Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers speak on IsraelPalestine conflict
AI: Summary ©
The recent strikes in the Israeli region have caused devastating consequences for Israeli healthcare workers, including the lack of people in the region who are affected and the devastating consequences of a vaccine. The doctor and the World Health Organization acknowledge the need for people to take measures to prevent future infection and the potential impact of the coronavirus on healthcare workers and homes. The doctor emphasizes the need for a solution, but also acknowledges the need for a final plan. Hospital infection, lack of electricity and fuel supplies, and the lack of functioning machinery are critical problems for healthcare workers. The doctor warns of the need for a peaceful resolution to prevent future infection and the potential impact on healthcare workers and homes.
AI: Summary ©
Let's move to international news now, and a strike on the Al Akhi
Baptist Hospital in Gaza last night has left an estimated 500
Palestinians dead. Now, Israel has emphatically denied involvement,
saying they have proof it was a misfired rocket from Islamic
Jihad. However, Israel has been bombarding Gaza for days in
retaliation for the murder of over 1000 Israeli civilians by Hamas.
And many countries in the region do not accept Israel's claim.
We've seen street protests across a number of cities in the past 24
hours. In the midst of this, there's still a blockade in place,
with humanitarian aid stuck at the border until some sort of cease
fire or safe passage in Gaza can be guaranteed. Local humanitarian
organization, gift of the givers, has people in Gaza trying to help
those in desperate need. Founder, Dr, MTR Suleiman joins me in
studio now. Doc, thanks so much for joining us. It is such a
terrible time. We have seen horror and bloodshed all round in recent
days, this hospital attack,
I know that you have contact with people on the ground in Gaza. I
understand it is difficult, though, to stay in in contact. Do
your people on the ground believe Israel was responsible for this
attack? It's a standard pattern. We've seen it in 2009 we've seen
it in 2014 we've seen hospitals damage while we were there. You
know, when you the trips we did in 2009 in 2014
and now you struck 15 hospitals already. The the dean of the
medical school that I met a few years ago, his house was
deliberately stuck. Him and his entire family has been wiped out.
30 doctors have deliberately been targeted. So now they don't have
enough medical personnel there. And now, when you knock medical
personnel and you increase the number of patients, how do you
cope with that kind of situation? 15 hospitals have been struck or
which four are totally non functional. This was the fifth one
that was hit. The groups in Palestine don't have that kind of
weaponry that can be so destructive. And why part an
entire building would want it. They don't have that kind of
weapons. It's obvious Israel would have been severely damaged if they
had those kind of weapons. So it's quite illogical to say They did it
themselves, and also the hospitals itself, the people that were
there, it's more than 500 it goes to 800 to 1000 to what they're
telling us, what was said is when we were speaking to the people,
when not me directly, but my team, speaking to other doctors, saying
that when the bodies came, most of them were dismembered. The heads
were separate from the body, the legs were separated, and they were
disemboweled, the type of weapon that was used caused serious
destruction and damage and and the other sad thing was that many
people were living there, not as dog, as patients, but as people
taking refuge. And that it was just horrendous what happened
yesterday, and it's absolutely horrific. We do know that Israel
has an Iron Dome, this security protection device, because
missiles, rockets do get fired over from Hamas into Israel, so
surely there is the possibility that some sort of weaponry
misfired. I mean, I suppose I don't want to believe that someone
would deliberately do this? Well, I want, I disagree with you,
Sally, I've seen the pattern. It's too often, too common. And this
information is a weapon used in work very often. It's they don't
have that kind of weapon. I want to you mentioned it, and I want to
pick up on the doctor you mentioned, Dr farwana. I
believe he was the dean of the medical school in Gaza. I believe
he was a friend of yours. In fact, we're going to put up a picture of
him. There he is in the blue shirt. Is that? Right? He's not
actually a friend. I met him when I went there. I don't know that
people, when you go there, you just meet people for the first
okay, because we support the medical school members. So to talk
to me about what you know about what happened to him and his
family from from I haven't spoke to him in years, yeah, but from
what my team members told me today, that his family, he was his
house, is directly targeted, and he and his family is wiped out.
And the thing is, it's a consistent pattern. You've got to
follow the pattern. 400 families have been completely wiped out.
Civilian districts have completely been flattened. I mean, how would
they miss if they've got misfired rockets? Why did only one misfire
in 10 days and hit a hospital where there's so many refugees,
there's so many houses, there's so many places. How can one rocket
misfire and cause that kind of damage? Is in logical and yet, on
the other side, there's rockets deliberately targeting hospitals,
ambulances, mosques, schools, you know, un camps, directly at shops.
They didn't misfire at that time, but only five misfire now, doesn't
make sense. What is, what is, what is your people? How many people do
you have in Gaza helping? Well, we, because it's not a big office,
you know, it's, it's a development office. We do odds and ends, so
we've got three full time stuff. But when crisis come, you know, we
increase the amount of people. But now I needed to increase the
people more, because realities and my teams can die. I had a horrible
job of telling them a few days ago that the realities that you want
to die. You're going to die, and you need to bring more people in,
increase your networks, they said they know we can die, you know,
and we've already done that. And I tell them, take your families,
because whilst they're serving other people, and it's very
difficult, because the roads are bomb bombs are falling all over.
Their first words, they've never told me.
This before. I mean, they're working with me since 2014
the first time they said, it's a massacre, it's a genocide. We
can't move in the streets. The streets are bomb. We can't get to
places. We can't get to the people. And we scared for our own
families when we move around. So I said, as I told him something
dumb, I said, move your family to a safe place. And they asked me,
what is that? There's no such thing as safe place in Gaza. And
also, I mean, we're hearing that the water is running out, and with
water, a lack of water, comes disease. How long are hospitals
going to be able to continue to function in Gaza? To be honest, I
can't believe they're still functioning. I don't know how
they're doing it for so long. There's three critical components
here. One is hospital infection. It's going to spread today. The
doctors from hospital said they are now doing operations without
anesthetic. They don't have any more anesthetic, and they said by
this afternoon or tomorrow, more than hundreds of the patients on
the floor are going to die because they just don't have any more
supplies. The the lights are not working, electrodes are not
working. They're out of fuel. They can't manage so because of the
absence of functional machinery, those people are just going to
die, which they could be saved. That's the first problem, of of
infection in hospital. The second one is because the bombing was so
intense, but fortunately, they managed to do some mass funerals.
But prior to that, they couldn't do mass funerals, and you can't do
one by one. It's impossible. So the danger was that the
decomposition body bodies is going to cause bed of infection. So they
took ice cream trucks and fridges to put bodies inside it. But
again, that needs fuel or electricity, which is not
available. And the third problem is, because of no electricity and
no fuel, the sewage plants are not working, which means you could
have infection from decomposing bodies and sewage, which is going
to complicate situation in four, four disease. But I think the
worst possible thing for me as a doctor is to watch hundreds of
patients on the floor all over and take nobody you can't
at the rougher border in the south, but that border has been
bombed by Israel, so difficult to get it through. But if indeed
there is this agreement, which would have to, I would imagine, be
a temporary sort of ceasefire. Do you think that could make all the
difference for the people in Gaza? It won't make all the difference,
but it will make a significant difference, depending on how much
stuff gets in. I was with Egyptian Ambassador two days ago, and he
said, Look al Irish airport, which is one hour from Rafa, is packed
with supplies, and we've got the pictures. There's hundreds of
trucks on the way, but we were there some kind of story that
somebody said as a five hour ceasefire. So when we checked with
the people, they said, No, the trucks came and they were shorted.
So they turned around, they went back and remember, what when you
bring a truck from from because now Egypt is a foreign country to
Palestine, so insurance is the highest. Companies will not send
their trucks into our walls. On Insurance becomes a very issue.
And the way when, when we went in 2009 in 2014 you come to the
border, you offload the entire truck, then you carry all the
goods to the border, and you reload another truck. Now imagine
how long that's going to take for all those hundreds of trucks. So
yes, any truck that goes in will make a difference, because you
need food, you need fuel, you need water, you need the medicines. You
need medical supplies. You need blankets. You need mattresses. In
terms of blanks and mattresses, we've been buying stuff inside. We
can't buy blankets and batteries anymore. It's finished. Medical
stuff. It's, you know, it's surface stuff. You can't get a PL
medication and equipment. It's a challenge. Yeah, I want to ask you
a more question, because there are real concerns that this could
spread to other countries in the region. What we're seeing is,
after the Hamas attack in Israel,
you know, devastated Israel, and even moderate people are getting
hardlined because it's fear based. And what we're seeing happening in
Gaza now, even moderate minded people on the other side are
getting polarized, but we have seen two other world conflicts
that looked completely intractable. One was ours,
apartheid, and the other was Northern Ireland. Both have been
resolved in the years. Do you believe there's still a way
through in this situation, a way to hear the moderate voices, the
people on both sides who want to make a peaceful resolution, or do
you fear that we're heading for all our conflict in that region?
No, we're not. There's, there's lots of good people on both sides,
you know, is the Jewish people. There's lots of wonderful Jewish
people. I've met them, you know. And there's people on Palestinian
people who work with the Jewish people? There's no issue that the
politics and the support of foreign countries is aggravating
situation. We sort of endorsing its fan. Americans are saying, we
going to they don't say, Let's calm down. Let's go to the table.
Let's talk. No, we will supply your weapons. We'll send our ship,
we'll send 2000 soldiers. What are you saying? You're actually
supporting and the increasing the conflict. Instead of saying, let's
think about it calmly, let's see what we can do and let's bring
peace, that's what sensible people do, and it's not passed the line,
because both sides know when any side in any war, there are no
winners in a war, everybody loses out, and the people who suffer the
most are the civilians on both sides. I mean, you can't kill
civilians on inside.
Is not acceptable. You know, that's that's a religious law.
It's humanitarian law, so civilians should not be attacked.
It's only combatants, but even combatants, if they take the
uniforms off, they just honor the people they their son or the
father or the brother of some person. Why lose life? You know,
it's easier to have friends than to fight each other. Now we need
sensible people, and we need sensible governments to say, You
know what, stop fighting. Stop the weapons. Let's get to the table,
but it must be a just solution. It has to be a just solution, not
some unfinished business, because it will just stop all over again.
Yeah. We need a proper final plan. And as you say, this is the time
for cool heads, and sadly, we're seeing a lot of polarization.
Thank you so much, always for the efforts, but also the work in
Gaza. And let us hope indeed that some sort of humanitarian passage
is is created. Because what you've described to us this evening is,
it sounds positively medieval people operating without
anesthetic and just, just very, very sad. But thank you for
speaking to us this evening that, of course, is the founder of the
gift of the givers, doctor in tears, Suleman will it's.