Imtiaz Sooliman – US to build a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast reacts

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.