Imtiaz Sooliman – US to build a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast reacts
AI: Summary ©
The World Health Organization is concerned about the lack of human rights and the crisis in Guinea, which includes the lack of ports and restrictions on eating and drinking, as well as the lack of aid for victims and the emotional and psychological impacts of the situation, including the loss of family members and the need for aid for victims. The healthcare workers are facing logistical challenges, including starvation, disease, and respiratory failure, and the realities of the situation include immediate stops and the realities of the situation in terms of immediate stops. ceasefire and stopping war are essential for survival.
AI: Summary ©
All right now, let's get reaction. We're now joined by Dr Imtiaz
Suleiman, founder of the gift of the givers. Dr Suleiman, thank you
so much for your time, and welcome to the show now as we explore the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza so close to Ramadan, especially, I
mean just your reaction to the news that, firstly, the US has
called for a ceasefire. And secondly, as you've heard in that
previous report, they're now planning to build this temporary
port on Gaza's Mediterranean coast to receive humanitarian aid by
sea. And as we've heard, that could take weeks
time wasting. That's one direct answer to say, time wasting,
deception, lies playing to the gallery. That's the nation that
blocked every cease fire resolution when it was asked for
what I got to do now, send food in the morning, the same country that
supplies weapons to Israel, and say, people have a nice meal in
the morning, we'll kill you in the evening. Is this, what you trying
to tell the world, we don't need that port. We don't know how long
it's going to take. There are systems that have worked for
years. All you need to do is put a ceasefire and open the borders
from Egypt. And eight to 900 trucks a day can go through, which
will be adequate, not immediately, but our period of days, it will do
the job. It's not only about putting a pot and sending trucks
across, because once it's coming across, there's not enough fuel,
there's not food, there's heat to cook. There's no water to cook.
The roads are not possible. People are getting bombed as they went
for flour. They're getting shot by tanks and snipers and being driven
over. You need a ceasefire more than you need anything else. Be
brave. Biden, go back to the Security Council and say I made a
mistake for the last 150 days by blocking every suicide resolution.
And say America falls from a suicide. That's what you should
do. And stop wasting time in matters like this, where we can do
it without American port and without the help, to be honest,
and Dr Sulaiman, let's, let's paint that picture. You know, as
as you say, this is a time wasting exercise, given the need that is
there. I mean, your organization has been on the ground in Gaza.
One of your staffers was sadly killed, Ahmed Abbasi, as well as
his brother. I remember at the time. I mean, when we look at what
is currently happening, I mean the World Health Organization saying
that most of the enclaves, 36 hospitals have stopped working. So
there's only 12 that are partially functioning, six in the north and
six in the South. What does this then mean in terms of humanitarian
organizations such as yourself, when it comes to having then to
come in during a war?
Well, we are inside. We haven't only lost Ramana basi and also,
who's a pharmacist and his brother who doesn't work for us, but who's
a doctor, our teams have lost 175
family members inside and under that situation where they've seen
their family members die. It's emotional and psychological
trauma. It's not only my team. It's all the Palestinians and from
and the teams and the healthcare workers and humanitarian workers
of all the organizations trying to do some good, the UN workers and
even the journalists have lost their lives trying to tell the
story. So yes, it's very, very difficult and very complicated
from an emotional and a psychological point of view,
there's a first issue. The second thing is, as I said, you need the
food to get in, but it's really like taking all tons of food and
pop it off in one area, because it can move to other parts of the
country, and the party needs it the most are the people in the
North. And if you try to move beyond a certain point, you get
shot at the Israeli forces, by the tankers, by the tanks and their
snipers. We get so many messages from people in different buildings
in the north saying, we are ugly. Our children are dying. Children
have died. But you can't get there simply because the road is not
possible, and it's high risk that when you try to move, you get
shot. And then, of course, you don't have enough vehicles because
all the vehicles have been bombed, and you don't have enough fuel
because there's no fuel. So those become logistical challenges. It's
not only about food. People are the hunger is one issue. But there
are ill people, as you mentioned, 26 hospitals. They virtually that
is probably not even 12. Is three to six, only partially functional.
But those patients, many chronically ill patients, the
elderly, need food to survive, for the medication to work, for them
to have effect from a medication. Children have died. The sick,
elderly have died. The sick, all have died because there is no
there is no facility, there's no food to nourish them for for the
treatment itself. And in addition to that, their kids were dying.
Their kids were diseases that have come because of malnutrition and
hunger. Their children were desperate.
Disease, and also respiratory disease that can't be treated
because there's no medication. It's raining, it's they wet. They
don't have clothes to change. They live in the same clothes for the
last two to three months. These they're not warm, and all that has
an impact on at all. So it's very easy to say we're going to put a
pot and food. What about all these other issues? Almost 80,000 people
require medical care. Most of them will die. What about those under
the rubble? And with starvation, it's a very slow death. So the
simple solution, they need a permanent ceasefire. They don't
need to discuss anything else, to be honest. And I mean just
mentioning the issue of starvation, I mean these warnings
were there, you know, the UN warned that the reality of famine
is becoming even more increasing. You know, the fact that children
will succumb to this. We're hearing now at least 15 children
have died over the past few days. You know, just simply from
starvation. You know, as we, as we look at that, and also the talks
that were ongoing in Cairo, which have now stalled, we understand
that no agreement has been reached so far, and the picture that you
are now painting in terms of immediate ceasefire, what does
that mean in terms of the realities that They now face in as
far as malnutrition is concerned, disease that is also being, you
know, a true reality, 12 hospitals servicing both the north and the
south. What is the reality until that particular solution by the US
that it's suggesting
the reality is just the blood factor. Because to run hospitals,
you need fuel. You need electricity. I needed medical
personnel. Most of that experienced medicine medical
personnel have been healed. Some have been kidnapped. We don't even
know where they are, and many of them have been just shot on site
when they came to the hospital, when Israeli troops came in there.
So a lot of the healthcare, the institutional knowledge, the
experience of years is gone. It's it's dead, it's finished. You
know, it's people trying to make do with the situation when there's
no anesthetic, there's no antibiotics, no medicine. Yes, you
you train Band Aid, jobs for some major type of intervention that's
required. So the event of SPIRE not taking place, what's happening
will continue to happen. What's happened in the last 745, days,
people will continue to die. People will suffer, in addition to
being injured and dying from infection and bombs and bullets.
And you know, they will die from hunger, and they will die from
more infection, and they'll have more pain and more suffering and
more emotional and psychological trauma. But the alternative, do
you want to cease fire and we lose all your dignity, where, after
four weeks, they start bombing you the same way they bombed you for
the fast last 155 days, you release 40 hostages. They take in
2000 people on the West Bank and lock them up, children and
teenagers. What value is there in a solution like that? Sorry, I'm a
blunt guy. I cannot agree to any solution where people keep getting
taken away as prisoner, where children are being held prisoner,
which youth are being held prisoner, and no charges are laid
to them, and the world keeps emphasizing, what about the
hostages? What about the prisoners that you've been holding for so
many years? Israel that you lock people up, you know, unjustly for
weeks, people don't know where the parents are. They don't know where
their children are. They don't know where their family are. Three
of family members of one of my staff are missing. They're locked
up in different prisons in the West Bank. So there is no
solution. Normally, if the Americans want to do something,
and the Western powers want to do something, very easily, they
commit troops to the ground. We will come to the ground. We will
bring a ceasefire. We will deliver aid. We will stop the war. Funny,
you can't do that when Israel is concerned, but you can do that
anywhere else go to the United Security Council and say, we as
Emily, can stick their ceasefire, then you're a true leader, not
this Nikki mas business that you're talking about or building a
port and trying to bring a few weeks from now and I'm going to
die in that time.
Dr Suleman, thank you so much for your time. A difficult
conversation to have. Dr Imtiaz Suleiman is the founder of the
gift of the givers. And of course, he says the only solution there
for the people of the Palestinians in Gaza is for a ceasefire. You.