lies and not keep asking people
like me or keep telling us in interviews

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that the Israelis claim this hasn't
happened.

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We're telling people what we have seen
with our own eyes. So arguably, I think

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that's possibly our greatest role is
using our eyewitness accounts

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to advocate for the Gazans and to let
the rest of the world know what's going

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on. It's difficult to understand unless
you come here and see the difference

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that you make. We always worry when we
come here that we might not be of any

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use, that we might get all our kit
confiscated, that we might not have a

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hospital to go to.

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But what we always say is the main thing
is to come here to bear witness because

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you're not seeing what I'm seeing
because there's been a complete block to

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all media.

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The narrative seems to be very
controlled.

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And so...

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To be there and to say, hold on, that's
not quite how it looks from the ground.

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And to get the footage and to
disseminate those pictures is hugely

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important.

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So I've been going to Gaza for many
years. My first visit to Gaza was in

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2010.

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I'd been going to the West Bank for
several years prior to that, and then

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someone, it was real serendipity,
mentioned, do you want to come to Gaza?

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And I said yes.

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So that was 2010, and I have very vivid
memories of that first trip.

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The combination of shock at seeing how
much destruction there was back in 2010.

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There'd clearly been that massive
military assault in 2008, so there's

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still a huge amount of destruction
there. But the thing that struck me more

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than anything was the beautiful people
there.

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Every time I go to Gaza, I get the same
wonderful, warm emotion of the

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utterly beautiful people you meet there.

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The first time I went to Gaza, I was
utterly struck.

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by the process of getting in.

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First, we had to apply to a permit
months in advance.

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And then once you get there, it was the
Erez crossing at the time, and it just

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looks like a massive prison.

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And at different points, you know, a
door unlocks or a gate unlocks, and you

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go into the next step, and they take all
your things away.

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And you walk through this gated passage
for quite some time until you

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finally, at the other end, meet...

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the Gazantine that's there to welcome
you.

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So it just felt like an impossible place
to enter and an impossible place to

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exit.

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I think a lot of people think that it
was some sort of hovel or some, you

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know, backward area of the Middle East,
but it's the original.

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It's what the Middle East was. It's what
Palestine was. And it was...

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It's old and lots of buildings need a
bit of care, but there's so many other

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things going on. There's brand-new
universities and beautifully manicured

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gardens. Some of the hospitals are
pretty impressive.

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There is a real buzz and a real zest for
life there. They've been living under

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this occupation, under this siege, for
many, many years, and that was very,

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very obvious to all of us all the time
we were there.

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People like any other people, which...

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I think shocked me, given the difficulty
of getting in and the fact

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that most of the people I met there were
born in that very tiny strip of land,

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have never left that very tiny strip of
land and are not allowed to leave that

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very tiny strip of land.

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And there's just so much to do that you
feel like you're making headway.

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Even if it's one patient at a time,
you're getting through this massive

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amount of work that they have.

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I was effectively having two trips a
year out in Gaza.

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I had a week booked, we had our flights
booked to go in October to do a week of

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cancer surgery, October 2023, but our
flights were booked for October the

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21st.

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Palestinian militants launched a
surprise attack on Israel from the

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blockaded Gaza Strip.

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Hamas said the attack was in response to
Israel's desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque

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and decades of Israeli oppression.

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The Israeli government declared a state
of war.

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I was very, very honoured to be asked to
lead the very first EMT emergency

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medical team that went in at the end of
December 2023.

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We had intended to arrive on Christmas
Day, but due to a series of delays

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being held at security checkpoints in
Egypt, we had to spend a night in

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Al Arish on the Egyptian side before
travelling to the border.

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on the morning of the 26th i remember
approaching the border from

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egyptian rafa and seeing that and we
were sort of across the sinai beautiful

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sun not a cloud in the sky and you get
to gaza and there's this low-lying smoke

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just over the whole of gaza from all the
bombs and the smell of smoke the smell

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of warfare was overpowering as we
entered there was a window in which you

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had to move.

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So we had to move very quickly.

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We were under the impression at that
time that if you moved on your

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designated route within your allotted
time, that you would be safe.

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Of course, that isn't true, but that's
the illusion that many of us are.

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hold on to some sense of safety under
extremely unsafe circumstances.

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I've always seen lots of destruction in
Gaza. Every time I've been there, I've

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seen lots. But this was on a different
level. And we were only in the south of

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Gaza. We didn't go to the north. And
I've seen photographs of the north where

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most of the destruction had taken place.
But we still saw a lot of destruction in

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the south in Hanunis and Rafah when we
were driving through.

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on coming through the Rafa crossing, the
destruction,

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the number of people camped in makeshift

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tents, shelters along the side of the
road in

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abject conditions. Don't forget, I went
when it was winter.

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It's cold at night.

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And people had flimsy bits of plastic
that they'd done their best to create

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some kind of shelter for themselves and
their families.

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And we arrived at the guest house. This
was about 6 p.m. in the evening. And

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around that time, the artillery shelling
and the airstrikes started to increase

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in frequency.

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And the entire night, it was just
hundreds of strikes.

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The house we were staying in was
deliberately in an open area so that

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there would be no risk of us being
collateral damage.

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That was the idea behind it, and it made
sense.

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But actually, as a result of that, we
would hear the explosions very clearly,

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and the bombings at night time were
terrifying.

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My colleague Nick Maynard and I, we
slept in the same room, and we kept

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the windows and the doors open because
of the worry about it.

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glass shattering i

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remember at one point trying to

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to keep track to count each and every
explosion and lost count after

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several hundred i mean we were hearing
extremely loud airstrikes um and then

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the kind of the constant noise of

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ground artillery on the Israeli side of
the armistice line firing into Gaza.

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Of course you have the warships off the
coastline that are also firing into Gaza

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and then heavy gunfire as well.

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You could see in the distance looking
towards the north of Gaza just orange on

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the sky which of course was Gaza City
and North Gaza just under constant

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bombardment.

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My first time back was March 2024.

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I actually tried to go in January and
February, but the

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guest house of the organization I was
supposed to be going with, despite being

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in a so-called deconflicted zone, was
actually bombed by the Israeli military,

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and so they canceled our team, and we
were postponed.

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So we ended up going in March.

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And I was based at Al-Aqsa Hospital in
Deir el-Balah, in the middle area of

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Gaza. I was in touch with Ahmed most
days, most weeks.

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And when I knew I was going, I contacted
him and asked him what he needed. At

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that time, he'd been evacuated from
Shifa and he'd made the journey down to

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the European Gaza Hospital.

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And we knew that that's where we were
going to be posted.

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And he sent me a list of equipment that
they needed there.

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And I put a post out on our British
Association of Plastic

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Surgery website asking for plastic
surgeons around the UK to send me any of

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this kit.

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And my living room was full of boxes
within about a week. The guys from

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Ireland sent so much, so much stuff.

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My other half, Philip, I think lost the
will to live. You couldn't get into our

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front room for a couple of months before
we left.

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And so I packed all this stuff up and we
got this flight to Cairo.

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So this is where the problem may lie, as
to whether we're going to be able to get

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all of this through without being
stopped and it being taken off of us.

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It's Monday the 25th.

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of March and it's four o'clock in the
morning and our update

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is we made it through the airport at
Cairo.

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We managed to get all 23 suitcases
through.

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And when we got to the hotel we had
booked a minibus. We

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managed to get all the luggage into the
bus and then we joined the UN convoy and

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drove. across the Sinai Desert down to
the Rafah border.

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We passed all the aid trucks on the way
there.

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That was probably the first thing that
hit me.

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They started well before Al Arish.

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There were miles and miles of them. I
took a video that lasted three minutes

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and I didn't start filming at the start
and I stopped before it finished.

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So that shows you how many aid trucks
there were that couldn't get into Rafah.

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When we got to the border we decanted
the minibus and we had everything x

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-rayed and then we waited a while and
then our colleagues picked us up on the

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other side of the border.

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When we got to the European Gaza
Hospital, I think the biggest shock for

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me was the number of internally
displaced people.

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I'd worked at the European Gaza Hospital
a couple of times on the trips that I'd

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done before October the 7th.

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So I knew the hospital. It was built in
the 80s. It's a beautiful building.

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I was last here in 2020 and...

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It's completely different.

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It's like a different entity.

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I don't recognise anything apart from
one of the coffee rooms and the recovery

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from theatre.

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And there's a storeroom that I
recognise.

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Everything else is just incredible. It
looks like some sort of concentration

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camp. There were people everywhere when
you went into the building.

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The corridors were rammed, and as you
walked down, on either side of you,

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there would be sheets suspended from the
ceiling and cornering off small

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sections, and behind each section of
sheet or carpet would be a mattress on

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the floor, and our whole family would be
living like that. And that would be on

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the stairwell as well, so somebody would
have made home halfway up.

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a stairwell, and they would have a
mattress and all their pots and pans and

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some sheets and towels pinned around for
some privacy.

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And these weren't people that had
relatives in the hospital.

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If you had a relative in the hospital,
you all made your home at your

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relatives' beds.

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The two largest hospitals in Gaza are
Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Nasr Hospital.

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By March 2024, Al-Shifa had already been
attacked multiple times.

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for the most part destroyed.

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So the patients that would be going to
those hospitals tended to be coming to

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Al-Aqsa, which was now functioning as
one of Gaza's main hospitals, even

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though it was rather a small hospital
prior to October 2023, to the

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point that it didn't have a pediatric
intensive care unit. It had an adult

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intensive care unit.

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Although given how many of our
casualties were children, I remember at

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least nine or ten of the, I think,
eleven or so beds were occupied

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by injured children.

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So it's only our first day here, but
it's been pretty rough.

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The cases we see reflect essentially the
demographics of the population here. So

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a lot of elderly, a lot of children,
entire families coming in.

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It's really tough.

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I think I knew watching the news that I
would be seeing cases like this.

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that I would be seeing a population that
was primarily women and children.

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But then when you come here and see them
for real,

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it

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hits even harder.

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This is a war.

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This is a war on civilians.

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We were based at Al-Aqsa Hospital, which
is in Deir el-Balah. Deir el-Balah is in

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the centre of Gaza Strip.

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It's a small hospital that normally
functions as a maternity, mainly a

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maternity block for women giving birth.

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I went there to be an obstetrician
because it's actually had quite a big

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maternity unit.

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It also had a reasonable-sized neonatal
unit.

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Just as I got there, maternity was moved
out.

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And that's because it was overwhelmed
with trauma cases.

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operated was to embed ourselves with the
team rather than operate in a parallel

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fashion. And that made a big difference
because actually we managed to then

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break down a few barriers with the local
doctors who naturally would feel, you

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know, what are these international
doctors coming here to do? We can do

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what they're doing anyway. And I have no
qualms about that at all. We were there

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00:21:10,030 --> 00:21:11,450
to relieve the pressure on them.

224
00:21:11,870 --> 00:21:14,390
There was never a day when we weren't
operating.

225
00:21:14,990 --> 00:21:17,370
And sometimes it was complete chaos.

226
00:21:17,820 --> 00:21:21,980
So we were treating patients for the
most part on the floor, and we would

227
00:21:21,980 --> 00:21:26,820
often have upwards of eight, ten
patients on the floor there.

228
00:21:27,020 --> 00:21:31,120
At times we had to step over patients to
reach other patients.

229
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:37,220
Patients' blood would be mixing on the
floor. I mean, it was just horrific,

230
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,520
really. Because of the nature of the
weapons that are used, the blasts are so

231
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,660
powerful that a lot of children end up
with blast injuries where...

232
00:21:46,220 --> 00:21:52,600
They have internal bleeding or internal
damage to, you know, important

233
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:54,220
organs, vital organs.

234
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:56,480
So you see nothing on the outside.

235
00:21:56,700 --> 00:22:00,400
The children look unscathed, but they're
actually already dead.

236
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,820
Everyone thinks plastic surgery is tits
and bums, and it's not.

237
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:08,060
Plastic surgery is wounds and wound
management and trauma.

238
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:14,030
And in a war, after an orthopedic
surgeon... and possibly a general

239
00:22:14,030 --> 00:22:16,310
surgeon. You really need a plastic
surgeon.

240
00:22:16,630 --> 00:22:21,970
And probably everybody in Gaza would
benefit from seeing a plastic surgeon

241
00:22:21,970 --> 00:22:26,130
just to have a look at their wounds and
ways in which we can improve the healing

242
00:22:26,130 --> 00:22:28,510
or close them or clean them.

243
00:22:28,890 --> 00:22:31,270
And so there is so much work to do.

244
00:22:31,510 --> 00:22:38,470
And every time I go, I turn up and I
walk into an operating theatre and I

245
00:22:38,470 --> 00:22:41,230
am basically given an operating theatre.

246
00:22:42,159 --> 00:22:46,400
myself, and I just start operating, and
I stop when I stop.

247
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:56,080
I

248
00:22:56,080 --> 00:23:02,760
finally

249
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:03,760
found him.

250
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,640
He finally came back. I can't believe.

251
00:23:07,340 --> 00:23:08,340
It's a pleasure to be here.

252
00:23:08,780 --> 00:23:12,200
The sad thing is that she came to
support me, then she couldn't find me

253
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,139
here.

254
00:23:13,140 --> 00:23:15,460
At least you turned up. Yeah, finally.

255
00:23:16,060 --> 00:23:19,320
It's amazing what you've done here. I'm
so proud of you.

256
00:23:19,540 --> 00:23:20,820
Thank you very much. Thank you.

257
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,540
And I think you're continuing with the
things you started. It's a pleasure to

258
00:23:24,540 --> 00:23:26,860
work with your team. Your team are
absolutely incredible.

259
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:30,160
Yeah, they're amazing. I cannot believe
what you've done.

260
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,900
You're the most famous plastic surgeon.

261
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:38,480
Honestly, everywhere I go, people say,
oh, you know Ahmed, you trained Ahmed.

262
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,920
It was really a great chance. I think
what I want to say, the whole of my life

263
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:44,560
has ended up in this time.

264
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:48,600
So it's a pleasure to have you. It's a
blessing to have all of this.

265
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,100
And you were a good part of the support,
you know.

266
00:23:52,360 --> 00:23:55,140
I'm so pleased to be here to carry on.

267
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,860
So I spent a lot of time in the ICU and
I spent a lot of time in the emergency

268
00:24:05,860 --> 00:24:11,080
department because it was a period where
the area around Al-Aqsa Hospital was

269
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:15,880
being bombed almost continuously. So we
had mass casualty after mass casualty

270
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:17,160
coming to the emergency department.

271
00:24:17,980 --> 00:24:22,800
And the staff was overwhelmed, the space
was overwhelmed.

272
00:24:23,260 --> 00:24:26,340
So I ended up working in the emergency
department.

273
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:31,120
I ended up working, doing ward rounds on
the wards, going into theatre.

274
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:37,680
helping you know where i could for us in
the er in the space of those eight hours

275
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:44,620
we would see the most horrific things
that i have ever experienced as as an

276
00:24:44,620 --> 00:24:50,620
emergency doctor i don't claim to have
vast clinical experience i've been

277
00:24:50,620 --> 00:24:54,680
qualified for 10 years but i have worked
with international humanitarian

278
00:24:54,680 --> 00:25:01,520
organizations in other contexts and i
have never seen anywhere else the

279
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,540
things that I have seen in Gaza.

280
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:05,360
There were no intensive care beds.

281
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,720
They would all end up on a floor
somewhere or ended up somewhere else

282
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,440
looked after by their families. The
number of patients who had what we would

283
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:17,160
deem a successful surgery, they went
through the operation and they survived

284
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:21,860
the operation and we did what was deemed
appropriate for the treatment.

285
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,240
But the number of those patients who
then died three or four days later

286
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:26,820
because they had no nutrition.

287
00:25:27,450 --> 00:25:30,290
because there were no antibiotics,
because there was no one to actually

288
00:25:30,290 --> 00:25:35,210
pick up when things went wrong, and
there's no way of being able to, as you

289
00:25:35,210 --> 00:25:38,990
do in intensive care, watch over them
like a hawk for the first few days. That

290
00:25:38,990 --> 00:25:39,669
didn't happen.

291
00:25:39,670 --> 00:25:46,610
I lived in the room with two emergency
physicians, so they would get alerted

292
00:25:46,610 --> 00:25:50,850
when mass casualties were in, so then we
would, by default, know when we'd be

293
00:25:50,850 --> 00:25:51,850
needed.

294
00:25:52,290 --> 00:25:55,410
And you're working with, at some times,
no electricity,

295
00:25:57,450 --> 00:26:02,450
instruments, no clean instruments, no
gauze. At one point we were running out

296
00:26:02,450 --> 00:26:07,750
of bandages and those patients requiring
multiple operations because infection

297
00:26:07,750 --> 00:26:13,810
seeds in. There's no advanced health
care anywhere in the world that could

298
00:26:13,810 --> 00:26:15,310
deal with what's happening in Gaza.

299
00:26:15,670 --> 00:26:20,490
The pediatric intensive care doctor is
the doctor that's called to the

300
00:26:20,490 --> 00:26:25,970
emergency department when
life-threatening things happen to

301
00:26:25,970 --> 00:26:26,970
children.

302
00:26:27,020 --> 00:26:34,020
whether it's a car accident or any other
essentially traumatic accident.

303
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:41,240
I've never seen anything as intensely
horrific and

304
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,640
constant inflicted on children.

305
00:26:45,140 --> 00:26:49,920
And I remember thinking to myself, wow,
this is two months after the ICJ ruling

306
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:51,060
on plausible genocide.

307
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,360
This is the worst thing I've ever seen
in my life. It can't get worse.

308
00:27:01,610 --> 00:27:06,530
It's Tuesday the 2nd of April and the
drones are back.

309
00:27:08,370 --> 00:27:14,650
We've had a slightly worrying tale
yesterday in that we saw the news that

310
00:27:14,650 --> 00:27:20,110
Shefa Hospital in Gaza City had been
more or less levelled.

311
00:29:14,549 --> 00:29:21,270
Despite unfathomable devastation, they
have been

312
00:29:21,270 --> 00:29:28,030
operating and providing emergency
services in the Al Shifa complex using

313
00:29:28,030 --> 00:29:34,370
some of the admin and outpatient space
that wasn't completely destroyed to

314
00:29:34,370 --> 00:29:39,450
provide an emergency department, a
makeshift inpatient unit, and two

315
00:29:39,450 --> 00:29:40,450
operating rooms.

316
00:29:41,740 --> 00:29:44,480
So it's crazy. They're back providing
care.

317
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:51,160
I remember one surgeon, friend of mine,
was operating with me, and someone came

318
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,720
in to tell him his sister had just been
killed.

319
00:29:55,600 --> 00:30:00,120
And he carried on operating, and he
said, I'm sorry, I have to go.

320
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:06,060
I've been in theatres with another
wonderful man who I know well, who I

321
00:30:06,060 --> 00:30:09,360
used to love operating with, who on...

322
00:30:09,610 --> 00:30:13,290
At least two or three occasions during
my four weeks would pass out, would

323
00:30:13,290 --> 00:30:16,910
start fainting during the operation
because he was so hungry.

324
00:30:17,330 --> 00:30:21,890
Literally, he'd have to sit down and put
his head between his legs because he was

325
00:30:21,890 --> 00:30:22,649
so hungry.

326
00:30:22,650 --> 00:30:25,870
Then he'd get up and he said, you know,
I'm going to carry on.

327
00:30:26,130 --> 00:30:28,450
We are that vessel to carry their
stories.

328
00:30:28,670 --> 00:30:35,490
And I honestly believe as international,
as healthcare workers,

329
00:30:35,690 --> 00:30:37,370
we are the vessel of their stories.

330
00:30:37,790 --> 00:30:41,270
The story isn't us. The story is what
they are enduring.

331
00:30:41,690 --> 00:30:45,930
But we have been put in this position
where we are the vessel to tell their

332
00:30:45,930 --> 00:30:46,930
stories.

333
00:30:48,550 --> 00:30:51,990
We provide them that light reprieve.

334
00:30:52,830 --> 00:30:55,190
We provide them hope, I hope.

335
00:30:56,710 --> 00:31:02,250
And we provide them that we haven't
forgotten about them in a world which

336
00:31:02,250 --> 00:31:06,110
overwhelmingly feels that they've been
forgotten about.

337
00:31:06,730 --> 00:31:12,590
I think we act as people who tell them
every day that we've not forgotten about

338
00:31:12,590 --> 00:31:15,030
them. This is the 7th of April.

339
00:31:15,250 --> 00:31:17,950
We're at the European Gaza Hospital in
Khan Yunis.

340
00:31:18,270 --> 00:31:24,970
And what we're doing is trying to have
an end-of-term video with Rosie,

341
00:31:25,170 --> 00:31:27,090
Miss Rose, and her volunteers.

342
00:31:28,430 --> 00:31:30,430
They're absolutely star.

343
00:31:30,750 --> 00:31:35,370
Look at this. This is the best team I've
ever worked with in my entire life.

344
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,600
Thank you. And I've had the best two
weeks ever. Thank you so much.

345
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:46,880
We really appreciate your effort and
you're coming to

346
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:47,799
help us.

347
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:49,620
It's really nice.

348
00:31:50,340 --> 00:31:53,660
You've been so welcome. We learned a lot
from you. Thanks a lot for that.

349
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:56,720
I'm very worried about you.

350
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:00,420
With all this work and so far.

351
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,640
We need to take a photo.

352
00:32:06,890 --> 00:32:13,830
So it is Monday the 8th of April and

353
00:32:13,830 --> 00:32:20,770
it's 10.56 and I'm in a hotel room in
Cairo

354
00:32:20,770 --> 00:32:27,170
so I've made it out of Gaza safely and
my two-week mission

355
00:32:27,170 --> 00:32:28,770
is over.

356
00:32:36,970 --> 00:32:38,450
Difficult to know what to say, really.

357
00:32:40,190 --> 00:32:46,790
I'm still feeling very guilty that at
the end of all of that I can just

358
00:32:46,790 --> 00:32:52,970
walk away back into my very nice,
comfortable London life.

359
00:32:54,010 --> 00:33:00,270
And, you know, the remaining population
of Gaza have got to still endure

360
00:33:00,270 --> 00:33:05,070
whatever it is that they've got to
endure before this is over.

361
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,360
So it's a real double-edged sword.

362
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:18,920
And it's quite difficult now to imagine
how this will

363
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:25,800
play out and whether when I return I
will be able to return

364
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:31,440
or what I'm going to return to, which is
also quite worrying.

365
00:33:33,700 --> 00:33:35,580
I had a second trip.

366
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:43,620
going in on April the 20th, 2024, again
through Rafah, and

367
00:33:43,620 --> 00:33:49,700
leaving Gaza on May the 6th, which was
the day that Rafah was invaded, you may

368
00:33:49,700 --> 00:33:55,280
remember, and destroyed. And we were, in
fact, the very last people to get out of

369
00:33:55,280 --> 00:34:01,100
Rafah before the Israeli tanks arrived.
And we exited through Rafah as bombs

370
00:34:01,100 --> 00:34:03,020
were raining down all around us.

371
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:15,980
Israeli forces have taken control of
Gaza's Rafah crossing at the border with

372
00:34:15,980 --> 00:34:21,719
Egypt. Aid officials warned that
Israel's operation cuts off an essential

373
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,520
route for international humanitarian
aid, which has been trickling into Gaza

374
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:27,760
since the war began.

375
00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:36,100
As Israeli forces moved deeper into
Gaza, warplanes pounded residential

376
00:34:36,100 --> 00:34:38,840
homes throughout the night and into the
morning.

377
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:24,140
The next time I went back was the August
of 2024 and by then the

378
00:35:24,140 --> 00:35:28,640
destruction was far worse.

379
00:35:29,780 --> 00:35:34,940
So packing has been a bit different this
time because we're very restricted on

380
00:35:34,940 --> 00:35:36,420
what we can take.

381
00:35:37,380 --> 00:35:44,200
Israelis have said basically it's one
bag and...

382
00:35:45,130 --> 00:35:49,790
The total contents of the bag has to be
under a certain value.

383
00:35:51,170 --> 00:35:56,950
So it's really stopped me bringing
everything that I was going to bring

384
00:35:56,950 --> 00:35:57,950
before.

385
00:35:58,410 --> 00:36:04,190
Most of what I'm bringing now is sort of
food, water.

386
00:36:04,810 --> 00:36:08,830
I've got some children's clothes in here
and some children's shoes.

387
00:36:10,090 --> 00:36:13,190
A few specific items like charging
cables.

388
00:36:14,270 --> 00:36:17,350
that the medical students have asked me
to bring.

389
00:36:17,990 --> 00:36:24,370
I've got a computer and a laptop here,
and this is the medical equipment that

390
00:36:24,370 --> 00:36:31,190
I'm going to try and get in. I've got a
couple of ligaflips for hopefully

391
00:36:31,190 --> 00:36:37,970
some microsurgery, the obligatory 200
cigarettes, water, and

392
00:36:37,970 --> 00:36:40,790
then my operating glasses.

393
00:36:41,850 --> 00:36:46,350
I'm taking a couple of sets, and I'm
really hoping that I'm going to be able

394
00:36:46,350 --> 00:36:53,110
to get in this, which is my only tray of
instruments, because it's going to

395
00:36:53,110 --> 00:36:54,430
affect what I can do.

396
00:36:55,730 --> 00:36:59,930
We couldn't enter through Rafah then.

397
00:37:00,570 --> 00:37:07,350
That had been taken in the May, and now
Israel occupied all

398
00:37:07,350 --> 00:37:09,150
or controlled all the borders.

399
00:37:11,850 --> 00:37:18,350
The European Gaza hospital had been
evacuated in the June, so we

400
00:37:18,350 --> 00:37:21,750
knew in the August that we would have to
go to Nasser.

401
00:37:22,030 --> 00:37:26,950
Again, Nasser was a hospital that I'd
worked at before, so I knew it.

402
00:37:27,890 --> 00:37:34,690
But the entry now was through Kerem
Shalom, which is a gate quite

403
00:37:34,690 --> 00:37:40,890
a long way down the south of Israel,
very close to the Egyptian border.

404
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,060
Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment.

405
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:50,220
So we made it this far yesterday. In
fact, we made it a bit further.

406
00:37:50,820 --> 00:37:54,560
We got to the Israeli side and through
their customs.

407
00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:00,480
And then as we were getting on the bus
to make the start of the journey to

408
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:05,940
Karam Shalom, we heard news that there
had been fighting in Rafah and at the

409
00:38:05,940 --> 00:38:07,080
Karam Shalom border.

410
00:38:07,670 --> 00:38:11,770
was closed, so they turned us around and
sent us back to Amman.

411
00:38:12,030 --> 00:38:16,430
So we've had a lovely night in Amman at
a slightly better hotel.

412
00:38:17,090 --> 00:38:22,550
And now we're back to do the whole thing
once more, but hopefully get a bit

413
00:38:22,550 --> 00:38:25,030
further. So we're starting again.

414
00:38:25,850 --> 00:38:31,230
13 and a half hours yesterday, largely
in a bus, at several checkpoints, bags

415
00:38:31,230 --> 00:38:33,170
off the bus, bags back on the bus.

416
00:38:35,210 --> 00:38:39,830
Miss Rose's bag is seriously heavy. I'm
becoming the world's most perfectly

417
00:38:39,830 --> 00:38:40,830
ruptured man.

418
00:38:41,330 --> 00:38:47,890
But otherwise, spirits are high. The
difference this morning was that while

419
00:38:47,890 --> 00:38:52,510
yesterday the bus was full of chatter
coming from my mum, today it was

420
00:38:52,510 --> 00:38:55,290
completely silent.

421
00:38:55,570 --> 00:38:59,470
Look, we look like we're moving back
onto the bus.

422
00:39:01,210 --> 00:39:04,070
There were only 35 seats on that coach.

423
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:09,420
They were divvied out by the United
Nations, WHO.

424
00:39:09,660 --> 00:39:16,160
We had a chap with us on the August trip
who was a scientist and he was tracking

425
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:17,180
the polio virus.

426
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:23,940
We had a bomb disposal expert with us.
So a huge range of people, but Graham

427
00:39:23,940 --> 00:39:27,820
and I were the only two surgeons on that
trip out of 35 people.

428
00:39:28,220 --> 00:39:32,840
So the numbers of people entering had
gone down as well.

429
00:39:34,090 --> 00:39:38,990
When the coach gets to Kerem Shalom, you
all decant into seven or eight UN

430
00:39:38,990 --> 00:39:43,410
armoured vehicles, and they drive you
from there to the OCHA training centre.

431
00:39:43,870 --> 00:39:48,850
And that 15-minute drive, I think, for
the first ten minutes, I didn't see

432
00:39:48,850 --> 00:39:54,050
another sign of life. It was just
rubble. Everything had been reduced to

433
00:39:54,050 --> 00:39:57,030
rubble. Most of the buildings you
couldn't recognise.

434
00:39:57,770 --> 00:40:00,590
Occasionally you'd see the roof of a
mosque on the floor.

435
00:40:01,370 --> 00:40:06,470
Or, you know, you'd see bits of a school
on the floor, but it was rubble

436
00:40:06,470 --> 00:40:09,550
everywhere and there was no one running
around in the streets now.

437
00:40:09,850 --> 00:40:16,190
It was really, really shocking to see
how life had changed so much

438
00:40:16,190 --> 00:40:18,410
in such a few months.

439
00:40:54,860 --> 00:40:56,900
This is the burns unit at NASA.

440
00:40:57,780 --> 00:40:59,380
They're just walking through.

441
00:41:01,500 --> 00:41:03,820
It used to be the burns unit at NASA.

442
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:11,580
We're just walking through to see what's
been damaged.

443
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:19,620
But that's the damage.

444
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,340
Yeah, I'm not going to go too far into
this, but wow.

445
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:32,160
It's amazing.

446
00:41:35,100 --> 00:41:41,860
In the August, the signs of fatigue were
evident,

447
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:48,620
and there was some mental health issues

448
00:41:48,620 --> 00:41:51,800
around the lack of...

449
00:41:53,720 --> 00:41:56,140
items that were coming into Gaza,
really.

450
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:03,360
At that stage, they had put a ban on
sanitary products, so the people weren't

451
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:08,000
getting any shower gel, no soap, no
shampoo, no conditioner, no toothpaste.

452
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,900
And when Graeme and I entered in the
August, all of our colleagues had texted

453
00:42:13,900 --> 00:42:17,360
us asking us to bring shampoo, soap.

454
00:42:18,100 --> 00:42:22,300
And there was a lot of upset when we got
there about how...

455
00:42:22,830 --> 00:42:27,870
How this could be happening to them? How
could they be denied these basic items?

456
00:42:28,330 --> 00:42:35,030
And you started to sense that there was
some despair about the situation

457
00:42:35,030 --> 00:42:36,070
that they were in.

458
00:42:36,290 --> 00:42:40,370
Actually talking to the staff and
learning about them, they've all been

459
00:42:40,370 --> 00:42:44,310
displaced pretty much. No one is
originally from Nassau Hospital.

460
00:42:44,550 --> 00:42:50,570
They all worked at Schiffer and
Indonesian or hospitals in the north.

461
00:42:52,540 --> 00:42:54,400
And all of them have been displaced now.

462
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:56,980
All of them have big families.

463
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:05,320
And one guy just said, you know, I feel
like I need a lot of therapy

464
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:06,320
after this.

465
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:12,960
And it just doesn't bear to tell what's
happening to their mental health living

466
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:14,000
through this genocide.

467
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:17,940
Yeah, pretty horrific.

468
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:21,240
And then we've just met a team.

469
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,740
that have come from the north to our
accommodation.

470
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,980
Really nice people, but they said that
as they were evacuating from the north,

471
00:43:30,060 --> 00:43:36,080
they were shot at by the Israeli army
whilst airstrikes were going on.

472
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,000
Wow, the drone is really loud tonight.

473
00:43:41,860 --> 00:43:43,340
Another day in Gaza.

474
00:43:44,460 --> 00:43:49,440
A situation that no human should have to
experience.

475
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,900
And no one should have to witness.

476
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:59,040
And our colleagues there, that's what
they were dealing with.

477
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:05,500
Hour after hour, day after day, week
after week, they have done that for over

478
00:44:05,500 --> 00:44:12,380
two years and still managed to give
compassion, to see people as humans,

479
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:18,900
to do their best, to offer comfort, to
try and save their lives.

480
00:44:20,370 --> 00:44:25,130
All the time while they were worrying
about their families, what was going to

481
00:44:25,130 --> 00:44:31,810
happen to them, whether they were going
to be there when they got home, whether

482
00:44:31,810 --> 00:44:32,890
they'd have to move again.

483
00:44:34,110 --> 00:44:38,630
One of the doctors, who is a good friend
of mine, who is a neonatal consultant,

484
00:44:38,830 --> 00:44:44,830
who in fact was the director of neonatal
and maternity services at Shifa and the

485
00:44:44,830 --> 00:44:45,890
northern governor.

486
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:52,800
She had fled with her two... She was a
widow. She'd fled with her two teenage

487
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:57,920
daughters. And she was Al-Aqsa. And it
was such a pleasure to see her. I've

488
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,160
seen her on previews. She is a tour de
force, this woman.

489
00:45:02,780 --> 00:45:03,900
Absolutely incredible.

490
00:45:05,420 --> 00:45:08,160
And she came to work with her girls.

491
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:16,280
And that's because she said, you know,
in her words, actually, if we die, I

492
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:17,740
want us all to die together.

493
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:25,300
And, you know, she was delivering care.
She had humor. She was teaching. She was

494
00:45:25,300 --> 00:45:27,120
still writing papers.

495
00:45:27,460 --> 00:45:34,000
You know, she was trying to publish a
protocol for how you cope

496
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,880
in the neonatal unit in the middle of a
war.

497
00:45:40,180 --> 00:45:41,180
Extraordinary.

498
00:45:41,540 --> 00:45:44,400
Over 1,000 health care workers have been
killed in Gaza.

499
00:45:44,990 --> 00:45:47,510
Hundreds of healthcare workers have been
held in Israeli captivity.

500
00:45:47,850 --> 00:45:50,050
At least four have been killed while in
detention.

501
00:45:50,270 --> 00:45:51,830
Their bodies are still being held.

502
00:45:52,570 --> 00:45:56,410
Every single healthcare worker I met in
Gaza has lost family, has lost friends,

503
00:45:56,670 --> 00:45:58,330
has lost colleagues.

504
00:45:59,190 --> 00:46:02,950
Every single healthcare worker I met has
been displaced multiple times, has been

505
00:46:02,950 --> 00:46:04,690
forced out of the hospitals where they
work.

506
00:46:06,830 --> 00:46:10,750
Many healthcare workers have been killed
while trying to rescue the wounded in

507
00:46:10,750 --> 00:46:12,810
what has infamously been called...

508
00:46:13,380 --> 00:46:18,240
Israel's double or triple strike
attacks, where a location is struck and

509
00:46:18,240 --> 00:46:22,080
then shortly after it is struck a second
and third time once the rescue workers

510
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,120
are there to retrieve the casualties.

511
00:46:25,020 --> 00:46:28,120
Other health care workers have been
killed while working in hospitals.

512
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:34,080
Hospitals and health care workers
represent life and the will to keep

513
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:35,080
people alive.

514
00:46:35,240 --> 00:46:39,140
The systematic and egregious targeting
of health care is a line that should

515
00:46:39,140 --> 00:46:40,140
have never been crossed.

516
00:46:40,910 --> 00:46:43,210
like so, so many red lines.

517
00:47:00,350 --> 00:47:03,970
Absolutely massive strike on EGH
Hospital.

518
00:47:04,610 --> 00:47:06,590
This is right in front of the emergency
room.

519
00:47:08,410 --> 00:47:09,670
People lying on the ground.

520
00:47:10,940 --> 00:47:11,940
Shrapnel everywhere.

521
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:15,540
Devastation right in the forecourt of
the hospital.

522
00:47:15,940 --> 00:47:16,940
Absolutely terrible.

523
00:47:17,460 --> 00:47:21,160
We're standing outside the operation
theatre. You can see the damage behind

524
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,340
me. It's not even possible to take any
cases to theatre.

525
00:47:24,620 --> 00:47:29,160
It is too dangerous. The theatre's been
damaged and the staff, unsurprisingly,

526
00:47:29,340 --> 00:47:32,640
have left at the moment to try and seek
safety.

527
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:34,400
I thought I'd find you.

528
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:35,760
I hate this.

529
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,760
When I see you, absolute mayhem.

530
00:47:43,050 --> 00:47:45,250
It's a direct hit on the hospital.

531
00:47:54,850 --> 00:47:57,810
I see people milling around the entrance
to the hospital.

532
00:47:58,370 --> 00:48:04,250
They're clearing it to enable access for

533
00:48:04,250 --> 00:48:08,350
ambulances, et cetera, to get to the
accident and emergency department, which

534
00:48:08,350 --> 00:48:09,350
is right in front of me.

535
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:14,020
and the maintenance staff were busy
inside trying to see if they can get

536
00:48:14,020 --> 00:48:17,840
things repaired so that the theatres
will be able to reopen later on today.

537
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:24,580
It seems that a lot of critical
infrastructure

538
00:48:24,580 --> 00:48:29,580
has been destroyed in this war.

539
00:48:32,220 --> 00:48:37,440
Particularly religious buildings,
educational buildings and hospitals.

540
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:44,500
And those really are the centres of a
population's culture

541
00:48:44,500 --> 00:48:50,260
and ability to look after itself.

542
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:58,060
So if they are not Hamas

543
00:48:58,060 --> 00:49:03,140
headquarters, it's difficult to
understand why they have been

544
00:49:03,140 --> 00:49:07,720
specifically targeted in the way that
they have been targeted.

545
00:49:08,330 --> 00:49:14,510
I've never, ever seen any evidence of
Hamas militants or anyone

546
00:49:14,510 --> 00:49:18,290
I'd be suspicious of being Hamas
militants in the hospitals. And perhaps

547
00:49:18,290 --> 00:49:20,470
more importantly than that, I've never
seen any evidence.

548
00:49:21,190 --> 00:49:26,450
I've had unrestricted access to all the
hospitals I've been in, certainly since

549
00:49:26,450 --> 00:49:30,450
October the 7th. I've only been in
Nasser Hospital and Al-Aqsa, but

550
00:49:30,450 --> 00:49:35,030
unlimited access. I've been to every
single square foot of those hospitals.

551
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:39,840
Nowhere, there's never been any denied
entry.

552
00:49:40,060 --> 00:49:43,400
And Shifa Hospital, I mean, the Israelis
have talked about Shifa Hospital being a

553
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:44,800
command center for decades.

554
00:49:45,460 --> 00:49:48,880
And of course, I know Shifa really,
really well from previous trips. It

555
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:53,620
really does need to be stated that these
claims are put out there repeatedly by

556
00:49:53,620 --> 00:49:57,700
the Israelis and parroted by our
government, by our ministers, by our

557
00:49:57,700 --> 00:50:04,480
media. There has never been any credible
or verifiable evidence.

558
00:50:04,990 --> 00:50:08,770
put forward to support those claims. And
it's really important we nail that

559
00:50:08,770 --> 00:50:13,910
because there is no verifiable, there is
no credible evidence supporting those

560
00:50:13,910 --> 00:50:18,730
claims. The Israeli military is
intentionally destroying life-saving

561
00:50:18,730 --> 00:50:19,730
medical equipment.

562
00:50:19,970 --> 00:50:24,090
I've seen it with my own eyes. I visited
the pediatric hospitals that I used to

563
00:50:24,090 --> 00:50:25,090
teach at.

564
00:50:26,130 --> 00:50:31,290
Nasser Pediatric Hospital, so there's
Nasser and Nasser, they're two different

565
00:50:31,290 --> 00:50:34,350
hospitals. Nasser Pediatric Hospital is
a...

566
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:39,460
I think the oldest pediatric hospital
and the only general pediatric hospital,

567
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:44,880
or the main general pediatric hospital
in the Gaza Strip. You might remember

568
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:50,340
the name because about a year ago or a
little over a year ago, when the Israeli

569
00:50:50,340 --> 00:50:54,700
military forcibly evacuated the hospital
and the intensive care staff refused to

570
00:50:54,700 --> 00:51:00,560
leave the patients, the Israeli military
assured them that they would be safely.

571
00:51:02,660 --> 00:51:07,820
evacuated, that the patients would, and
then they forced them out with arms.

572
00:51:08,820 --> 00:51:13,840
A week later, or when the Palestinians
were able to return to the hospital and

573
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:19,460
the Israeli military had withdrawn, the
infants that were attached to

574
00:51:19,460 --> 00:51:22,540
ventilators in the ICU were still there.
They were never evacuated.

575
00:51:22,820 --> 00:51:26,820
They were dead, attached to the
ventilators and decomposing in their

576
00:51:26,820 --> 00:51:27,820
hospital beds.

577
00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:31,520
That was Nasser. I went back to Nasser.
Nasser is flat.

578
00:51:31,820 --> 00:51:32,980
They've destroyed it.

579
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:37,620
Rentisi, which is the only sub-specialty
pediatric hospital in the Gaza Strip,

580
00:51:37,740 --> 00:51:42,800
has mostly been destroyed. It was used
as a military base by the Israeli

581
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:48,980
military, and it was filled with their
graffiti and holes,

582
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:53,380
bullet holes in the motherboards of
essential life-saving equipment.

583
00:51:53,660 --> 00:51:57,040
They destroyed everything, so it cannot
be...

584
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,460
easily used again for life-saving care.

585
00:52:02,820 --> 00:52:07,160
They also used the Turkish Friendship
Hospital, the only cancer hospital in

586
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:14,120
the Gaza Strip, as a military base, so
that cancer services for the over

587
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:19,580
11,000 patients with cancer in Gaza
before October 2023,

588
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:22,180
where would they receive cancer care?

589
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:25,700
With the hospitals, it's very hard.

590
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:29,920
to see what is happening.

591
00:52:30,900 --> 00:52:37,560
We have never been in Gaza and had more
than one of the

592
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:42,940
main four hospitals working at any one
time.

593
00:52:43,340 --> 00:52:46,420
It seems to be a sort of one-in-one-out
policy.

594
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:50,780
As one gets back on its feet, another
one has to close.

595
00:52:52,670 --> 00:52:55,670
You know, Schiff has been destroyed and
then rebuilt and is about to be

596
00:52:55,670 --> 00:52:56,670
destroyed again.

597
00:52:56,770 --> 00:53:00,310
The European Gaza's been evacuated
twice.

598
00:53:00,950 --> 00:53:03,330
NASA's been evacuated twice.

599
00:53:04,330 --> 00:53:11,250
It's very... It's very difficult to
follow a narrative as to how

600
00:53:11,250 --> 00:53:14,390
this could be justified.

601
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:58,540
Abdulrahman al-Najjar had been killed
this morning in the early hours by a

602
00:53:58,540 --> 00:54:03,720
rocket attack on the home that he was in
with his aunt and his cousin.

603
00:54:04,540 --> 00:54:11,260
So we've had a pretty sad day, even more
so because Abdulrahman had arranged

604
00:54:11,260 --> 00:54:17,580
for everyone to come to Nasser today to
see me, and I booked some time out of my

605
00:54:17,580 --> 00:54:19,040
operating schedule to...

606
00:54:19,500 --> 00:54:25,740
to meet them. And unfortunately, I think
the girls were a bit upset, but Hythen

607
00:54:25,740 --> 00:54:30,680
managed to come and we had a bit of a
chat and a bit of a mourn. But it's a

608
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:37,460
very sad day, not just for myself and
the team from EGH, but also

609
00:54:37,460 --> 00:54:42,320
for all of the international doctors
that have worked with them. And our

610
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,900
group has just been full of messages
about the tragic death.

611
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:51,640
of Abdulrahman. He was an incredible
young man that spoke the most perfect

612
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:58,220
English and everybody is really
suffering from the loss of somebody with

613
00:54:58,220 --> 00:54:59,220
such huge potential.

614
00:55:00,380 --> 00:55:04,700
I think that's exactly right. He was an
extraordinary young man. He did have a

615
00:55:04,700 --> 00:55:05,618
lot of potential.

616
00:55:05,620 --> 00:55:10,280
He certainly had masses of ambition and
he was amazingly helpful in difficult

617
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:14,320
circumstances. He was once arrested by
the IDF.

618
00:55:14,810 --> 00:55:17,050
and was told that he'd never make a
doctor.

619
00:55:17,730 --> 00:55:20,510
Quite calmly, he said to them, I will be
a doctor.

620
00:55:20,730 --> 00:55:22,690
I'll be an extremely good doctor.

621
00:55:23,250 --> 00:55:25,510
He had that sort of presence.

622
00:55:27,610 --> 00:55:29,050
It's such a waste.

623
00:55:30,410 --> 00:55:33,450
It's such a waste of a talented young
life.

624
00:55:36,130 --> 00:55:37,170
Yes, it is.

625
00:55:38,110 --> 00:55:39,110
It is.

626
00:55:41,270 --> 00:55:43,050
God bless you, Abu Rahman.

627
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:48,040
We've seen it time and time again with
our colleagues, with their families,

628
00:55:48,260 --> 00:55:53,760
with our hospitals, with the ambulances,
the primary care clinics, the

629
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:57,520
rehabilitation centers, the centers for
the deaf and the blind and the schools

630
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:01,040
and the universities. I mean, I've
shared this with you before, but I've

631
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:07,680
driven through Gaza and seen how every
single structure here, every

632
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:10,640
single age group, every single...

633
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:19,920
Every single living thing is on the
receiving attack

634
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:24,480
of this, frankly, genocidal frenzy.

635
00:56:30,900 --> 00:56:32,760
March 2nd, they closed the borders.

636
00:56:33,220 --> 00:56:37,640
It became more and more difficult to get
everything in. Well, impossible. We

637
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:41,880
weren't getting anything in. Medical
equipment, food, medicine.

638
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,220
And then things got more and more
difficult.

639
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:48,760
We started running out of certain
supplies.

640
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:52,500
One of the key things I was looking into
was...

641
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,340
the whole area of living with chronic
illness, but in particular access to

642
00:56:56,340 --> 00:56:57,198
pain medicines.

643
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:01,600
And that's needed for injuries, it's
needed for burns, so for the acute

644
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:07,140
problems. It's also needed for people
who have severe chronic illnesses such

645
00:57:07,140 --> 00:57:11,800
as cancer. And if you can imagine living
with an advancing cancer without any

646
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:13,900
access to treatment and without any pain
control.

647
00:57:15,260 --> 00:57:18,140
Pain should be relieved, suffering
should be relieved.

648
00:57:18,340 --> 00:57:21,640
And if it has been deliberately not made
available,

649
00:57:22,380 --> 00:57:23,860
then that amounts to torture.

650
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:25,880
Yesterday was terrible.

651
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:34,320
Hundreds of patients came into the ED of
NASA Hospital. We had

652
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:40,880
multiple laparoscopies all day and all
night for major abdominal

653
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:42,240
and thoracic trauma.

654
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:49,940
Not just bomb explosions, we've also had
gunshot wounds to operate on.

655
00:57:51,180 --> 00:57:54,360
We're seeing terrible, terrible
injuries, and it's relentless.

656
00:57:55,060 --> 00:58:00,540
So everyone's already very tired, but
clearly that is nothing compared to the

657
00:58:00,540 --> 00:58:02,600
tiredness of all the local healthcare
workers.

658
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:05,900
The malnutrition is shocking.

659
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:10,500
These patients recovering from such
major injuries and major

660
00:58:10,500 --> 00:58:17,500
operations have virtually no nutrition.
Now, heroically, some

661
00:58:17,500 --> 00:58:19,540
of the families managed to find...

662
00:58:19,870 --> 00:58:24,030
nutrition we do ward rounds every
morning i emphasize the incredible

663
00:58:24,030 --> 00:58:28,590
importance of getting the best possible
nutrition and it's remarkable how some

664
00:58:28,590 --> 00:58:33,490
of them do manage to get it but many of
them virtually go without food on the

665
00:58:33,490 --> 00:58:34,490
ward

666
00:58:49,930 --> 00:58:50,930
And you okay?

667
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,700
I spoke to one of my colleagues who's
the director of pediatrics at one of the

668
00:59:42,700 --> 00:59:47,380
hospitals a few days ago, and he was
telling me that at least 70 to 80% of

669
00:59:47,380 --> 00:59:50,920
all children that he sees right now in
the hospital are malnourished.

670
00:59:51,680 --> 00:59:54,640
70 to 80% of all children that he's
seeing are malnourished.

671
00:59:56,260 --> 01:00:00,140
Malnutrition obviously is very sad in
the short run. You know, if you think

672
01:00:00,140 --> 01:00:03,300
about not being able to feed your own
children or a child actually starving

673
01:00:03,300 --> 01:00:04,300
and what that means.

674
01:00:04,820 --> 01:00:07,480
But it's also devastating in the long
run because...

675
01:00:07,870 --> 01:00:12,450
children's brains are being programmed
as they're growing up and we know that

676
01:00:12,450 --> 01:00:18,390
malnutrition has long-lasting impacts to
the development of a child's brain and

677
01:00:18,390 --> 01:00:21,390
their potential in the future too.

678
01:00:21,850 --> 01:00:28,390
I had another really shocking visit to
the pediatric unit today saw

679
01:00:28,390 --> 01:00:35,190
children who made me cry seeing them my
tears my eyes seeing how

680
01:00:35,580 --> 01:00:41,600
unbelievably thin these children are i'm
a seven month old little girl who looked

681
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:48,220
as small as a newborn um literally the
expression skin and bones doesn't do it

682
01:00:48,220 --> 01:00:55,140
justice there they had no muscle mass at
all every single rib

683
01:00:55,140 --> 01:01:02,020
visible um no energy can't walk just
profoundly distressing

684
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:03,520
Breastmilk fortifier.

685
01:01:07,900 --> 01:01:11,260
Breastmilk fortifier. And you can't get
it. You've got none here. So you're

686
01:01:11,260 --> 01:01:14,880
giving this born at 26 weeks.

687
01:01:16,420 --> 01:01:22,480
So it's for older children.

688
01:01:23,300 --> 01:01:28,680
Virtually no formula feed to give these
children because it's all being refused

689
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:30,640
entry by the Israelis.

690
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:37,320
That was starkly represented to me when
one of the American doctors I'm here

691
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,280
with came in a few days ago and had
brought in formula feed.

692
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:47,940
And it was all confiscated by the
Israeli border

693
01:01:47,940 --> 01:01:49,820
staff.

694
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:55,700
Every single thing was confiscated.
Other things were allowed in, but all

695
01:01:55,700 --> 01:01:58,780
the formula feed, they specifically
targeted that.

696
01:02:01,210 --> 01:02:05,550
And these children recovering from major
injuries on the intensive care unit,

697
01:02:05,570 --> 01:02:11,170
nothing to feed them with. No Ensure
feeds, no liquid feeds to put down their

698
01:02:11,170 --> 01:02:15,030
nasogastric tubes, no intravenous
feedings. And many of them are fed with

699
01:02:15,030 --> 01:02:20,530
dextrose 10%, which is effectively sugar
water and of no nutritional value

700
01:02:20,530 --> 01:02:21,530
whatsoever.

701
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:27,120
And they're losing weight. They're
losing weight. They won't recover. Their

702
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:28,160
wounds will break down.

703
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:32,960
Their risk of dying is therefore
massively greater than otherwise.

704
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:40,280
So in a way, we expect the injuries from
the

705
01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:43,580
ongoing military assault from Israel.

706
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:50,160
But the malnutrition, the deliberate
starvation.

707
01:02:50,970 --> 01:02:56,970
of the Garzlin population seems utterly
unconscionable.

708
01:02:57,170 --> 01:03:03,150
If you have, you know, extreme lack of
food at the beginning of your pregnancy,

709
01:03:03,370 --> 01:03:05,850
it may affect certain organ growth.

710
01:03:06,130 --> 01:03:08,650
It may affect your brain growth, it may
affect your kidneys.

711
01:03:10,090 --> 01:03:14,350
If it happens later in pregnancy, it
will have different implications. So

712
01:03:14,350 --> 01:03:17,410
even sort of the time at which...

713
01:03:18,740 --> 01:03:25,060
malnutrition, lack of food happens, has
implications for your life chances, for

714
01:03:25,060 --> 01:03:28,520
your development, your chronic
illnesses, your intellectual

715
01:03:28,520 --> 01:03:30,220
development.

716
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:37,840
By the May it was completely different
because of the malnutrition and food

717
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,760
wasn't getting in and hadn't got in
since the March.

718
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:48,840
And it was really evident that they were
suffering from the effects of

719
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:52,600
malnutrition that do include, you know,
tiredness and depression.

720
01:03:53,220 --> 01:03:55,560
And I definitely saw that in them.

721
01:03:56,120 --> 01:04:01,600
Several of them mentioned that they
would rather die than carry on going,

722
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:05,820
which is really hard to hear from people
that you've known for so long.

723
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:54,960
in the midst of a man-made famine that
is the direct consequence of

724
01:04:54,960 --> 01:04:59,780
Israel's deliberate actions and it's
absolutely unconscionable.

725
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:07,780
There has to be a full and immediate re

726
01:05:07,780 --> 01:05:13,440
-evaluation of the way in which aid is
delivered to Gaza. It needs to be given

727
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:14,440
back.

728
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:20,200
to the organisations that have been
running it thoughtlessly since this war

729
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:25,700
started. The United Nations and its
partners have been able to deliver aid

730
01:05:25,700 --> 01:05:29,280
through multiple entry points to the
people.

731
01:05:29,540 --> 01:05:34,080
They have never been militarised and
they have never asked the population to

732
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:39,000
travel to them. Not only have they
supplied food, but they have also

733
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:44,280
supplied key services like sanitation,
like water,

734
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:51,360
and like looking after the 42,000
orphans that are now in Gaza.

735
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:00,960
The

736
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:08,880
difference

737
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:13,820
on this, on my last trip, when I was
there in June, July 2025,

738
01:06:15,240 --> 01:06:21,260
was the numbers, and I alluded to this
earlier, the numbers of gunshot wounds

739
01:06:21,260 --> 01:06:25,420
that we were seeing. And I'd seen a
handful of gunshot wounds on previous

740
01:06:25,420 --> 01:06:29,460
trips, mainly from quadcopters, but we
saw lots of gunshot wounds from people

741
01:06:29,460 --> 01:06:34,220
who were reportedly being shot at the
GHF food distribution points by Israeli

742
01:06:34,220 --> 01:06:35,220
soldiers.

743
01:06:38,620 --> 01:06:42,660
One day they'll see almost exclusively
gunshot wounds to the head.

744
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:46,720
Another day, they'll see gunshot wounds
to the neck. Another day, they'll see

745
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:50,400
gunshot wounds to the abdomen or to the
left arm or to the right arm. And it's

746
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:54,040
almost as if, and this is the way my
emergency department colleagues describe

747
01:06:54,040 --> 01:06:58,180
it, whom I know very well, that it's
almost like the Israeli soldiers are

748
01:06:58,180 --> 01:07:02,900
playing a game. One day, there were four
young teenage boys who came in, all of

749
01:07:02,900 --> 01:07:04,400
whom had been shot in the testicles.

750
01:07:04,700 --> 01:07:09,020
I didn't treat them. They would be
treated by the urologist. But we all

751
01:07:09,020 --> 01:07:10,760
used to discuss these patterns.

752
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:17,260
The clustering of injuries, the pattern
of injuries was so striking that it was

753
01:07:17,260 --> 01:07:20,460
inconceivable that it could have been
coincidence.

754
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:26,400
And the only thing any of us could
assume was that it was almost like a

755
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:29,480
game of target practice by the Israeli
soldiers.

756
01:07:29,820 --> 01:07:35,960
And it's a behavior which I would never
have believed would have been possible

757
01:07:35,960 --> 01:07:40,800
in this world were it not for the fact
that I'm witnessing it with my own eyes.

758
01:07:41,500 --> 01:07:47,180
And this is behaviour which is
effectively being allowed by our

759
01:07:47,180 --> 01:07:54,040
government, by their refusal to stand up
and call out the Israelis for

760
01:07:54,040 --> 01:07:58,160
their war crimes, for their genocidal
behaviour.

761
01:10:20,430 --> 01:10:24,170
And I think one of the most devastating
aspects of the propaganda around what's

762
01:10:24,170 --> 01:10:26,350
happening in Gaza is the dehumanization.

763
01:10:26,590 --> 01:10:29,430
And dehumanization is the essential
component for genocide.

764
01:10:30,130 --> 01:10:32,630
I've had the privilege of working in
other places like Rwanda.

765
01:10:33,130 --> 01:10:38,630
These are common elements that run
through genocides anywhere in the world.

766
01:10:39,150 --> 01:10:42,230
We've seen this in Palestine in a way
that I don't think we've seen anywhere

767
01:10:42,230 --> 01:10:44,490
else to that level, certainly not in
modern times.

768
01:10:44,710 --> 01:10:49,350
You know, the destruction of facilities
whose role is to care exclusively for

769
01:10:49,350 --> 01:10:56,060
children. destruction of facilities like
the Al-Amal IVF clinic,

770
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:59,660
where over 4,000 embryos were destroyed.

771
01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:01,060
These things are deliberate.

772
01:11:02,340 --> 01:11:07,680
So there's my perception that I feel
like I can reach a conclusion within a

773
01:11:07,680 --> 01:11:13,000
single day in the emergency department,
or at least a sense of what is being

774
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:14,000
done to these people.

775
01:11:15,630 --> 01:11:19,010
And then there's the kind of more
thoughtful, well, let's think about

776
01:11:19,010 --> 01:11:20,010
what's being targeted.

777
01:11:20,310 --> 01:11:26,610
Children's hospitals, baby formula,
medical equipment, medications,

778
01:11:26,930 --> 01:11:31,830
equipment used for life-saving care,
health care workers, schools,

779
01:11:32,250 --> 01:11:38,930
universities, refugee camps, bakeries,
water and

780
01:11:38,930 --> 01:11:39,930
sanitation plants.

781
01:11:40,810 --> 01:11:44,470
Like everything that's indispensable for
life is what's being targeted.

782
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:49,620
Everything that's indispensable for
having hope for a future generation that

783
01:11:49,620 --> 01:11:51,080
prospers is being targeted.

784
01:11:51,340 --> 01:11:56,960
I don't know how my Palestinian
healthcare colleagues and friends have

785
01:11:56,960 --> 01:11:59,940
coped, how they've managed over the last
22 months.

786
01:12:00,140 --> 01:12:04,440
But they have coped and they have
managed, but quite how, I don't know.

787
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:11,740
I mentioned earlier, I am in... Words
cannot really

788
01:12:11,740 --> 01:12:18,730
do justice to my... My love for them,
the awe I have for

789
01:12:18,730 --> 01:12:21,210
them. They are truly, truly
inspirational.

790
01:12:21,610 --> 01:12:24,770
I spent four weeks out there in June,
July 2025.

791
01:12:25,370 --> 01:12:32,170
I was absolutely exhausted when I got
back. I've never known tiredness, lost

792
01:12:32,170 --> 01:12:34,470
it like it. I lost six kilograms in
weight.

793
01:12:36,070 --> 01:12:39,650
I was, you know, and it took me weeks to
recover.

794
01:12:40,150 --> 01:12:41,670
But that was four weeks.

795
01:12:42,690 --> 01:12:46,330
They've been doing this for 22 months.
How they cope, I don't know. They are,

796
01:12:46,330 --> 01:12:49,570
you know, they are true heroes.

797
01:12:51,490 --> 01:12:52,490
Remarkable people.

798
01:12:52,630 --> 01:12:54,550
Very emotional, saying goodbye to
everyone.

799
01:12:54,830 --> 01:12:55,830
Tears.

800
01:12:57,530 --> 01:12:59,310
God willing, I'll see them all again.

801
01:13:02,770 --> 01:13:06,310
I can't wait to get home, but terribly
sad to leave here.

802
01:13:07,130 --> 01:13:10,030
Terribly sad to leave my friends, my
patients.

803
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:21,560
I think it's much harder to be outside
Gaza and see what's happening and not be

804
01:13:21,560 --> 01:13:22,580
doing anything about it.

805
01:13:22,980 --> 01:13:27,440
There's a level of comfort you get the
second you cross in and you're like,

806
01:13:27,460 --> 01:13:32,480
well, thank God. Now I'm not a passive
observer of genocide. I can actually be

807
01:13:32,480 --> 01:13:33,860
here in solidarity.

808
01:13:34,580 --> 01:13:36,520
Hopefully I can help clinically.

809
01:13:37,780 --> 01:13:41,140
So in a lot of ways, it's a relief to be
there in person.

810
01:13:45,450 --> 01:13:47,050
It is also very difficult.

811
01:13:47,310 --> 01:13:48,350
It's very difficult.

812
01:13:57,370 --> 01:14:04,150
I mean, I'm a pediatric ICU doctor, so
children often die around me

813
01:14:04,150 --> 01:14:08,490
or experience life-threatening events.

814
01:14:08,930 --> 01:14:12,850
And so I've been around parents often.

815
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:16,680
when they think they might lose a child
or when they actually lose a child.

816
01:14:21,420 --> 01:14:26,500
Gaza's just that continuously.

817
01:14:27,040 --> 01:14:32,300
And it's not losing a child, but it's a
child losing everybody in their world.

818
01:14:32,500 --> 01:14:35,120
It's a father losing everybody in his
world.

819
01:14:37,260 --> 01:14:41,680
And so there's... It's...

820
01:14:42,640 --> 01:14:47,060
It is very difficult to bear witness to
that every single day.

821
01:14:47,320 --> 01:14:53,520
And I think about this often because one
of my good friends is a surgeon in Gaza.

822
01:14:54,520 --> 01:15:01,500
And she often says, my heart cannot bear
to, she says in

823
01:15:01,500 --> 01:15:08,000
Arabic, to hold this grief anymore. The
grief that she's

824
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:11,360
not necessarily in her direct family.

825
01:15:12,190 --> 01:15:17,250
May God protect them and everyone around
her and her friends and who they're

826
01:15:17,250 --> 01:15:19,550
losing and her colleagues and who
they're losing.

827
01:15:20,410 --> 01:15:27,090
I've just walked back through the
hospital wards with Haitham,

828
01:15:27,250 --> 01:15:29,730
who's walked me back to my
accommodation.

829
01:15:31,010 --> 01:15:37,690
And as we walked through one of the
wards, all the men were sitting on the

830
01:15:37,690 --> 01:15:39,490
floor around the nurses' station.

831
01:15:40,190 --> 01:15:41,630
And one of them...

832
01:15:42,370 --> 01:15:48,930
was talking and it was the father of
Sanad who is the little boy whose

833
01:15:48,930 --> 01:15:55,750
scalp laceration I treated and he was
talking

834
01:15:55,750 --> 01:16:02,750
quite sort of strongly to this group of
men and so I asked Haitham what he

835
01:16:02,750 --> 01:16:07,230
was saying and Haitham said that he was
he was telling the other men that

836
01:16:08,560 --> 01:16:14,200
They had to have courage and that they
had to believe in Allah and that they

837
01:16:14,200 --> 01:16:19,900
had a right to be in Palestine and that
good would

838
01:16:19,900 --> 01:16:25,340
prevail over them and that they would be
able to stay in this land.

839
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:34,740
And it was just quite, I don't know,
good to know that they

840
01:16:34,740 --> 01:16:35,900
haven't lost faith yet.

841
01:16:36,410 --> 01:16:41,350
and that there are still people amongst
them that believe that there is a way

842
01:16:41,350 --> 01:16:42,350
out of this situation.

843
01:16:44,650 --> 01:16:48,970
As one of the few international
observers allowed into Gaza, I can tell

844
01:16:48,970 --> 01:16:53,770
you, spend just five minutes in a
hospital there, and it will become

845
01:16:53,770 --> 01:16:59,210
painfully clear that Palestinians are
being intentionally massacred, starved,

846
01:16:59,230 --> 01:17:02,670
and stripped of everything needed to
sustain human life.

847
01:17:02,970 --> 01:17:04,870
We've just operated on a...

848
01:17:05,370 --> 01:17:11,250
Seven-year-old who's had a blast injury
that's taken a huge chunk out of the

849
01:17:11,250 --> 01:17:16,610
side of her left cheek, back of her left
shoulder and her left knee.

850
01:17:16,990 --> 01:17:20,890
And I've just been picking bits of
shrapnel out of it and trying to get it

851
01:17:20,890 --> 01:17:21,990
as clean as we can.

852
01:17:23,010 --> 01:17:27,230
Collectively for the past 14 months, we
have treated people subjected to

853
01:17:27,230 --> 01:17:31,030
civilian massacre after civilian
massacre at the few remaining partially

854
01:17:31,030 --> 01:17:33,050
functioning hospitals in Gaza.

855
01:17:33,290 --> 01:17:34,290
Before her.

856
01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:40,440
I operated on her five-year-old sister,
who has got a devastating injury to her

857
01:17:40,440 --> 01:17:41,440
left arm.

858
01:17:41,480 --> 01:17:46,020
She's basically broken the humerus,
which is the top bone in the arm.

859
01:17:46,340 --> 01:17:52,680
She's lost 90% of the skin on her arm,
and she's lost the outer aspect of her

860
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:53,599
left hand.

861
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:58,920
And at the moment, I'm not sure that
we're going to be able to save her arm.

862
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:04,200
And then my colleagues next door, my
orthopedic colleagues next door, have

863
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:09,120
been operating on their mother who has
taken a blast injury to both her

864
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:15,820
shoulders and is missing bone and skin
on both her shoulders and they are not

865
01:18:15,820 --> 01:18:18,440
convinced that it's a survivable injury.

866
01:18:19,140 --> 01:18:24,060
Entire families have been eliminated,
wiped off of the civil registry.

867
01:18:24,700 --> 01:18:28,100
Our healthcare and humanitarian
colleagues are being killed in record

868
01:18:28,100 --> 01:18:29,100
numbers.

869
01:18:30,190 --> 01:18:33,870
We have treated countless children who
lost their entire families, a phenomenon

870
01:18:33,870 --> 01:18:36,950
so frequent in Gaza that it's been given
a specific name.

871
01:18:37,710 --> 01:18:39,650
Wounded child, no surviving family.

872
01:18:39,950 --> 01:18:43,710
So yeah, not a great day for us here,
I'm not going to lie.

873
01:18:43,970 --> 01:18:50,030
And to make matters worse, we've just
found out that we are now on the edge of

874
01:18:50,030 --> 01:18:55,570
the active fighting zone, so we can
expect the bombing to get much, much

875
01:18:55,570 --> 01:18:59,070
louder. And we have lost...

876
01:18:59,350 --> 01:19:05,110
Four members of the team who have had to
go back to their homes with their tents

877
01:19:05,110 --> 01:19:11,090
because they're in the active fighting
area and there's an evacuation order on

878
01:19:11,090 --> 01:19:15,370
them. So four of them have left us to go
back and evacuate their families. So

879
01:19:15,370 --> 01:19:21,530
we're skeletal staff and, yeah, really
bad times right now.

880
01:19:22,450 --> 01:19:27,290
We held the hands of children as they
took their last breaths with no one but

881
01:19:27,290 --> 01:19:28,650
a stranger to comfort them.

882
01:19:29,200 --> 01:19:33,340
Those who recovered enough to leave the
hospital continued to face the obvious

883
01:19:33,340 --> 01:19:38,580
risk of death, be it through another
bombing, starvation, dehydration, or

884
01:19:38,580 --> 01:19:43,560
disease. I remember many people calling
it a genocide right from the word go.

885
01:19:43,840 --> 01:19:48,600
And I remember, I remember on October
the 8th, talking to Hamis Alessi, my

886
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:52,940
great, great friend in Gaza, and we
were, and talking to various friends, we

887
01:19:52,940 --> 01:19:56,880
were all deeply fearful of what was...

888
01:19:57,560 --> 01:19:58,900
unfolding, what was going to happen.

889
01:19:59,120 --> 01:20:03,020
And I remember people using the word
genocide very early. And I was, I don't

890
01:20:03,020 --> 01:20:06,300
know, maybe I was, for whatever reasons,
I was a bit reluctant to use it then,

891
01:20:06,360 --> 01:20:07,560
but I've thought a lot about it.

892
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:14,660
And from what I've witnessed with my own
eyes, there is

893
01:20:14,660 --> 01:20:19,820
not a shredded out of my mind that what
is going on is a genocide, that what is

894
01:20:19,820 --> 01:20:25,040
going on are multiple war crimes every
single day I've been there.

895
01:20:25,680 --> 01:20:28,660
And... very clear evidence of ethnic
cleansing.

896
01:20:28,880 --> 01:20:31,580
So this is very clearly a genocide.

897
01:20:32,020 --> 01:20:38,680
It looks like, from what you see, that
this is the entire

898
01:20:38,680 --> 01:20:42,080
population that's being targeted.

899
01:20:43,020 --> 01:20:49,420
I don't know what the purpose of that
could be, other than to

900
01:20:49,420 --> 01:20:53,580
eradicate them and take the land. And
certainly...

901
01:20:53,930 --> 01:21:00,870
Some of the rhetoric that has come from
some members of the current

902
01:21:00,870 --> 01:21:03,210
Israeli government support that.

903
01:21:03,890 --> 01:21:10,590
Some of the things that have been said
about eradicating every last

904
01:21:10,590 --> 01:21:17,010
one of them, destroying the entire area,
turning it into

905
01:21:17,010 --> 01:21:21,950
Auschwitz, does make you worry.

906
01:21:22,670 --> 01:21:26,290
that the game is to eradicate the
population.

907
01:21:27,170 --> 01:21:33,850
Coupled with the offensive in the West
Bank and the push to gain more land,

908
01:21:34,210 --> 01:21:39,750
the obvious conclusion is that they are
trying to

909
01:21:39,750 --> 01:21:43,270
ethnically cleanse the entire region.

910
01:21:43,750 --> 01:21:49,810
The whole of the environment, everything
that would support life, and the direct

911
01:21:49,810 --> 01:21:51,750
killing, and both are genocide.

912
01:21:52,510 --> 01:21:55,830
The prevention of safe births is part of
genocide.

913
01:21:56,250 --> 01:21:59,710
The deliberate famine and starvation is
part of genocide.

914
01:22:00,590 --> 01:22:03,610
And even the sort of tantalising.

915
01:22:04,230 --> 01:22:07,610
My colleague said to me yesterday, we
have some food on the shelves.

916
01:22:07,830 --> 01:22:12,250
I feel like the sheep before Eid being
fattened up just to be killed.

917
01:22:12,610 --> 01:22:17,330
And what I saw was constant migration of
people being driven out. These are not

918
01:22:17,330 --> 01:22:20,910
people voluntarily moving, they're being
driven out of their homes in the north.

919
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:25,260
Them being told that you have to leave
or else you are in a fighting zone,

920
01:22:25,300 --> 01:22:26,300
therefore you'll be killed.

921
01:22:26,860 --> 01:22:29,540
The targeting of water collection
points.

922
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:34,300
The fact that electricity was turned
off, water was turned off.

923
01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:37,580
The fact that there was nowhere safe.

924
01:22:38,060 --> 01:22:43,140
And the fact that people are telling
them, politicians and military

925
01:22:43,140 --> 01:22:46,980
commanders in the Israeli army are
telling them that they're going to wipe

926
01:22:46,980 --> 01:22:48,120
Gaza out or flatten it.

927
01:22:54,440 --> 01:23:01,400
Today we published our report analyzing
Israel's conduct in the Gaza trip,

928
01:23:01,540 --> 01:23:06,880
a trip pursuant to the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

929
01:23:06,880 --> 01:23:08,080
of Genocide.

930
01:23:08,380 --> 01:23:14,600
The Commission concluded that Israel has
committed genocide against the

931
01:23:14,600 --> 01:23:21,300
Palestinian people in Gaza and that it
is continuing with that

932
01:23:21,300 --> 01:23:22,300
genocide.

933
01:23:24,300 --> 01:23:28,320
care what you call it you can call it a
genocide you can call it ethnic

934
01:23:28,320 --> 01:23:33,180
cleansing mass destruction of the
population whatever you want to call it

935
01:23:33,180 --> 01:23:39,580
it is not right it is wrong and it needs
to stop it is against every humanitarian

936
01:23:39,580 --> 01:23:45,060
principle we have and it is against
international law to treat people in

937
01:23:45,060 --> 01:23:52,060
this way and i think we probably need to
spend less time on the semantics of

938
01:23:52,060 --> 01:23:53,060
the definition

939
01:23:53,470 --> 01:23:58,430
and more time on the number of people
that are being killed and ways in which

940
01:23:58,430 --> 01:23:59,730
we can stop that.

941
01:24:00,750 --> 01:24:05,730
Particularly after my last trip in June,
July 2025, I felt the most

942
01:24:05,730 --> 01:24:12,090
anger I've ever felt at what's going on
and real, real

943
01:24:12,090 --> 01:24:19,050
anger at my government for not being
brave enough

944
01:24:19,050 --> 01:24:22,330
to stand up and say what's going on
because there is unequivocally...

945
01:24:22,890 --> 01:24:29,070
genocide being carried out under under
the world's eyes it's being reported

946
01:24:29,070 --> 01:24:34,990
throughout the world there should be an
arms embargo there should be

947
01:24:34,990 --> 01:24:41,810
unfiltered aid that's not militarized
that what is happening is a

948
01:24:41,810 --> 01:24:47,590
genocide what's happening is ethnic
cleansing there's no appetite that I've

949
01:24:47,590 --> 01:24:50,490
seen from the people at the top

950
01:24:51,470 --> 01:24:55,910
Apart from to show that they're
listening, but not actually

951
01:24:55,910 --> 01:24:57,250
understanding what we're saying.

952
01:24:57,470 --> 01:24:58,830
And they will be held accountable.

953
01:25:00,150 --> 01:25:01,670
Just like Western media.

954
01:25:03,610 --> 01:25:08,690
No one will be the same after this. I
mean, what does it tell us about the

955
01:25:08,690 --> 01:25:13,790
capacity of humankind to enact such
barbarity?

956
01:25:15,130 --> 01:25:19,610
And the apathy of so many more who...

957
01:25:20,060 --> 01:25:22,820
are content to sit and watch this
happen.

958
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:31,020
That really questions the very
foundations of what it means to

959
01:25:31,020 --> 01:25:34,380
share this planet with other people,
frankly.

960
01:25:34,660 --> 01:25:40,480
I think in some ways that our
Palestinians are the ones who will

961
01:25:40,480 --> 01:25:42,300
survive with their humanity intact.

962
01:25:43,140 --> 01:25:45,720
Whether they live or die in some sense,
if they survive with their humanity

963
01:25:45,720 --> 01:25:48,860
intact, it's others who I think will pay
quite a heavy price.

964
01:25:49,400 --> 01:25:51,320
for not having shown that same humanity.

965
01:25:51,660 --> 01:25:58,440
We have to make sure that those who are
guilty of this are held to

966
01:25:58,440 --> 01:26:04,320
account. And that doesn't just mean
Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers.

967
01:26:04,400 --> 01:26:09,740
This means other Western politicians
who, through their silence, have been

968
01:26:09,740 --> 01:26:13,120
complicit in what is a very obvious
genocide.

969
01:26:13,580 --> 01:26:14,900
I'm speaking you today.

970
01:26:16,080 --> 01:26:19,740
both as a member of civil society and as
a health care worker who has witnessed

971
01:26:19,740 --> 01:26:23,160
firsthand the death and destruction
inflicted upon the Palestinian people.

972
01:26:23,520 --> 01:26:28,260
We spent the last 14 months watching as
the most live stream and documented

973
01:26:28,260 --> 01:26:33,700
genocide in history has been met with
silence, widespread propaganda campaigns

974
01:26:33,700 --> 01:26:38,960
justifying the unjustifiable, silencing
and discrediting those who have

975
01:26:38,960 --> 01:26:40,180
attempted to expose it.

976
01:26:41,450 --> 01:26:45,110
The eyewitnesses that have made it out
alive consistently reported crimes that

977
01:26:45,110 --> 01:26:47,870
in any other context would have led to
sanctions.

978
01:26:48,130 --> 01:26:52,830
But here, after 14 months of the most
grave breaches of humanitarian law,

979
01:26:53,050 --> 01:26:58,110
gross violations of human rights,
barbaric war crimes, it is met with

980
01:26:58,110 --> 01:27:03,030
impotence by individuals, countries, and
the very institution represented by this

981
01:27:03,030 --> 01:27:04,030
building.

982
01:27:04,050 --> 01:27:09,070
One day, someone will dig up the records
of our testimonies, pleading for 14

983
01:27:09,070 --> 01:27:13,170
months. They will dig up the records of
Palestinians covering their own genocide

984
01:27:13,170 --> 01:27:17,350
when international journalists were
unprecedentedly banned from entering.

985
01:27:18,270 --> 01:27:22,890
Palestinian children setting up press
conferences to tell the world that their

986
01:27:22,890 --> 01:27:23,890
lives mattered.

987
01:27:23,910 --> 01:27:25,910
We will have to reckon with that
history.

988
01:28:05,520 --> 01:28:12,360
When the world finally turns the page,
if it ever does, let it not say that

989
01:28:12,360 --> 01:28:13,500
Gaza was silent.

990
01:28:14,260 --> 01:28:17,700
Let it not imagine we vanished without
speaking.

991
01:28:18,580 --> 01:28:21,780
We spoke with mouths filled with dust.

992
01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:25,420
We sang even with broken teeth.

993
01:28:26,220 --> 01:28:28,580
We prayed from fractured knees.

994
01:28:29,500 --> 01:28:34,420
And though the world may have looked
away, let this much be remembered.

995
01:28:35,440 --> 01:28:37,040
We named the hunger.

996
01:28:37,500 --> 01:28:38,800
We bore it.

997
01:28:39,060 --> 01:28:40,240
We endured.

998
01:28:41,180 --> 01:28:43,060
Let that remain.

999
01:29:48,810 --> 01:29:53,110
I am in my valley, surrounded by
mountains.

1000
01:29:55,950 --> 01:29:59,570
My war has begun.

1001
01:30:03,950 --> 01:30:05,690
And there is no peace.

1002
01:30:08,550 --> 01:30:14,870
You are free and your eyes are wide
open.

1003
01:30:15,630 --> 01:30:19,590
We know how to sing for you the words of
Waasiki.

1004
01:30:24,250 --> 01:30:29,870
The mercy of your family is the highest
honor. And we are the ones in our eyes

1005
01:30:29,870 --> 01:30:30,870
of sadness.

1006
01:30:31,110 --> 01:30:36,250
We will be punished because we are used
to it. It gets cold and we are the ones

1007
01:30:36,250 --> 01:30:37,250
who froze.

1008
01:31:03,070 --> 01:31:07,230
Wishing you'd return all my calls. Did
you make it? Lord knows they've been

1009
01:31:07,230 --> 01:31:11,810
planning for your fall. Did you make it
running on your will to resolve through

1010
01:31:11,810 --> 01:31:15,990
the fog of the sheep dog? I came to my
sense. I hope you make it. Couldn't

1011
01:31:15,990 --> 01:31:20,570
fight for you to stay and the right for
you to leave at the Afro Asia gate or

1012
01:31:20,570 --> 01:31:24,710
the marches of DC. Are we free from the
flaws of a falling beast?

1013
01:31:25,210 --> 01:31:28,790
Only then we'll believe that we've made
it out.

1014
01:31:54,670 --> 01:31:55,890
Thank you.

1015
01:32:07,010 --> 01:32:08,410
Thank you.

1016
01:32:16,370 --> 01:32:20,450
Thank you.

1017
01:32:34,099 --> 01:32:39,660
Too little, not too late Hope you ate,
and I hope you woke up Better

1018
01:32:39,660 --> 01:32:43,500
debate, if we even have a say