Irshaad Sedick – 43 Days Inside Gaza with Dr Ehab Bader
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their experiences with the recent war and the potential consequences of it, including negative experiences and challenges faced by people in their homes. They emphasize the importance of drinking clean water and staying clean to survive. The hospital at Shifa Hospital is a busy and overwhelmed place, with nurses struggling to find resources and support patients in need. The speakers stress the need to share experiences and learn from others to gain strengths and resilience.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah sallAllahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa my word there are bad As salam o Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And then a certain number haven't become this is a impromptu call it an impromptu livestream, but it's not an impromptu discussion. I intended for this discussion to take place as the recording.
But the timing was just so perfect that I thought, you know, I'd give everyone the honor of meeting in person or sort of live in person, Dr. Ehab, but
I feel like I'm speaking to one of my superheroes, because Dr. Ahab, by the way, is
he's a astonishing figure. And he's got an astonishing story to share with us a heart wrenching story to share with us. He's a husband, a father of three kids is a professional consultant in leadership and management. He's a physician and a pediatrician. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario as a specialist in newborns and premature babies in 2014. He is also a graduate of Harvard University in management and leadership
that the Ehab holds a bachelor's degree in Sharia and Islamic Studies from Egypt. He lived in different places around the world, including the Middle East, Europe, and North America, in which he worked in the field of character building, personal and community development for more than 20 years. He is passionate about learning and teaching Islam as a methodology and a way of life. And, as is obvious from the title of this discussion, he has spent 43 days in Russia during this war.
And in his time there, he volunteered at the ash Shifa Hospital.
So Subhanallah you know, we've been praying for them, we've been thinking about them, our hearts have broken for them. And we have the chance to meet one of them. And we pray that Allah subhanaw taala makes us benefit from this encounter. I would like to officially introduce and call upon the screen, Dr. Ahab by the Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh why
Dr. Ehab Anna Sahel and become I am deeply honored Subhan Allah it is.
Yeah, so hello, I think I still need to find the words to kind of learn how to interact with you after what you've been through and what you're going to share with us this evening. After the introduction that I gave you, how else would you introduce yourself at this stage in your life doctor, you have Bismillah
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim.
Zak Allah Hi, Ron for hosting reefers. And
it's my honor to be on this platform
to say to share something from my experience to share the truth of what I have left over 43 days in because in the term of introduction, I guess just second level higher and
your introduction is comprehensive enough. All what I want to add.
I feel I belong to this ummah.
I am originally from a salon, the city that was occupied on 1948 We went to visit as refugees in a shelter refugee camp. My father and my my grandparents. Then I was born in a part if I lived in a hijas in Riyadh.
I lived also in a man in Baghdad.
This is when I had my medical school. I graduated in 2000 from Baghdad. And I had my internship in this as my speciality in Jordan. I lived in Egypt, in Syria, in Turkey in UAE
in different other places and in the states and now in Canada. That's why I feel I am belong to this OMA and
I'm not really originated from from from us, Sudan. This is origin and home which I can't visit because of the situation of education in Palestine but will Hamdulillah I have visited so many places of this ummah other than that
so handle so yourself living as a refugee.
What What was the? I don't know we do even begin with what was it like being in Heiser for 43 days during
In this
heart wrenching period, this incredible period of genocide and ethnic cleansing, you are right, the
I can't even begin to imagine, in the middle of one of the worst atrocities we've seen
in this 21st century. In fact, I think it's safe to say the worst atrocity we've seen you wear it on the ground, in the hospital with the people.
What was life like?
I think you are right. And I was there in the world as of 2008. And also, I was there in Baghdad, when it was attacked. That was in 990 90, and 1996. And I was there, because I was graduated from Iraq, Baghdad. So this is where I had this experience. But really what's going from the USA Today, something I have never experienced, I have never seen, it is exceptional, it's totally different. Now there is a huge difference between there is a war and you expect the other side to destroy governmental buildings and try to, to destroy his specific military fields and to occupy the land, I understand this. But what I don't understand, when you feel you are the target as civilians, when
you feel as a doctor, you are the target, you have this feeling not out of nothing. Jesus out of the amount of cases I got to see at the hospital, and in my neighborhood, and around me, my relatives of my friends who were killed. Most of them were civilians, like the vast majority, and most of them were kids and women. So if this is the case, and you are in the situation, then you realize that this war is totally different than the previous ones, the previous ones, maybe you are at risk, because you are beside of the roof of one of those governmental buildings, or sites, you are at risk because you live beside one of the military sites. But you are at risk, because you are a civilian,
you are at risk because because you are a kid and you live in Gaza. So this is something really, I have never experienced before. So your description is really, really pretty accurate. Which is like it's to wipe out this is what you feel like wiping out removing this from the map. And to have this experience when you live in there. It's It's scary. Because when you feel you are the target, so wherever you move, you are the target. You go to school, you are the target, you go to a hospital, you are the target, you will live in your house, in your apartment in a residential tower, you are the target, you walk on the street, you are the target, you go to a supermarket or you you go to buy
like bread or something to eat and something to drink, just to survive. You are the target. This is really scary.
Hanalei it is it's incredible.
You know, for us, it's almost, it's almost unreal, because you start to think about the depth of the fear, the trauma, the the horrible sounds, and the blasts and the dust and the starvation, and the thirst and the lack of medical supplies and you just think of all of these different components and it becomes more and more and the deal like we can't possibly fathom what people have experienced the it you have
you have first hand experience of what is taking place on the ground, what should we know about this?
I think it is it is it is good for the audience to be involved in some details. So the No, like what is the real situation in there. So if I would summarize my, my, my, my duties there when I was in the war, it will be divided into two types. The first one is to take care of my parents, my family basically, I was with my parents, my sister and my niece and to take care of the patients in the hospital and to check on my neighbors and my relatives if possible, if they are in my area, because using the cell phone wasn't really possibly most of the time. So you need really to go and check on them in person. So for taking care of the family setup, you need to make sure that you have
something to eat something to drink
Do you need to survive until tomorrow? Until the next days I have my parents, they are old, they are sick. My father is almost 80 years old and my mother 76 years old, both they are sick. They have chronic illnesses, heart illnesses, renal injury, renal failure and diabetes, and they are on a bunch of medications. And you need really to provide them with with with the basic needs. By day three of the war, you could say we started to feel the lack of the basic needs. By day three of the war we started to have more electricity, very poor internet, if any very pool still says phone coverage, we started to feel that the shortage of water and the food and I still remember when I
went down frequent times down the street from our apartment to one of the schools of the oil United Nations because they have some some electricity. So I go to stand in long lines
to charge my my my cell phone to charge my cell phone up to 2025 50%. And once you have discharge, you keep it and you try to really not use it until it's necessary because you might need it for emergency you never know. And this is just to charge the cell phone and standing also on lines to get water and food.
That was at the apartment of my parents then we had to flee the apartment because it was risky and dangerous. They destroyed the entire neighborhood. So we need really to move we move to the apartment of my sister besides Shifa Hospital, and this is when I started to go there to ship a hospital. That was bye bye bye day sixth or the seventh of the award.
I clarify for yourself. You know, just to say there may be some people who are watching and need some context as for what exactly is the Shifa Hospital,
as she felt was the hospital that the IDF claimed
housed the military base, the main military base of hummus and this was the hospital that they that they so brutally held hostage, basically the entire hospital along with its medical staff. This was the hospital that they force evacuated. This was the hospital that they lift the premature babies to die. This is the hospital that we speaking about. Right? That's the ash Shifa Hospital, in case you didn't know. Sorry, Dr. Ahab, please do do continue. So before we go to assume that itself, so when I was there, getting water as something you need to get everyday this is my daily duty. We have a bottle for or whatever the thing that you need to bring with you to collect some water and I have a
bottle of water. I used to go every day to spring clean water. And if you notice that we have a few of them. A few springs of clean water one of them besides a Shiva and this is when you go there. It's a daily task you go maybe hundreds or 1000s of people are gathered around the same spot which is a very small one. And everyone is thirsty everyone has family everyone has has kids, maybe they are thirsty or seniors. So we all
go there with with with really dire need like we need to go and really under under under under the impression that you go there and you need to finish quickly because you will be targeted because we've experienced that they targeted
most of the springs to most of them they were targeted. And once we are cloud a crowd over the same spot that may be
entice the move to target us. So we were hundreds and we push like it is a severe it's a struggle. Really it's a struggle. You will be pushed from the right side from the left side and you go you know what is the situation when we see the black stone in Mecca, like it is it is like it and even more difficult. And after one hour or two hours you find yourself inside maybe at the spot after lots of pushing. And you need just to hold your your hands around the bottle to make sure that you have some water coming inside the bottle. So once you finish you withdraw yourself you go back. So if you are successful, you go back with with the bottle that's foam and this is the amount that we
divide between my father, my mother, myself, my sister, my niece to survive until tomorrow and if I open the door and the Look at my hands, who received an empty that
means we need to hold for today, there is no water. Tomorrow is a new missions, new day with a new mission.
This is the key is just to get something to drink.
And sometimes most of the times you can't have it for maybe half of it, quarter of it, whatever the amount you get, you need to divide between parents, sister, niece and myself. And when I say clean water, not necessarily clean as we know, it's clean and relatively, but it might be yellow, smells bad, salty, and it might be dirty. But this is all what you can get. You need to drink it to survive.
So this is the story of the water and exactly the story of the food. If you get the handful of rice, lentil flour, this is gold, so not the answer. So if you if that's the case with with the water you had to drink,
I'm scared to ask. So there's no question about, you know, having a chance to take a shower, there's no question about having a chance to take a bath. It's just completely out of the question. Yeah, we have, we don't have water in the apartment, there is a washroom without water and the kitchen without water. So you need to live in that situation. minimal amount of water, you need to use it mainly to drink.
If you use it for something else you need to take out from the amount that you you saved for drinking like it is it's only the same amount. So they're out of the question have to ask about this luxurious things.
I would like to I would like to hear more about, you know, that type of personal experience, because you will never hear that on the news. Even the pro Palestinian news. It's it's too much of a personal detail for them to get into when you know the lives of people are being lost and buildings are being blown up. So I really appreciate that insight. I always I think about these things I actually wonder, you know about individuals and circumstances, I think about pregnant mothers, I think about the mentally challenged people, I think about the women with the menstrual cycles.
It's it's all challenges that are unique, and we don't perhaps have a chance to, you know, reflect on the needs. But this gives us a chance for some personal reflection. Just a quick question, how is it that you managed to come out of HERSA.
So
this is because I have Canadian nationality.
My father was,
was so scared that I would be killed at some point.
Really, he was so keen to push me outside.
He really was so happy that I came to visit him before the war. And now he is trying his best to push me out. So he takes to the Canadian mission in Ramallah on my behalf.
And he told them, like if I'm Canadian stuck in because I want to do to get out.
And he provided them with my number they started to call me. I told them, I can't leave I need my parents, my sister, my niece with me, please make some pressure. They promised to make some pressure. And they called me maybe after 10 days, they told me we tried we failed. You need to get out of this by yourself. Shall all them if I stay could you make continue making the pressure? Even even with a little hope? They told me yes, we will do. So this is when we got disconnected until day 43. I found my name at the borders, and by myself without my family. So because we don't have really official announcements there we don't have really intact body that could announce on behalf of the
of the authorities of the borders. What are the regulations all has rumors of if you have your name at the borders, and if you get your family with you, you fight for them at the borders, they allow them to pass with you. Then I told my father then if that's the case, let's go all of us. I'm not going by myself. If you go we go together or we come back to them.
So we went and once we arrived to refer borders.
At the borders itself, we found the office of the Palestinian officer overwhelmed with lots of people asking him to process their passports because they want to pass quickly because they are afraid like drones are there they never leave the sky versa. And they might attack the borders. So people just want to leave their names are there at the borders. So he was all
overwhelmed, he shouted at us, everyone, please back, I will call you by your names. Nobody is here. I can't process anything while you are here. So this is when everyone went back except my father, including myself, I went back with my mother and my family. So I was looking at my father talking to him, talking to the officer telling him I am old and sick, I can't go that distance, then when you call me I can't combat this process. And finish me. He told him him come to the office, they went to the office, they talk to each other. I was looking at them through the glass of the office, they are making some calls. I thought basically, the rumor is they are talking to the other side, the
Egyptian side to take for them to pass with me. And they listed our our names on a piece of paper. And my father and the officer started to smile. When they started to smile. I got really optimistic because nobody smiles in that situation. It's really tough enough not to smile, and he's smiling. I fought with work. Then he left the office and he called me. My father. He told me, he had to go with the officer. He has your passport. So it worked. I went to the officer because it must be me first because they are joining me. So I went there. He taught me outside of the hole with a one way door that opens one way if you go out, you can't come back. And he went behind the desk. He stamped my
passport. He gave it to me. Then he told me to go to the bus. I told him where he taught me to Egypt. I told him no, no, I have my family. I have my parents, my sister, my niece. I can't leave them behind. They are dependent on me. Because he was overwhelmed. He didn't answer me. I insisted I didn't leave the hole. I told him I'm not leaving until you solve this issue for me. He told me I know. I talked to your father. I told him he was rejected from the other side. He can't pass the border. The border is neither him Sam's nor your mother or your sister know your niece. Now could you go to the bus?
Then when I
I realized that I can't come back. I called him. I told him, why did you do that? He told me
I will say it in Arabic then I will translate it. He said he told me in Arabic Yarbrough Sharif Marta Kubernetes Canada ethnic bar in Yeah. So obviously your wife and your kids in Canada, we are all Allahu Allah protect us. And then his way he told my sister, now I am satisfied. I'm happy. You have is.
Now I feel better. In the second day, once I arrived to Cairo, I received a call from the hospital and Mossad camp to tell me that my father gets murdered as a shahidul.
So this is my second film,
and media. So this is just to answer your question How I did manage to leave.
Yeah, oh, I
didn't expect that answer.
Along suddenly, I said you know what?
I don't know what to say to that. I can't imagine the pain that you must have felt.
But we can never call him dead. He's alive. He's alive but Allah years ago. He's the one that rejoicing and we should be. We should be disappearing, you know, because we haven't. We haven't met the standard yet.
Test. I love you please do them.
Yeah.
So
we've spoken about
some personal experience, experiences of yours. What are the experiences of yours? You know, really just
at times, I know you never lost hope because otherwise you wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't be speaking with us today. You are a helpful person.
But I'm sure that there were times where you felt like all hope is lost and you felt like going into despair but had to keep saving yourself. Tell us a bit about those times.
To be honest, it is not losing hope.
Not at all.
For two reasons. The first one
when you are with Allah subhanho wa Taala
you should
incluso
if he is with you, that's good enough.
And I got to learn this from everyone around me in the US.
Like people there, they have so much strength, faith, resilience.
They know what they want to achieve the art of standing in their land, standing inside their houses, they don't want to leave. Because this is their land. This is their right, this is admitted. This is the holy land. This is the story. The story is only about me. It's far beyond myself. It's it's not only myself, like everyone was thinking that way. It's it's far beyond ourselves as people as civilians, it's about the right to stand up for the truth, to defend the holy land to defend your rights in the face of oppression. And that's why you could see people around you. Like, my situation wasn't wasn't easy.
Sometimes we could spend spend a few days without food or without water, and it's my father and out of his medications and it's not safe. We kept moving from one place to another. I was about to be killed in so frequent situations. And yet, my story, I consider it as a milestone.
If you look at the stories that when I was at the Shifa Hospital, beyond every Shaheed and everyone who got injured, or murdered,
on stories, and sometimes very beautiful stories of how people could, could resist how people could survive this, with their faith and their strength and their resilience, when they come to the hospital. Giving up his kids, like all of them are shahada, and he just looking at them and telling you, I'm fine.
I'm satisfied internally, if Allah subhanho wa taala, this is his choice, I should submit, I should submit, he decided to do this. He gave them to me, and he is taking. So this is not exception.
Really, it's not an exception. I got to see hundreds and hundreds of those people in the hospital in our neighborhood, my relatives, my, like, everyone around you tells you that we are standing up for the truth. We never leave. We never leave. We never feel weak. We never feel broken. With the opposite. We feel strong. And we are sure that Allah subhanho wa Taala will help us with support us will grant us victory. Maybe we are hungry. Yes, physically, are tired, maybe, maybe tired. Because we have no food. We have no no real water, clean water, maybe physically tired, because over the 43 days, I couldn't remember two hours of sleep together. Like you could sleep one hour, half an hour
here and there. But together two hours. It's scary enough not to do that. Because most of those who were targeted and killed, they were killed while they are asleep.
So we are tired, tired, physically tired, moving from one place to another and stressed maybe physically as internally know.
Internally, very strong.
Internally very proud of what we are doing. Internally, you know that you are close to him surpassing our Tod.
You, you feel that you are so strong. And if it is not with the situation that I just described to you of how I lift Reza, I would love to stay. I would love why not. You live with people you would love to stay with them. And to learn from them day and night. I'm not talking about you or scholars or teachers. I'm talking about simple people, or even kids,
even kids, if I tell you the story about the owner of the bakery, the bakery in our neighborhood, who would provide people with the bread. And when the flour was was available, even in shortage at the beginning of the war, he insisted to keep his bakery open. And they have targeted all the bakeries. It's clear, you will be targeted and your bakery will be destroyed. Not only this, you will be killed because you open it and use your Senate to sell people bread to eat. And when you ask him why do you do that? His answer is this is my participation.
This is my participation on what's going on. This is my participation of how to help people how to support them, how to keep them to stay in their land and
They in their house is not leaving, they want something to eat, right? I could provide this. I can do so many things. But this is something I can do. This is what I'm good at. And I will participate in what I'm good at. This is his participation. And then they destroyed his bakery and they killed him. But he is a shaheed. And he is happy with 40 of what he did. So if you watch this, this man is not a Harvard graduate.
This man is not complicated or sophisticated this man is to see, this man loves his people, loves his land, loves a masjid and axon loves Palestine loves the holy land. He rejects about the he rejects operation. And he acted upon his understanding.
And lots of people like him.
So this kind of resilience makes you happy and eternally satisfied, and you never get weak. Because it's still your situation, as you could spot is much better than others. And yet, they are patient, and they are happy and internally satisfied.
Palestinian Palestinians have coined the word to describe what you've just described. Some mood, some, right?
Just exactly that. That's my understanding of some movies. Is that correct? It is, it is exactly. So mode means you resist, and you stand up for the truth. And you never get weak. Physically, we can kill us. But you can't kill my spirit.
You can't kill my spirit. You could can mark in my body, but not my spirit. And that's why people are surviving this genocide. You wonder like, it's a very extreme situation, how they could survive. That's the secret.
Dennis us, Dr. Ahab. What was it like being a volunteer in a Shifa Hospital. I mean, you're a doctor, by profession. You've also got expertise in other fields. You find yourself in a visor, and a crisis looms, a genocide begins and you find yourself in one of the
one of the targets of Israel, I don't know whether it was a target at the time that you were there before you were there after you left. Tell us a bit about your time at a Shiva.
So when I went there, to Shiva first before talking about a Shiva my role in a Shiva, the real heroes are those who are working in a chef, doctors and nurses, not myself, myself is just a volunteer when they have to help them out. But really they are heroes. If you look at their discipline, and their perseverance and insistence to achieve something, help people, it's great. So I went there, I volunteered my time in the NICU, which is the intensive care unit of the newborns, because this is my speciality. I'm a pediatrician, and I'm a specialist in the intensive care unit have the newborns and premature babies and also at the emergency emergency unit because they are
very busy and they are in shortage. So they need they need help. So at the emergency unit, and the intensive care unit, I divided my time between here and there. It wasn't really if you compare it as I just mentioned, with all what they did. Big participation. I still see it small.
We received we used to receive hundreds, hundreds of patients and people who are injured and get murdered were killed hundreds sometimes 1000s Every day in a Shifa Hospital. It's overwhelming because of the lack of the resources. Many of the health care providers they can't reach or she falls because they can't come because they live maybe in peripheries of Japan, Korea or better known or some areas at the borders or even incident part of us. So that leaves us with those who would live in a walking distance from a Shifa Hospital, which is difficult. You can find all the resources, so you need to go there and help as much as you can. And when we talk about resources,
it's not only human resources, the lack of the medical supplies was really disaster. Like by by week, two or three starting of the war. We started to run out of the basic medical supplies. We don't have enough painkillers. We didn't have antibiotics. We don't have maybe run out of syringes or goals or drugs of anesthesia to operate people who are injured when you don't have
Have these medical basic medical supplies. Once you receive a patient in the emergency unit, and you stand in front of your patient, you can do nothing. Sometimes you feel the pain in your heart as a doctor, because you are you are trained to how to help those people, you know how to do it. But you can't, you don't have enough resources in your hands to help and to support. Sometimes you watch them in your eyes dying in front of your eyes, because you have no help for them. If you don't have drugs for anesthesia, to operate those patients, they will keep bleeding until they die. And that's the case for so many other other cases. Also, those who we we received at the emergency unit, as
people who got buried, burned from the white phosphorus, the white phosphorus, the prohibited weapon. So those patients they come with so much pain, they cry out loud out of pain, and you can you can just help them. If you look at their hands, or their chest or their legs, you could split the bone, we could see the bone because muscles and veins and arteries and nerves, they were burned. And you just look at the bone immediately and they cry loudly. And you can just help them. That is the situation, the situation when you are a doctor. And it comes to the point that you need to decide who to help and who to lead. Why because you have only two hands and you have 10 patients 10
who were injured and you need to help them all. And you need to decide to which one you pay more attention. And and which one of them you need to leave because you can't help and maybe you feel as if you decide I relieve him mostly he would die or she would die.
It's a very painful feeling in your heart. And you are not alone in the emergency unit. You have relatives of those patients, the big you the they tell you please please do something for our kids. We don't have anyone else other than him. Please do something and you consciously you need to decide not to do something for him because really, medically, ethically you need to pay attention for somebody else.
That's the situation. The situation when you need to decide serious decision may be for you. It would work because you are a doctor and you know what are the basis of this decision but for but for his mother, his father and sister, his brother?
How do you want them to understand the situation looking at one of their family member of their family dying slowly, because of the lack of the resources and lack of the doctors lack of the nurses lack of the medical supplies. And once you are in a Shifa Hospital, you keep running between one patient to another in the ICU, the intensive care unit, the operative theatre, the radiology department, so busy and overwhelming. And as I just said, behind each one of them very long story of the way they were targeted, and who were killed from their families who were survived. Sometimes you receive the entire family as to whether all of them, or someone who survived out of the entire
family as a kid or a senior.
So that was the situation in a Shifa hospital until day 30 When we started to run out of electricity, and then we decided to cut off the electricity from all departments except the vital ones, the vital ones, the emergency unit, the intensive care unit of adults, Intensive Care Unit of the newborns, radiology department and the operative theatre. And every single other department works without electricity inside the hospital. By day 33, we run out of electricity at all. So we don't have electricity. And this is when even these vive the vital departments, the five of them. We run them without electricity. You could imagine people in the intensive care unit. They are
electricity, didn't they they live on the mechanical ventilation where you could provide with oxygen. So without this mechanical ventilator, which is electricity machine dependent machine, so you run out of the of the basic need, which was oxygen, oxygen for this patient. When so that was the situation until the 35 at the morning of the 35 When I went to shift, again to volunteer I didn't know the new
because we don't have the internet we don't have electricity.
I used when I go there to enter a shift a street to go to the main entrance of a ship or hospital. And it's usually noisy. Like you could hear people we have 60,000 Refugees inside the hospital itself. Beside the nurses and the doctors and, and the staff and the patients. So it's pretty crowded with lots of noise because people are running behind something to eat, or they want to bring water and they keep talking and beside a shifa, it's it's loud, like it's noisy. So when I went there, I felt this morning is different, it's different. There is something weird, like I don't hear the noise. I don't hear people talking to each other. I didn't really realize until I entered the
Shiva street, I found it empty. And this is when I realized there is something wrong. Then they were targeted. They were shooting every single one moving around every single object that moves around a Shiva hospital. You can't move around the Shiva hospital. This is when the night before they circled a Shiva hospital from all sides. They have their snipers over there, hi, residential towers, and the drones. One kind of drones called quadcopter. The quadcopter drone is a kind of drone that with that fly at a very short distance, and it works automatically. If the quadcopter detects any moving object. It will be targeted automatically. So
we couldn't enter a shift I tried to go from another entrance with C which is the north entrance. Also I failed again. And this is my lifestyle to be there. That was a day 55. I will very sad back to my family to tell them what I saw, and the situation. And it was only a few hours until we realize that the confrontations between the occupation force and the resistance. It's there down the street, at the corner of our neighborhood. And this is when we decided to move again. Myself, my parents, my sister, my niece, we fled the apartment with our neighbors to the relatives of our neighbors. They live far away like not not that much, maybe one kilometer from the ship hospital. We
felt that more safe.
And then the next day I started to hear the sad news that they stone the Shifa Hospital, from all the entrances. And I started to hit the news about my colleagues were killed.
My colleagues as doctors as nurses, I started to hear the names.
And I got to know that these stones are the department's the wind in every single corner in a Shifa hospital. They killed more than 200 among them patients, nurses, doctors, health care providers, the forced all the doctors to leave the intensive care unit. And all of the patients there. They passed away immediately they were 20 and all of them just die. And also the forced are the doctors from the intensive care unit of the newborns, premature babies and the newborns inside incubators inside the incubators because they are tiny, small in matures and and they are oxygen dependent and we run out of electricity so we provide the oxygen manually. So if you kick me out while I am providing the
oxygen What do you expect the outcome the the this started to die when after I started to hit the names of those patients, we got to knock them over 43 days you know those patients you take care of them. And then you keep hearing their names, passing away one after one, one after pasture pasture. That one died that one. And that was the situation in the next day after we left our neighbor.
So that was my experience at least inside a Shifa Hospital. I have other few patients in another hospital. This is where I got to go at the beginning of the world before I go and volunteer my time ministry for hospital. I went to a Nasr hospital and this is really the hospital for kids. It's the hospital for kids with the intensive care unit there. That hospital today is not there. They destroyed the hospital totally. The forced all the doctors to leave the hospital forcefully and patients they're one of the nurses
who used to work there in a massive hospital informed us that during the truce, you remember the truce of one week. That was that, that temporary ceasefire, humanity in pose or something like that, right. During that pose, he went there to check on our patients because they clicked on us outside without the patient's like patients, they stay in the hospital. Why no notice no doctors. So after a few days, maybe two weeks, he went there to check on the patient's premature newborn babies inside their incubators. And he found that those patients
part of their bodies were eaten by by dogs,
then flushed. And by enemies,
if you are a parent of those, those patients,
and you see and you know that your kit was there, and it was attacked by dogs to eat part of their bodies, because dogs were hungry.
So that was the situation other than a fantasy hospital who could attack to besides a massive hospital. And lots of my patients, and nurses and doctors, my colleagues were killed
off metal like it. I mean, I mean, I mean,
that's just
how you how you dealing with, with what you've experienced. I know that Palestinians are unique, and I know that you, you will bolt from a different material to the rest of us, and we love you for that your strength and your faith. Your resilience has given us so much hope and inspiration.
You've changed our lives. So we thank you for that. But surely, you know, this is challenging for you, as a person as a Muslim, as a servant of Allah, how do you manage to deal with all of this?
I think that would would strengthen
our insistence to explore the truth, to make it clear for everyone.
The crime that we saw, tells us all it tells me because I Allah subhanahu wa taala
made me to pass the borders. So with with with a man with a responsibility. So my responsibility is to tell people the truth. And to tell them all these details. Living these details is not easy. Really, it is painful. And I don't like to repeat it. But I will keep repeating it for all
for all people to know these details on some someone who was in there. And we saw those patients, we know the names of our colleagues, doctors and nurses who were killed. We knew we know the names of our neighbors and kids were coming. We know that it's not exaggeration on underestimation that you could spot in the news, it's not. So the truth, and ideal with that situation with more strength and more insistence, because at the end of the day, you are responsible in front of Allah subhanho wa Taala to tell people the truth. So the end when they know the should move, you should do something. But if you keep the truth just just for yourself and you feel the pain
that doesn't help doesn't open the borders for people to eat and drink and doesn't stop this
funnel. It's very difficult to get through this conversation without, you know, allowing one's emotions to get the better of you. But I would like to know so much more about you know, what life was like.
I've seen videos of children, especially young children being so terrified
because of what they hear all the time bombs falling around them.
And they are so young that I'm sure many of them they don't actually comprehend what's happening. Like they don't understand that okay, these these there's an attack from another place that stole our land and so forth. All the other loud noises. And I'm sure that people have faced fears that
in my worst nightmares, I couldn't imagine.
Can you tell us about the state of our children, our little boys and little girls in the USA and
and share with us some of the pain that, that we can perhaps carry that away from you and that we can pray for them even more.
I think that's, that's that's the case, as you just explained that fear is a natural, natural thing that you have, as a human being. You could, you could be scared from something and you could fear to go through a difficult experience. And so our kids, not only our kids, even every single one bear, the it's a skin, it's the situation is scary. Like, in spite of the strength of people there. It's a scary situation. Like, I could explain to you the situation. And you could imagine the situation of the kids of what I saw, like my personal experience when I was there, when the night time starts.
Usually it's so scary. Because these attacks, explosions, airstrikes,
starts heavily by the nighttime, it's their day and night, but really with the focus on the nighttime.
So when you start the night time,
like I would just explain the situation of one night, and you could imagine what is the situation for the whole time, the night of November 5, as I remember.
The started
like the started attacks, heavily attacks on the north west part of Gaza, because that was after the ground battle, and they may be decided to invade the desert from that site. So with severe attacks, airstrikes, the word bomb being everywhere in that neighborhood, it's far from us, it is around four kilometers from our house. And yet, we hear these explosions, very loud ones, as if they are just beside us. And with each one of them, our apartment shakes as if it is an ethic, a very severe earthquake, and you feel the walls are collapsing over your head. And they started from like the beginning of the nighttime until midnight, severe attacks, like almost every single one or two
minutes, huge explosion. And you could hear the noise outside the noise of the glasses that's being broken, falling down from the residential towers to the ground, or those who are crying on the streets running towards the hospital, that for help or or to go to go there as as refugees running out from this disaster. And you are at the middle of the night until midnight. And then they started to throw the white phosphorus heavily, heavily. And after that, they shift that target to the neighborhood just right beside us, which is standard. However, my neighborhood was remodeled. So at the pellet, however, they started the same attacks. So that this was the noises and the sounds that
we hear in a neighborhood that's four kilometers away from us. So what would be the situation when you hear these noises on just beside you, and severe attacks, severe ones. And really, I remember, we got so scared. And we jumped from our beds, myself, my parents, my sister, my knees, we gathered at the middle of the house. And really we were talking what to do where to go. And I still remember out of these continuous attacks, non stop, strikes, it strikes. So we opened the door, and we started to run out of the apartment, we don't know where to go, or what to do. Like we have no target just we need to be out of this apartment because we feel that the ceiling and the walls will
be connected over our heads and we will be killed. We started to run outside and once we arrived to the external entrance of the of the residential tower that we live in, we realized when we went outside just one meter, that really this area is the most dangerous one. Because now you are outside the apartment and you are exposed and these drones with a sky for us that they never leave the sky versus if they did it any moving object. It will be targeted and you will be killed. And really it's risky, especially at the middle of the night. Most likely you will be targeted and killed. And this is when when we decided to go back. Go back where to the apartment. So most of people in our
neighborhood did this and
Do we did the same, we just stay at the door. You are not. You are not out you know what to do and where to go. I still remember the discussion between myself and my father talking to him. When every single night after this night, we kept saying, Oh, this light is the worst. This light is even worse than the previous one. That was the situation until I left casa. So what would be the situation of the kids, when this is the experience of adults? When I receive them in the hospital really scared, they don't know what to say where to go? They don't really know why this amount of heat. Why do you feel my parents and you destroy everything? Why you thought the bakery and the supermarket and my
school? Why you target all those people. They are very nice, kind people, nice ones. Really, those kids, they don't realize the truth. They don't really realize what's going on. But I'm sure those kids will be
the strong men and women are for her for the future. They are going through this experience. And now you are teaching them how to be stronger how to have resilience how to have patients
and what inspirations they've been already some of them Subhanallah when they when they speak. We don't hear children, we see children, we feel what we feel when we interact with children. But we hear the resistance, we hear liberation. We are people are more intelligent, more wise than most, if not all of the political leaders of this world. We are people of truth. We are the future of the OMA and we understand full well why the prophets of Allah Allah wa sallam
told us of
an ummah or portion of this ummah, that will remain upon the truth, and those who neglect them, they will never cause them any harm. And they will be persistent upon the truth till the end of time. And he was asked, where are they and he said, they are around beta mock this, they are around by to mock this. So those children Subhanallah, they are truly our heroes that you have, I promised you an hour, I would like to keep my promise to the best of my ability. But I would love to continue to speak with you. Before we before we you know, round off the conversation.
I'm sure that you would love to share a message that has been driving you to to this particular point, you said that you gain your strength from from a pledge that you've taken with yourself from a pledge that Allah allowed for you to come over the border. And you feel that this is an Amana that you have to fulfill and that Amana is that you will never stop speaking the truth. So this is a drive this is a a burning sensation inside of yourself. And I'm sure that this part of yourself came onto this particular podcast, this interview with a message in mind, I would like you to share that message with us.
I feel humbled
between the hands of the owner of the big
who I just talked about. It's not message from me. It's a message from him to every single one outside.
And really this message she needed to hear this message. I consider it one of the most important things that I got to learn when I was there.
The message is do what I'm what you are good at participants do you effort, you see the truth, you know upheld. And you know that you need to stand up for the truth. And you need to know that you need to support that.
And it is not like you will be asked to do something not in your hands. Do your best. That bakery helped with the loop.
And when he was asked his answer was this is my participation. This is what I'm good. With. This is what I'm good at. Could I ask every single one hearing us today? Go back and spot something you are good.
And go ahead and participate. Participate
bear with the truth against falsehood, participate, to support those people in us, to support them to survive to stand up for their rights. Go ahead and help them with that at your political, financial, social level. If you are good at media and social media, if you could protest, sign a petition, if you can do anything, if you are creative, creating videos or raising awareness, you name it, you will spot something you are good at. And you go ahead and participate. And this is your responsibility. Your responsibility is to provide what you are good at. And this is the lesson from that simple man who sacrificed his life
in the sake of his rights, and the rights of people in Palestine, and
with what with something he is debt. This is I think the most important is
just a common law Hey, Ron,
I hope insha Allah that
this message reaches everyone in the world, because it is a message that has really invigorated my soul with a drive to resist with a drive to be part of the resistance with a drive to want to help and to do my utmost. And I'm sure that anyone listening anyone watching anyone who has a heart and is listening and watching would feel the same way who would feel that they want to go above and beyond and Alhamdulillah we also doing some financial aid, you know, collecting for Kaiser, that's one effort. But I would like to, you know, encourage everyone to take inspiration from what you've said Dr. Ahab, and for the sacrifices that you've made and that your family has made and that the
people have Heiser has made to take your message seriously enough, that we will all make the liberation struggle of Palestine and the liberation of Missoula could send Mobarak that will make that a part of our lives every day until its liberation. And even beyond that, because we still need to rebuild as we need to rebuild Palestine. We need to get people back their homes and their land. And we look forward to the day that that happens. And I hope in sha Allah that I can be by your side as we march through the gates of of liberated Palestine, and as we march into mashido axon Mobarak playing sunnah Salah as next to one another in a liberated machine and breaking our fast together as
well. Hello, bless you Giselle Kamala Hayden
Santa Monica rahmatullah wa barakato.