Omar Suleiman – Gaza Diaries – The Du’a of Yunus Under the Rubble
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The devastating impact of the coronavirus on humanity is demonstrated in overwhelming deaths and injuries, as well as the need for balancing emotions and embracing the present. The speakers stress the importance of protecting people from suffering and fulfilling rights while preventing future deaths. They use examples of people experiencing subhanous behavior, losing family members, and the emotional impact of the virus. A woman recites a Quran expressing her desire for a free consultant, while also expressing a desire for a free consultant.
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Day Doctor Farhan Abdelaziz
who it would not be an exaggeration to
say is one of my best friends in
the world, one of the closest brothers to
me in the world, alhamdulillah so
for doing this. I know how hard it
is for you to do this.
Subhanahu wa'ala, I think, just to put in
perspective before before you start,
one thing that I heard from quite a
few of the doctors, it's really hard to
talk about this. It's not easy. Right? So
you guys have seen a lot. Inshallah, this
is a means by which you're exposing
many more people to the depth of faith,
the depth of yaqeen in these people, in
ahu Hazra. And I know that's something that's
near and dear to your heart, So before
I even ask you a single question,
I'm just gonna let you open up Insha'Allah
Ta'ala, just,
take it from where you wanna take it.
What should people know about the Yaqeen of
Ahlul Hazra, about the certainty of the people
of Rasul?
The,
you know, James Elder, the UNICEF spokesperson, he
said that Gaza is
a graveyard for children and and is a
living * for the people who are left,
but he hasn't seen that it's also
filled the people of paradise. That's the feeling
you get. You walk in and
it's the situation is beyond what you would
think
is tolerable by human human beings. You know,
beyond the capacity of human beings to live
for a short period of time let alone
7 to 8 months now. There's, you know,
al munyateen, aynyateen.
We read the Quran, we read the hadith,
and we believe, but then to actually literally
live live it and see things with your
own eyes, experiencing with your own eyes that,
you know, faith sets in their heart in
a way that
halal something can shake them.
Doesn't matter what you do. That's why I
don't think there are people that can
ever be defeated because their their yateen is
just the khalas. They reached they reached a
point. You know the beginning of the war
there was there was an audio clip I
heard of a woman who had received,
it was a voice note she sent on
Whatsapp and it was somebody sending her a
Whatsapp note saying, you know trying to you
know, comfort her and give her strength and
whatnot and then she responded by saying that,
you know,
you're, I'm getting from the message that you're
trying to strengthen me, but really we need
to be strengthening you because we've reached, we
have
zero doubt. Allah's promise is true and she
gave the story of her her young child
a few years old who had had asked
her
you know
about death and that and she told her
she the child told the mom don't worry
if we die we'll be with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. And she was like as if
the angels are talking through the children to
us. But these kind of experiences that people
have there. Parents have, children have, the like
and it's it's
these are shared experiences by the community. It's
beautiful to see on the screen, but it's
another level when you're amongst the people.
It's my own. Some people would say, how
do you come up with the word beauty?
What's beautiful about it? Right? So,
it's atrocity, it's terrible, it's tragedy. How do
you balance those emotions when you go there?
Like, tell me about sort of when you
first got there on the first trip. What's
the first
moment where you heard air strikes or you
saw people in pieces and
it really sunk in? The first trip,
the moment you enter as
you're probably aware, you know, the drones. You
always hear the drones constantly.
But then
the moment we got in, you know, it
was just,
I almost compare it to like seeing the
Kaaba for the first time and everybody has
different experiences with that too, but for me
when I saw the Kaaba for the first
time in my life standing there and honestly
every time we still go, Allah gives us
the opportunity to go to Hajar Ramadan. We
see the Kaaba and I stand there. There
is a sense of
that what I'm what have I done to
deserve the honor of being here? And entering
Gaza,
even though it's a war zone, even though
the people are suffering, there's famine and there's
widespread illnesses,
you say what did I do to do
to deserve to be here? What a blessing
from Allah because
again the people there are amazing, the hadith
of the the land, being blessed land that
the rebat there you know could be the
best rebat.
You know the the rebat of this areas
will become a time will be the best
Ribat.
These kind of, you know, concepts you go
in and you're like, wow, you're here.
And so, when you see
the injuries, you see the atrocities, yes it's
horrible and you're working in very difficult conditions,
meaning limited supplies, limited electricity, like the power
goes out. It was one night when a
blast had gone off and we go down
to the ER.
There's 3 children who were born and 3
three siblings of one another.
Roughly maybe 8, 7, and 5 years old
and,
one of them pretty much was dead on
arrival.
We pronounced them. We went to the second
one. The that was the oldest. The the
second one was the youngest,
and then the team there kind of made
the decision that, you know, the chance of
survival is so low, it's not worth putting
the resources to try and save him. He's
a he's a savable life, you know. The
resources are there. The chances are low, but
we can do it.
But the the local doctor, you know, kind
of made the decision that we're not gonna
pursue further. And so, he eventually died.
And as we're tending to the third one,
in the middle age of the 3, the
power goes out. And so he has, from
terms of severity of injuries, he was the
least severe and so we kind of went
from, you know, highest to least, but he
had and I'm saying least severe, but he
had second degree burns to his whole face
and upper bodies of head burns from the
from the blast. And then we're trying to
assess what other injuries he has either like
organ injuries or muscular and whatnot.
And as we're doing that literally the power
goes out. And this is the middle of
the night because bombing isn't most intense at
nighttime. People don't skip a beat. The phones
just immediately come out their cell phones. And
they turn on their cell phone light and
we just continue working. So the nurse is
trying to get an IV and then we're
working on, you know, his airway and different
things that we're doing assessing him and and
we're just doing it under under the the
light of cell phones until the power comes
back on.
So the circumstances are different. The other thing
that's different when you're there, you know, it's
one thing to see the injuries, but when
you see this child in front of you
and you could smell the burned flesh. You
know, there's there's
a difference a sense of smell that you
don't get on the on the screens.
And the smell of the bombs and the
residue of the bombs, it hits you different.
You know, I wouldn't describe that experience as
beautiful, of course. It's it's tragic. It's painful.
It's horrific. It's something that the world should
be ashamed of a 1000000 times over to
allow this to happen.
But the overall experience of the people there,
Like I took care of a of a
of a mother who
and I didn't realize it at the moment
until I I found out later, but, SubhanAllah,
3 of her kids were killed in a
blast.
I saw 2 of them at the morgue
because I would go to the morgue semi
frequently to visit the brothers running the morgue
as well as visit the shuhada, pray on
the shuhada and the like. 2 of the
3 children I I saw,
they were both in one body bag. Young,
very young children.
And then, I go to the
this is immediately after Satra Fajid. So then
I go to the ER afterwards
and,
they tell me there's a there's a patient
that needs to be taken care of who
has a big scalp wound.
And so, I said sure. You know, I
happened to see her and then eventually, she
wasn't there. I couldn't find her. Eventually, a
couple hours later I found her and it
was the mother of these 3 children. So,
she lost 3 kids that night. It had
been 12 hours.
She,
by the time I'm seeing her, she both
her arms, her both her bones in her
forearm were broken and so, she needs surgery
for that. Because it's one thing to break
your bone, but it's another thing when the
the bone
protrudes from the skin and is now exposed
to the environment. It needs a different kind
of surgery and it needs multiple surgeries to
to prevent infection.
So her arms in this in this cast
that they they splinted.
She's lost 3 children. She's very young probably
in her mid twenties.
If that, maybe early twenties, and she has
this wound to her scalp that's going across
her whole scalp. And so I'm
cleaning it out. I'm assessing it. It's full
of debris from the blast, so there's dust
and dirt and all that stuff in there.
And then as I'm feeling the skull, I
could feel I could feel the fracture. So
the skull was broken. It's depressing down.
And as I'm doing this,
she and her family are making vikin.
It's just like,
what is going on here?
That's what I mean by the beauty.
You know, this concept of halal with an
iman and that iman has a has a
taste.
They they taste it.
They they literally taste it. And so, you're
there witnessing that.
You're
trying to experience it yourself. You're trying to
be of service to these people. You know,
if you could if you could,
the way I look at it is if
I have the honor of being in service
of these people then
maybe you get some ajer.
But this is like this is this is
what I mean by the beauty of it,
you know, like there is there is the
horror,
but there's also the faith and the faith
kind of outshines everything. You know, like, people
come back from Hajj, they go through difficulties,
but when they come back they're like, wow.
It's an amazing experience. Like, what would you
wanna do going to Hajj sitting in the
desert for 5 days in a cramped mina
tents and 1 bathroom
per, you know, a 100 people. You know,
but they say it's beautiful.
You know, Ghazda was like that where it's
like
the
overcrowding,
the
the illness, the lack of resources and all
that,
but you look back and you're like, wow.
What an experience. Because
the people just make it,
something beyond,
beyond
what you can imagine. It's not hadith of
the prophet sallAllahu 'alhi wa sallam, 'ajabani amrul
mumin. Right? How amazing is the affair of
the believer.
Something good happens, he thanks Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, he praises Allah and that is better
for him. And if he's struck with adversity,
he praises Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he's patient
and that it's better for him.
So SubhanAllah, the
ugliness of the situation does not take away
from the beauty of the spirit of the
people. Right? And that's something that, and, you
know, it's interesting because, like, I think of
the hadith of the prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa
sallam, because I can, I've not been in
your situation, but, like, when I'm trying to
talk about this to groups of non Muslims
and
in university settings or in forums and stuff
like that, I can tell that there's kind
of this look like you're crazy, like you
people are crazy,
But when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says,
Laysadadiqillahadillah
mumin
that this is not for anyone except for
the believer, I think it also cannot be
understood by anyone except the
believer. Understood by anyone except the believer. Uh-huh.
Like, we can't understand it unless we ourselves
are seeking what they are seeking
and want what they want. Even if we
don't have the same,
sincerity or dedication
to
what they are sincere and dedicated to.
But we can at least understand and appreciate
and admire it. Right? And and I think
that that's something that somehow I captured.
I mean, even the idea
of, you know, the the test that they're
going through and how, like, I mean, you
think, like, level of test,
you know, like this is something beyond I
mean, just to give you an idea, like,
someone went north. So my second trip, I
went north.
I love cats. Right? So
my first You're kinda famous for that one.
My my first trip, though, I didn't take
cat food.
I thought about it, but I didn't. I
filled up my suitcases with, you know, medical
supplies and food for people.
And then there was a lot of cats
there that you meet that obviously just like
the just like every everybody everybody there's a
level of malnourishment. SubhanAllah, the temples they speak,
you know, like you're the one of the
first things you see in malnutrition is
the temple sink in, you know, muscular wasting.
And so almost every physician,
not not just the patients of course, but
physicians, nurses, EMS, everybody they have that. Their
faces are sunken in. They're all they're all
just level of mannishment.
But the cats are also skin and bones
and skin and fur, I guess, or fur
fur and bones.
I
made some friends.
They're following me around. Where'd I go?
This one's a little special.
Super
friendly.
This one's pregnant.
This one's really nice too.
Anyways, the second trip, I said, I'm I'm
taking
2 ziplock bags. That's it. Small bags. I
fit it in my bag. I'm taking cat
food, dry cat food. And so the first
night in the north, I I met like
a 6 month old cat skin and, you
know, fur and bones And,
I wanted to give him food, but I
didn't want to do it in front of
people. You know, because, you know, people are,
obviously, there's hunger for everybody.
And, of course, I took food for humans
too. My suitcase were full of that. But,
I took 2 ziplock bags for cats.
And, so, the next morning after I fed
it, I went to the roof. That's where
I saw the cat. Looking for the cat.
And I didn't
find him, but a brother came up on
the roof. One of the locals.
And he sees me and so he asked
me,
he sees his back in my hands. He
asked, what is that? And so,
you know, I kind of told him, you
know, it's it's it's cat food
And he and he gave me this look.
Like,
it it wasn't a look of
anger,
but it was almost like
just like bewilderment. Like what in the world,
like what are you doing? Why did you
bring cat food? Like what through your mind
to bring cat food?
And then, but then he told me, he
said subhanAllah, he's like that for 3 months
straight
we lived off animal food.
That was his response. No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
Then there was this, like, awkward silence.
And we became friends, you
know, when Allah says
we will certainly test you with things of
fear and hunger, like,
hunger to that level. You know? Like, you're
leave living off of animal feed for 3
months. He hadn't eaten meat and since the
war began.
Alhamdulillah, he ate meat that night. This concept
of the the difficulty of the test.
That your level of reward is in accordance
with the level of your test.
When Allah loves the people He tests them.
And so the people of Khazay they they
see hadith in Quran there isn't just theory
it's like internalized.
So they they've internalized this hadith, that khalas.
When Allah loves the people He tests them.
And so
the level of tests they're going through,
they know that Allah chose them because the
level of love for Allah for them is
that such such a level that they'll go
through such difficult test.
And so the last part of the hadith
is where they really emphasize on
Whoever is content with the decree of Allah,
Allah will be pleased with him
and content with him. And whoever is displeased
from
and whoever is displeased and Allah, he'll find
displeasure. It's ingrained in them that Khalaf no
matter what comes our way, we'll be pleased
with the decree of Allah. And so you
that's how you see it translating in mothers
losing their children and saying
like the ayah what it says
fear and hunger and loss of crops and
lives and wealth lives and crops.
All 5
they've not just experienced, but experienced beyond what
maybe the whole, you know, like, so much
of us we've never even tasted a fraction
of.
It. SubhanAllah. In November, we went to Almana,
November. When did you go to Gaza the
first time? It was December or January?
February. February. Yeah.
What were the lessons of the Sira that
immediately hit you when you got there? I
mean, you come from a unique perspective. Yeah.
You go to Hajj Al Amr all the
time.
You teach Sirah, you lecture about it.
When you got there, what did you see
from the Sirah of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam?
Obviously, miracles happen to the prophets, but then
you have kalamat that happen to the sahaba
and the wilya and the and the, like,
dreams. We know dreams are part of wahi.
There was a young kid. I mean, this
is in subhanallah, this this is why we
had children and adult alike, but they experienced.
8 years old. The same zakariya.
At the beginning of the war, in these
first few days, he had a dream that
the war would last 74 days. He told
the deadest, that that the war is gonna
I had a dream that the war will
end on the 74th day.
SubhanAllah. And we know it's obviously day 200
and something now. Right? So it's well beyond
that. But on the 73rd day of the
war,
he asked his dad and he said that,
Baba, if I die
when we die, will we be with the
prophet
So this is the 8 year old asking
this question. And so you see the maturity
and then the the the thought like what
8 year old asked that question will I
be with the prophet
And so, SubhanAllah,
that was the 73rd day. On the 74th
day, Shaa Allahu, he's with the prophet, sallallahu
alaihi sallam. He was a martyr. And so
the war ended on the 74th day for
him. But he had a dream the war
would end on the 74th day.
We met his father. He showed us a
picture of him and we showed a picture
of of of his child and also of
him with his with his,
murdered child.
The paramedics
are heroes. The physicians are heroes. The nurses.
Everybody's everybody there is a hero.
But the paramedics specifically, every time they go
out, they're putting their life on the line
because ambulances are targeted. So every time we
would go with the ambulance driver, doesn't matter
who,
they have a story. Either their brother's been
killed or their their ambulance has been bombed.
Brother meaning another paramedic was with them. All
volunteers, by the way. Nobody's gonna be paid
anymore.
They, they've been targeted and so, subhanAllah, in
the north, the paramedics live at the hospital
just like in many situations
They they live staff live at the hospital.
So the paramedics who are based out of
the hospital live there. We were there in
the last ten nights in the north.
And so the
we would, you know, pray a lot, you
know, the 5 salat they pray in a
parking lot of where the ambulances are
and,
that morning, salat al fajr, it was the
25th day of Ramadan.
I,
you know,
I I met some of them, shook their
hands and said, as they were leaving after
salah. Just a couple nights before, we spent
over an hour together, one of the brothers
of Abu Musaab,
talking and just kinda sharing their experiences, what's
what's been happening and whatnot.
And
that was after salat al fajr. And then
after salat al luhr,
I was Rasat al imam wasa.
Because he and 2 the 5 others total,
EMS, paramedics who went out to a missile
strike, they took 2 ambulances.
2 of the 2 of the 5 were
a little behind and the 3
went forward,
and they they you know, to to get
the injured.
So when the 3 who went forward
reached the injured,
they were struck. Like, literally, the moment
they reached the injured, they were struck. 1
died on the spot,
and the 2 were brought back.
The 2 who who survived were brought back.
So, I'm in the ER. I'm taking care
of somebody who's actually
critical about to die.
He ended up dying. SubhanAllah.
My attention was now divided into 2 because
Abu Musab came in and I know him
personally.
And so when he brought in it was
it was and everybody knows him. Like, because
he lives at the hospitals. All the hospital
staff know him. They all love him and
they and so our attention turned to him.
And then we start trying to resuscitate him
and and the like and subhanAllah and as
we're doing these different procedures to him to
stabilize him, I'm telling him saydha jahada and
he's in shock. So shock is a medical
term that we use for when people are
they're in shock. Their body's in shock. So
your mind's not working right. You're not able
to think. You're not able to say things.
You're not able. But, subhanAllah, despite being and
he actually coded to give you an idea,
to level of shock, what we call hemorrhagic
shock. He's bleeding out. His heart stopped. So
he that's the level of illness. I mean,
he he literally died on the table. Alhamdulillah.
We were with the Fadalawi. We were with
the resuscitate and bring him back.
But he's saying the Shahadah at this moment,
as he's going through this. Alhamdulillah, he survived.
The the the third one, he he he
went to surgery and then
he died maybe, like, 4 or 5 days
later.
And it was kind of his injuries were
massive brain injuries and, like, and it wasn't
expected he would survive and, SubhanAllah, he returned
to the mercy of Allah as well.
But the one who died on the spot,
his name was Hussain Matar.
Mapper.
Wissam,
one of the 5 paramedics, who's actually a
cousin of one of our local Dallas community
members,
He told me he didn't this was known,
but he told he told me I heard
it from him directly that Hussein told Bissam
about 7, 10 days before this happened that
I had a dream out I'm gonna die
on the 25th Ramadan.
And SubhanAllah, it was the 25th Ramadan when
the missile struck him and he showed me
his picture. I mean, you can imagine the
mangled body of somebody who was struck by
a missile,
but his face is
his
face is nur,
and he's smiling.
He's half of the Quran.
He's fasted every day since October 7th
until the day he died.
He would lead salah sometimes, he would call
it Al Anikamah sometimes,
and
so, Muhammad, his dream came true.
These kind of things you see,
you know, when you think of, like, stories
of the prophets and you think of people
like this who are from the Sira, like,
things that you show that shows Allah
is with them despite what we see of
the apparent.
We see hunger, we see illness, we see
destruction, the like,
that then there's this hidden level.
Yeah. It's it's something to think about subhanAllah
that the 8 year old with the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam and
the man who fasts every day, right, in
Hafid of Quran, stuff like that,
it also gives an extra layer to the
complaint
of the people of Huazza about the rest
of the Ummah. Right? Yeah. Oh, I forgot
what you're saying. I think that's talking about
Abu Bara'anhu and im Masood and in the
early days of Sira, how they were beaten
so severely
when they're defending the process. And I'm a
read the Quran, and Masood is recite Quran
al Rahman in front of the Kaaba. You
couldn't they say you couldn't recognize his face.
You couldn't recognize his eyes from his nose,
from his nose. It was just so so
bad.
And I I literally saw somebody like that.
But his story is amazing. Like,
he was in he was in a home
that was struck
under the rubble for 8 days.
8 days.
On day 4,
the soldiers came into the home looking for
people alive
and anybody who was alive they killed.
He made a dua. He's telling us this.
So so
just rewind for a second. When you're in
the emergency room, there's there's it's full. There's
no space. There's no beds. There's no, like,
there's people everywhere. There's patients who are waiting
to go upstairs, patients who are living there
because they have nowhere to go, patients who
are waiting to go to our operating room.
This is overwhelmed. Right? So this family comes
to get me and say, can you come
see our family members? So I go to
see him. He's in the triage area. What
was the triage area? ER. He's waiting to
go to surgery.
His face
from here
up is is wrapped. So I can't see
his face. I'm talking to him, but I
can't All I see is part of his
lip that's ripped open hanging down. Because this
is what I'm seeing as I'm hearing this.
And so he's telling me his story and
his nephews and nieces are around him and
they're telling they're all telling me he, the
patient, and then telling me what happened.
So,
he's like, we we struck in a in
a home
8 days under the rubble.
Day 4, the Israeli soldiers come in, look
for people who are alive, and if they
were, they killed them.
And at that moment, when the soldiers came
in, he made a dua.
And before you say that dua,
just pause and let people sort of understand
how
when you say these people are nazis and
like worse subhanAllah in so many ways, like
they walk into a home,
they murder whoever's left alive, on purpose.
He says oh Allah,
Like you saved Yusuf alayhi sunnah from the
from the bottom of the well,
and like you saved Yunus alayhi sunnah from
the belly of the well,
And, like, you see Yuna salaam from the
fire,
save me.
And so they either thought he was dead
or they didn't see him,
and they left him.
Why would they think he's dead?
Sheikh, his face was covered,
wrapped up. I didn't see his face.
When I saw his face later, when he
went to the operating room when I saw
him,
he his face was unrecognizable.
It was ripped open.
There was no you couldn't see his eyes.
You couldn't tell his eyes from his nose,
from his mouth. There was nothing left. Yeah.
It was just
his face ripped open. And he's saying he's
telling me the story, and he's saying, subhanahu
wa'alaam. I mean, just imagine, like, something on
your face, like a pillow
on your face.
You feel uncomfortable after something because it's hard
to breathe and, like, his face is blasted
open, and he's under the rubble for 8
days until his family found him. And he's
he made this dua, and he said Allah
saved me. He said
and he's making the actually, I have his
his misbah. This is this is his misbah
that he gave me. He's literally as he's
telling me the story, he's making dhikr.
And then
and so I'm I'm I'm just I don't
even know what to say. I don't even
know what I said to him, but I
said I said whatever words of encouragement or
whatever I could say, and then I walked
away.
When I walked away, I said I I
have to go back and ask talk to
him more.
So I go back, even though the ERs
guys said I needed to hear more from
him. So I go back. I just I
had one question. I said, because you think
about this. Right? The people who are under
the rubble for this long. So I just
I just had that one question for him.
I said, you know what were you doing?
What was going through your mind?
And of course he said he's making dikka
of Allah.
But he said the hadith that was going
through my mind
is the hadith Qudsi'Allah says, I
swear by my honor and magnificence
I will not cause
my I will not allow my slave to
have 2 senses of fear
or 2 senses of security.
And so if he feels secure for me
in this world,
I will cause him fear in the day
of judgment.
And if he has fear of me in
this world, I will give him security on
the day of judgment.
So he's saying this is a hadith, for
8 days I kept him going.
I am under the rubble. I am alone.
Massive injuries, pain, everything you can imagine. No
food, no water, whatever it is.
But I fear you.
Oh, Allah just give me secure in the
day of judgement.
I mean, in Raja,
It's strange. Like, where does this tofia come
from? Where does this inhaab come from? This,
like, inspiration from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But
that's why that's why when he was telling
me this and I again, it's in order
that he said here, he drew me close
to him and he gave me this as
a gift so I will hold on to
this, SubhanAllah.
And then I gave him my misbah'i hat,
I gave it to him, I said you
make the cut of that, you gotta get
some other reward, I want your reward.
How do you survive 8 days under the
rubble?
How do you that's what's amazing, it's like
SubhanAllah, he made dua'at allah save me. What
I would expect medically is somebody under the
rubble for 8 days that they would have,
you know, kidney failure, their potassium would go
high, that would stop their heart, and they
could die. Just from that alone, they could
die. And SubhanAllah, his kidney function was normal.
Tajib,
it's like
it's like it's to me it's like it's
like a miracle. Like, I don't understand how
he should be alive in that situation under
rubble for 8 days, but he made a
dua to Allah saying, oh, Allah save me
and Allah save him. He took away his
eyesight. One eye was just completely just destroyed
from the from the injury, and the other
one had shrapnel through the eye. I'm gonna
tell you level of pain, his face ripped
up. Shrapnel through the eye. That was the
one fear the surgeons had was
was, you know, hamdulillah, subhanAllah, mashallah, they they
put his face back together.
It's amazing. His post surgery picture, I was
like wow. Because before it's unrecognizable.
It didn't look like a face. It didn't
look like a face. But afterwards I think
people people
That that image of like the kid that
was run over by the tank handcuffed and
like it's like it's hard to describe like
open flesh. Like just complete open flesh. Yeah.
It looks like a can of something open.
Yeah. And plus, it's like flesh is now
dying. So you see, like, open flesh plus,
like, you know, necrosis, like, black tissues. Like,
it's just a lot. You
know? You you can't you can't make out
what's what. You can't tell it's a face.
Subhanallah.
Yeah. He's I mean, Subhanallah, he he Allah
tested him. Miss Fatima, look look what Allah
gave him and tested him with eyesight. And
the one that the hadith of Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, the one who Allah tests with
Habibatai,
his two eyes,
you know, and he's patient.
Right? That I will compensate him as a
result of his patience for losing lives at
paradise. That's that's blindness under normal circumstances, Absolutely.
Eyes,
face, family, safety, security.
Everything.
The experience of those criminals walking into the
home and knowing that they kill everyone that's
left alive. Yeah. And then, of course, we
see them parading
the insides of the homes after they murder
every single occupant. And not only that, so
what what came to my mind when you
mentioned that, there was one case we saw,
to give you an idea of the the
level of
depravity.
There was a man who came in with
an explosive explosive injury to his hand.
What these soldiers do is they leave behind
small things in the home
that are explosives.
This guy, he picked it up and it
blew his hand off. Well, his his fingers,
his 5 fingers were partly blown off. His
hand had fractures and stuff.
The orthopedic surgeon who came with us to
the north from Northwestern Chicago,
he said this is the 3rd case I've
seen of this exact injury,
of this explosive being left behind, but the
first two were children. It was a 3
year old and an 8 year old. He's
gone 3 times now and each of his
missions he's seen one of these. The 3
year old's hand was completely blown off. The
8 year old's hand was completely blown off.
They just go back to their home when
they can go back,
pick up something, whatever it is. Later when
I came back here I saw a post
on I I in Palestine, and I don't
know if it's the same device or not,
but they showed pictures of cans.
So what you think might be canned food.
You pick it up. You try and open
it or whatever sets it off and it
explodes.
He was saying that the surgeon he was
working with broke down crying and he had
to leave the operating room. He had to
leave scrub and get out of sterility and
leave because he was just like what level
of
inhumanity
do you leave behind these devices to to
blow off kids hands? So it's not gonna
kill them, but it's to maim them, and
we saw that when we were there, like,
a a transition. So my first trip, I
saw people with sniper wounds right to the
head,
but then now what we were seeing in
the second trip was a lot of proximal
limb injuries.
High powered rifle shots that go through the
upper arm or upper leg.
So this this is a it's a strange
place to get injured. You have amputations, usually
it's the weakest point part of the of
the lymph. So your your joints, your knee
or your elbow or, you know,
this you're gonna have to do what's you
have to remove the whole leg. Pull the
ball out of the socket of the of
the hip joint, and then and they they
they lose the whole leg. You can't put
a prosthesis on, you know, even if they
have, like, the stump of their thigh, you
could put a prosthesis on that. But what
they're doing is they're, okay, we're gonna injure
you in such a way that you lose
your whole leg, you lose your whole arm.
You become a burden on the medical system
and a burden on the family.
You know, that the family is now bogged
down taking care of this person. I mean,
you this is what you see. Like, in
the north, we saw 10 people
who were paralyzed
from from neck down or or or legs.
8 of them were kids.
8 were kids. A 15 year old, he
was out playing soccer.
A wound this big in his backache.
He's 15 years old. 1 night, we got
2 transfers, both paralyzed,
A 13 year old and a 14 year
old.
The 4 There was a 4 year old
man. His youngest child is 6 months old.
He went out to get aid. There's a
whole idea of
of aid to the north.
You know, it's these food drops and then
trucks. Both are death sentences.
The food this this man, 40 years old,
this aid package fell on him.
I could show you his his x-ray. His
lower back is like this. His upper back
is like this. It's supposed to be no
one continuous
it's like this completely separated
just just just just shattered his back
and his his ribs. So he has multiple
fractures through both of his ribs. He has
something what we call flail chest. So when,
you know, your rib expands when you breathe
the segments of the rib that are broken
don't. And so you have this like paradoxical
movement
of the ribs. Extremely painful. And he's sitting
there paralyzed back broken back and broken ribs.
No pain medicine.
Ten people. We said and the reason I
know 10 because we were going around the
hospital and collecting the information
on these people so we could try and
get them transferred out out of Wazak and
to the south and then eventually to
a country where they can get care. We
took care of people drowning in the sea.
You know, like one kid, he's he's he's
literally he's saying,
can't you do anything? He's his father drowned
trying to swim out to sea to get
the to get the the aid packages because
the rockets are rough.
This is a sun saying anything you can't
save him. This is my father.
Save him. Please save him. Anything. Anything.
The waves that are coming in, the wind
and whatnot, and you have to go a
decent way. You can't go well, few people
have boats. It's illegal, of course, to have
a motorized boat. If If you do, you'll
get gunned down. In Gaza, you can't. So
the fishermen, they have to paddle out to
sea. And then and then you can't go
too far out. If they go beyond whatever
is deemed, you know, acceptable, they're open fire
upon. And so these people are when the
a drops are going to the sea, they're
swimming out to sea in rough waters going
a far distance to try and get these
packages. Some of them drowned. So that day,
that that man who came in, he drowned.
His son comes
in, young,
mid teens, and he's, like, he's bawling, and
he's just saying, do anything to bring my
father back. Do anything. Shock him, do whatever
to save my father, save my father.
And then the day we left the north,
we prayed janazah
on a man who came in who had
drowned. And he was missing in the sea
for 1 week. And they said there were
13 others who drowned.
His body just washed up a week, the
week the day we left. They washed up
in the shore, they brought him, and we
we paged jannahs on him that day, and
then we left after that. But subhanAllah, like,
the idea of, like, food packages,
you're dropping it upon people. In the water,
people are drowning to get it.
I mean, this
the trucks, the few trucks that are coming
north, they have to go through the checkpoint
from the south, and they come north. They
the drivers the Palestinian drivers, they're told if
you stop
anywhere along the way until your final destination,
you will be blown up.
So they can't stop.
Now you have to understand the road has
rubble, has debris, has destroyed cars and the
like, but not just that, craters for missiles,
but the road has people.
There's people waiting
after the border for these trucks to come
to get aid because they're starving.
So this truck driver cannot stop even if
there's somebody in the way.
So we would get blunt trauma. People getting
hit by trucks
every night.
The one night we didn't have a case.
It was a quiet night trauma, there was
no mass, what we call mass casualty incident,
there was there wasn't one. So after after
Salat al Fajid I tell the nurses I'm
like tonight was a good night, Alhamdulillah. There
was an injuries. You know what they said
in response?
Said because no food came. No trucks came.
Because every time, whether they stop or not
or wherever it comes, whenever the trucks reaches,
these quadcopters they have, these drones that are
armed with machine guns, they open fire on
the people. So we have mass casualties every
night. People coming in of limb injuries, chest,
arms, whatever it is, head just
opened fire upon. This is it's excluding the
blast and whatever the missiles and the tank
shells and and the blast, the bombs. This
is just
quadcopters opening fire on people, starving people trying
to get food.
You know, like every night that was what
was bringing us our volume. I was was
was food trucks.
And we see the videos now of, like,
these depraved people. You can't even call them
human beings.
Destroying the burning the food trucks before they
could even cross into Gaza and then taking
the the food off and and
and smashing it. I mean I mean again
the level of just depravity but subhanAllah
the This whole idea of like, oh, yeah.
May Allah make them the fuel of jannam.
I mean, I mean,
Ami. May Allah make them the fuel of
jahnim.
They feel good. Oh, we sent we sent
aid. You know, they justify it. America is
sending aid. We're sending food drops. We saw
it with our own eyes. I mean Jordanian
food drops. Then we saw people swimming out
to Raf Sea.
And it's just like what is first you
were like oh, hamdulillah, they're getting food. But
then you realize like wait a minute. What
are we witnessing here? Who are we witnessing
people risking their lives?
The resilience ultimately means mamal al shaykh,
despite what they're going through the resilience that
people have, the iman they have.
Let me ask you though,
you went to Shifa right after that mass
grave was discovered?
Keep talking about that. So every hospital
in the north has been destroyed
or sieged.
And when we say siege, what it means
is they're surrounded by tanks, surrounded by snipers,
being opened fire upon hospitals.
I mean, just it's
so crazy how 7 months
ago within 7 months, we're talking about this,
like, as normal.
Every hospital in Lazda,
even we were at Kaman Adlam, which is
a pediatric hospital.
They were seized for 6 days.
Electricity the first day they came, they destroyed
the the the power generator. And so there's
kids, infants, neonates,
dying dead
on incubators because they lost power at the
hospital we were at.
So Sheikah hospital is no different. Besi Sheikah
hospital is like the heart of Gaza. It's
like the biggest hospital in all of Gaza.
It's people when they talk about it, they
talk about it like the level of love,
unlike any other hospital that's there. And so
when we were
there, they had seized Shefa. It was under
siege.
While we were there, they withdrew. This is
the second time. This is late March into
April last last night.
So we are walking into the surgical building,
and
you can see
the destruction.
So this is
the office building and where the lab
lab was.
There's still the smell of smoke as you
enter.
That was burned.
Destroyed, as you can see. Just destruction everywhere.
Imagine the horrors.
The people being here for 2 weeks under
siege. No food,
no water.
Very few staff left to take care of
them. Very few physicians or nurses.
Most were captured, killed,
or forced to leave.
And they were here alone
starving
with the sounds of bombs and bullets raining
down upon them nonstop.
So they withdrew from Sheba. And the people
of Palestine, man, the people of Gaza, Palestine
and Gaza there, they are so amazing. Like,
the night they withdrew,
within hours, there's people are going to the
hospital.
It's very risky. This is nighttime. They're going
in the middle of the night and it's
not safe to, like, it's not safe to
travel at night. Like, if we needed a
specialist, a doctor who's not living at the
hospital,
there's no way to communicate with him. We
would have to send somebody to get him,
to bring him back,
and they're risking their lives doing that. So
people went in the middle of the night.
Journalists went and I wanna say journalists, like,
the I did the Jazira interview when I
was there. It's a 16 year old kid.
He's got a camera, and he's sending this
up to Jazira. Right? He went that night.
Others went that night. They showed me pictures,
yeah, of the of the dead along the
way.
I mean,
I'm I'm I'm shy to even describe to
you what I saw, let alone show you
the picture because it's just
horrendous. People with all their limbs blown off
and injuries to their chest and the like,
and that's the road to Shefa.
They get to Shefa hospital
and then they they just try and document
what they can. There's patients that were still
there. We took care of patients who came.
But when we went we went 2 days
after they withdrew.
So and and we we went with the
leadership
of of the hospital.
And when we get there,
all we see is is
and again, before what we see, what you
smell.
You smell the rotting bodies.
We walked into the the one of the
buildings and there's there, subhanAllah, in the middle
of all the rubble,
there's a young child's backpack with like I
think it was a unicorn on it or
something like black backpack with pink. I'm just
thinking what horror did she live through leaving
her backpack behind.
The the smoke still, the embers,
because they set fire to these buildings. People
that were inside them also, we heard these
stories.
They set fire to them. So you see,
when we got 2 days later, we're still
seeing the embers coming up from the buildings.
They pointed out to us where one of
the mass graves was from the first visit.
From the sorry. The first siege where it
was, which is right in front of the
hospital, which is next to, like, destroyed ambulances.
Like, again,
destroying hospitals, destroying ambulances. Any means of life
any means of life for these people, they're
trying to destroy. After we left is when
they found these another
mass grave of 300 and something plus people
they found.
And even in our hospital, again, Khmer Adwan,
a pediatric hospital, it was seized from December
12th 17th.
The day before we reached north,
they pulled out 5 bodies
from under where next to the generator where
they destroyed. In that front courtyard of the
hospital, there's a 180 people they said. Between
those who were,
injured, who were taking shelter,
who some of them buried alive, 180 that
were there. 5 they pulled out the day
before we arrived. Yeah. When we were there,
subhanAllah, a woman showed up
and,
SubhanAllah, she said I could smell my husband.
Oh, I know. I have. I mean, Sheikh,
what's the smell in the air is the
smell of of rotting bodies.
But she said I could smell my husband.
It's almost like the story of Yousaf alaihi
salaam with the kabeas, the shirt.
Because she looks this shirt keeps coming up
throughout the story and then
I could smell the smell of Youssef alaihis
salam when he had their shirt and he
looks maybe like a couple yards away from
her, she found the shirt of her husband.
Amidst the sand and the dirt and the
rubble, and she pulls it out, she said
this is the shirt of my husband, and
the chief starts her husband and her son
were both there at Sheaf Hospital.
Is he alive there? Is he dead? We
don't know. But she just kept saying like
she found the shirt of her husband after
smelling it
amidst that Allah Adam. SubhanAllah.
What they people of us are going through
is beyond anything,
but their faith is also beyond anything we've
ever seen.
We we got so the morning they left,
they withdrew.
Our hospital is on standby for transfers now
because there were patients still there. So patients
that are gonna be evacuated enough from Shifa
because it's completely destroyed to other hospitals. So
right after I did it, the team is
ready. We're because there's no communication. Like, normally
in the US, if there's a sick patient
coming in, a heart attack, a stroke, a
gunshot, they call and tell you, hey, we
got a priority 1 coming in. Get ready.
Super sick. Whatever. And then we have 5
minutes to prepare.
Bela, there's no such thing. You just you're
always on standby for this. But that morning,
we we knew they left. We said we
there's a chance we're getting patients. So we
were ready.
Subhanallah.
1 of the patients that comes,
16 years old.
His mother was with him,
but when they seize the hospital, they force
her
out. So for for 15 days, the 16
year old kid is
alone. No food, no water, what unless of
whatever
cracker a day they were giving him to
survive, and
he comes to us. Sheikh, we walk into
the room, the room that we put him
in,
and there's this
overwhelming
smell.
And those were in the medical field. You
could appreciate it. You you know what that
smell is of this bacteria.
When you have, like, infected wounds, if they're
festering for a while, you get this really
strong smell of this is not a pleasant
smell.
So he's he's essentially skin and bones. He's
16 years old. He had collapsed lungs on
both sides, so he had tubes in his
chest. 1 of them was still in there,
one was out.
Both, the one that was in is pouring
out pus.
So he has infection inside of his lungs.
The other one around the wound is pus.
He had wounds on his abdomen that are
pus, but then his leg.
We undress his leg.
That's where the smell was coming from. It's
just completely dead. His foot's completely dead.
It's full of infection. There's maggots.
We unwrap the things and there's maggots coming
out of his leg.
And I never did amputation in my life
until that day or a couple days later.
We we did or I don't remember what
day it was that day or the next
day. But I helped an orthopedic surgeon. We
we amputated the 16 year old kids, like,
alone for for 15 days in a hospital,
you know, under siege. This is this is
when when we say people are attacking hospitals
and this I mean, you don't have to
imagine this lived experience of these people. There's
1,000 upon 1,000 upon 1,000 of people who've
been through this. When they say we're attacking
a hospital, these hospitals are places of refuge
now have become in Gaza because the one
thing you would think humanity,
we're not gonna target, Okay. Maybe a masjid,
even though places of worship should be safe,
but we know every masjid has been destroyed.
Hospitals.
They target every hospital. So if you attack
a hospital,
you're talking about not just the patients, not
just the staff, but thousands of people seeking
refuge. The European Gaza Hospital is 25,000 people
within its compound.
Not just patients, but families and the like.
So when these hospitals were seized, Sheeva hospital,
like, there's another guy who came also in
his forties. He, the day we left, my
last case I took care of in in
the north was a 5 year old kid.
There was a house that was bombed that
was empty,
but the 2 homes on either side of
it were full of people. And so a
whole family came in from grandparents, parents, and
kids, all injured.
The 5 year old we were taking care
of,
she had her skull on both sides were
fractured, fractured, but there's no CT scan to
diagnose it. But once you access the wound,
she had wounds to her face and we
were stitching up in the leg, we realized
she had she has a broken she has
a a broken skull.
And who knows if there's bleeding in the
brain? We can't tell because we can't do
a CAT scan. The basics of medicine. The
CAT scanner. Let
alone in a war in a situation of
trauma. You absolutely need it. There was one
left that was Ashifa in the north which
they destroyed in the 2nd seat. They had
2 initially. They destroyed on the 1st seat.
They destroyed the 2nd seat.
As I'm finishing
stitching up her wounds, this 5 year old,
I was called by one of the residents
there at the hospital to go check on
somebody. We go and it was one of
the other transfers from Shefa Hospital. Same thing,
Sheikh.
Maggots
coming out of his leg
wound from infection.
He already had one leg amputated. The other
one that was left
is so severe.
And
he had been there for a few days
that, SubhanAllah, he
he, he died that morning. We found him
dead. There's no monitors to warn us. We
just when you check on patients, you find
them. So he passed away.
But, Shefa Hospital was,
I mean, it's a it's a it's a
stain
on the collective humanity
of how do we let this happen.
Every hospital there, but Shefa being,
like, the the pinnacle of
it. You spent the last 10 nights of
Ramadan there.
Tell me about last 10 nights of Ramadan
there versus last 10 nights of Ramadan here.
We were
together. Hajj 2019.
One of the greatest experiences ever, Arafat.
When it rained for, like, 3 hours
on the day of Arabah.
And the level of Sukena, the level of
I mean, how do you describe the greatest
day of the year when Allah descends to
the lowest heaven and boasts of the people
to the angels and sends Jibreel 'ayhi salaam
the prophet and tells him that you know
good news that the people have been forgiven.
So makhtab asked, Messenger of Allah, Messenger of
Allah, just for us
And if we if we this this year
only, like, we have the special thing and
you don't know, like, whoever comes after him
for the day job. Like, this level of
mercy of Allah. Right? More people are freed
in the hellfire in this day than you
today.
So on that day of Arafah, 2019, we
were standing in Hajj outside in in the
sun, and then the rain starts pouring
for 3 hours. And the level of
succina and faith that people had there,
there's only a couple times in my life
I've experienced me similar to that or close.
The last tenates and the last that were
one of them. So, yeah.
I mean, despite despite the hunger, despite the
thirst I lost I lost I, myself, lost
£20 in 2 trips, and that's in 4
weeks. Imagine the people there, what they're going
through, they're serving.
Right? And so
hunger,
fear,
all of that, but subhanAllah Sheikh there is
a love there was peace and tranquility you
felt there was
was beyond the
it was equivalent to if not greater than
standing on the day of Arafah with the
reign of Allah mercy pouring down upon you
in mercy. SubhanAllah.
I mean the qiyam, the the tahajjud, the
salah with the with the imams, young people
all leading. And every ayah every every ayah
alakha they choose, they choose ayah that are,
like,
very,
relevant to their situation. Like, they you could
feel the emotion in every ayaat they recite.
Oh my gosh.
It was just
an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.
SubhanAllah. And that's why people who go, they
wanna come back.
I wanna go back. I wanna be there
right now. Like, if there's any place I'd
be, I wanna be there. I got one
more question for you to kinda
maybe bring it all back.
Look, even just doing this,
it's it feels like
someone just turned you into a punching bag
and beat up on you for for 5
hours. Right? I mean, like, it's emotionally a
beat down to get a second hand testimony.
I can't imagine the trauma of someone who
got a first hand testimony, and then of
course,
someone who first hand experiences this, being the
people of Gaza.
Where's the hope then?
Where's the hope?
What's a story that you saw? Because we
have to kind of
ground ourselves in our hope as in Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, but
sometimes, I mean personally,
I'll wait for
kind of going through the videos, and I've
only been able to experience it through videos
like most of us, right? You wait for
that one video where you see someone just
with full,
with full strength, insist
that we are going to win, that
we believe in victory. Not just shahada for
the hamwah, not just shahada for the dead.
That's a given bid in nahimchana.
Our dead are in paradise, their dead are
in the fire. We believe that and we
know
it, and it is our comfort, it's what
consoles us when we see the mangled bodies
is that those same mangled bodies
housed souls that have now ascended to the
heavens, that's our comfort.
'Bira nasr, victory.'
Where do you see victory? Was there one
person, one story that you said, 'We're gonna
win, inshaAllah ta'ala.
And I can tell it through the strength
of this person.'
I'm just I don't know if I can
say one
Because it's like As many as you wanna
share. A lot because it's it's
it's like,
the generally, of course there's exceptions, but generally
speaking, the level of the people.
It's like,
everybody has that belief.
Everybody does.
It's not like just I can tell you
one story. One person who says something. Like
literally everybody you meet. They they have like
a conversation
with my last day in in Gaza.
Oh,
last night before we left the next day.
We had a thought with a family in
in, in the European Gaza hospital They know
and the spinal degeneracies
is so amazing. And so the younger daughter
was, you know, talking while having a meal,
you know, saying like we should leave Gaza.
We should leave because everything is destroyed.
And so her 16 year old brother
16.
I'm just I'm I'm I'm
I'm trying to think as I'm watching this,
listening to this, I'm thinking in my head,
what would I say in response if my
sister or daughter or somebody said that? We
should leave Gaza and and every right to
say it, you know, from a worldly perspective.
Everything is destroyed. You know,
where's the hope?
But then his 16 year old son, not
the father, not the mother, not the older
sister, the 16 year old son,
responds to her and tells her
before October 7th, before the war, who was
feeding us?
She said, Allah.
He's like, well, after, who's feeding us? He
said, Allah. Who was giving us shelter before?
Who's giving us shelter after?
Who's taking care of us before? And despite
being in the siege, and opening our prison,
all these things that we hear.
And she kept saying Allah, Allah.
So Allah
is not gonna abandon us.
It's
like her day via, and Muqtab was saying
you know like You
know all these questions he asked prophet when
they agreed to terms that were on the
appearance seemed to be unfair.
You know? And then
and then the Prophet Muhammad tells him in
response,
that Allah's
Allah nasari.
You know? Wa'la ilayla ilayla ilayla. Like, Abu
Bakr say the same thing
that in the hurosurullah,
you know, he is a messenger of Allah
and Allah is not gonna abandon him. So
the people have that faith, subhanAllah, like you
know, that Allah will not abandon us.
And again, from the apparent, what you see
from hunger and injury and famine and destruction,
it looks like Maybe somebody will say,
but when you go to the people, you
see what they see, you experience what they
experience.
How they're eating, how they're surviving, how they're
drinking, and how they're living, how they're tolerating
what no human being can tolerate.
See, halas, these people are not a people
who can be defeated. Halas. Period. End of
statement.
They are not a people who are gonna
be defeated. Their spirit their iman is too
strong. They're just it's just there's there's a
resilience in them. There's strength in them that
that and they all carry that. That, you
know what? Allah's help is gonna come. And
I think that
maybe one of the the the message, you
know, like,
and he said a message of hope.
And this and part of the story is
is sad, but
but I learned from it. One of the
volunteers at European Hospital asked me to check
on,
a patient. Well, she wasn't a patient.
Her family was killed. Her home was destroyed.
She was a patient, but she was discharged
from the hospital 2 weeks prior,
but she has nowhere to go. So part
of the challenge of the hospitals is that
they're overcrowded.
Part of the overcrowding is because patients who
were discharged who survived,
they don't have anywhere to go, so they
stay in the hospital. And so she pulls
me to the triage room. I see close
to where I met the the brother with
the bandages,
and she asked me to check on her.
So I go check on her, and this
is elderly lady, late sixties.
Hamdi is her name,
and,
she is she looks to be pretty sick.
She's very short of breath. She's breathing about
50, 55 times a minute. So like
like that level of, you know, her heart
rate's pretty high. Her oxygen level's like 80%,
83%.
And so I quickly do a physical exam
and assessment. I have an ultrasound with me.
I I do an ultrasound of her leg
and I realize she has a big blood
clot in her leg. And because her oxygen
level is all I'm thinking it's in her
lungs too. So I tell her like, you
know, me we need a my mother we
need to give you oxygen.
And so
she she says no. I'm not leaving here.
I'm not leaving.
The spot right here in this hospital, I'm
not leaving. I'm like, well, you need oxygen.
We'll take you to another room. Just sit
there on the corner. Let's take you there.
A few boxes. She's like, no. She said,
because this is this is my home. This
is where she's lived for the last 2
weeks. If I leave this spot, somebody's gonna
take it. So she's afraid she's Oh. She's
afraid she's gonna lose her spot. So SubhanAllah.
Then I I spend the next few hours
trying to, like, get her oxygen. Cause there's
no portable oxygen tank.
I found, the in the room, there's a
device on the wall that gives out oxygen.
But, you need there's this connector. You have
to it's like small little piece of plastic.
You have to connect to the device, so
the tubing can connect to that. There's a
little funnel that brings in oxygen,
and I couldn't find one. So I looked
everywhere. So the whole time she's sitting there
with low oxygen. I finally found one that
I attached her to
the oxygen, put a mask on her, and
it's where her bed is. It's stretched all
the way to the tube just to reach
her.
And, subhanAllah,
I talked to the team, the med you
know, to get her admitted to the hospital.
She needs ICU, to be honest,
but there's no ICU beds. There's no ventilators.
And so
we started treatment at the very least. I
told them.
But as I walked away,
I told the ER doc that I was
with he's from the UK. I told him,
like, I think we're gonna be doing a
code blue on her tomorrow.
And I said that because
you can imagine, you can't nobody can maintain
that work of breathing. You can't breathe 50
times a minute without tiring out. Your body
will eventually tire even if you're an athlete.
Eventually, you tire out. You play this game,
you know, whatever it is, sports, whatever, you
play for an hour, 2 hours, you're breathing
fast, but then you get it to recovery.
But to continuously breathe like that, you you
can't. The body will tire out. And so
normally what happens is usually that if they
can't intubate somebody then put them on a
ventilator, we have them on the monitor, we
see their vital signs changing, We know we
need to act if we don't already act.
So he said, no, Inshallah. He didn't know
Inshallah. She won't need Hala. You know? So
so I said, you know what? I need
to go back and talk to her. So
I go back because I'm afraid for her.
Like, I'm like, look. Like, there is no
monitor for her. There's nothing. So I don't
think she'll survive. So I go back, and
what do I tell her? I don't wanna
tell her, look. I think you're gonna die.
You know, I don't wanna say that. So
I just tell her, look, like, you know,
like I called her my mother. I said,
look, like, you're you're you're you're pretty sick,
so I just want you to make a
lot of nicotine.
And so she starts seeing the zad.
She's lying there. Her heart's beating her eyes.
She's breathing fast, but she's saying zad, zad,
zad, zad.
The next day I go back. I check
on her around the whole time. She's still
in the same situation. Breathing real hard. Oxygen's
okay because she's on the oxygen.
And then that night, I saw the volunteer
around the same one who asked me to
check on her. She's a young sister probably
in her early twenties. Munaqaba, of course, like,
just spending her time in the hospital, taking
care. She was a family to this lady.
And so, you know, she said for helping
her in this and that, whatever.
That night after I met her, I met
with the residents and we had Shaye together,
and then they told me, oh, that sister
you talked to us about yesterday, she she
she died. She died at Maghrib, and I
didn't know that, and I didn't volunteer.
But that's what I thought. I said, she
might die.
And so I don't wanna end with a
negative, but the next morning I went to
the morgue to pray Janaz on her. So
I let her salah and I saw the
volunteer that was there.
But what she told me is what what
really stuck with me.
And then she said that,
She said, I make Allah witness
that you fulfilled her right. I
said, what did I do?
What right did I fulfill? Like, I couldn't
get her on a ventilator. I couldn't get
her in ICU bed. She died.
I gave her oxygen for for what 24
hours, 36 hours, whatever it was, like, what
did I do? But what she was saying
is, she was saying, SubhanAllah, like,
Adaita Haqqah,
you did the best you could.
You did what you could, and maybe that's
what we have to do. Like, you know
what, instead of yeah we want victory of
course we want relief but you know what
what Allah asks of us
is everybody does their part.
Everyone do what you can, what's in your
capacity.
Right? The people of Gaza, the children of
Gaza don't have fear. The children of Gaza
don't have fear. I posted on my social
media if I saw like the young girl
reciting Quran, gunfire going out behind her. She
just keeps reciting it. Oh, I had like
50 kids I had 50 kids in front
of me listening to the Quran, and then
we're doing a story, a Sahaba story.
And nobody there's just gun fire is going
off. So there's no if their lives are
at stake and they're not afraid,
what what what are we afraid for? What
are we afraid to lose? That's the message
from the people of Gaza. They tell us,
like, look,
raise our cause.
Just do what you can to raise our
cause. So whether it's the protests, whether it's
the encampments, whether it's the letters, whether it's
speaking to your neighbor, speaking to your colleague,
whatever it is to raise their awareness, we
have their responsibility. And that's what they tell
us, like, then maybe we if we do
that, what's in our capacity,
maybe we fulfilled their right.
As sad as it is to say that,
you know,
the level of suffering, we wish we could
do more.
But but the people, they're they're convinced. They're
and and honestly, after leaving there, I'm convinced
they cannot be defeated.
They won't. They know victory is coming from
Allah. Allah promised it. You we just have
to fulfill the rights
that Allah wants the the the the conditions
Allah wants upon us to give us victory.
SubhanAllah, what I witnessed with the people of
Allah, there are people of the Quran, there
are people of zikr, there are people of
salah,
there you don't find any woman, Sheikh. You
don't see anybody not wearing hijab or jilbab.
Not just the hijab,
jilbab. Any adult woman. I never saw 1.
SubhanAllah or or niqab. Like they're just the
the salashikh. There's an old man. He's got
the external fixators, a rod sticking out of
his legs. He's sitting on the bed like
this. The rods are sticking out of his
legs, sticking out of his legs here. No
pain medicine. Old man,
malnourished, the whole temple wasting his muscles are
wasting away.
He's sitting on the bed and he's praying.
And then I I recorded him and I
watched and then he he comes up and
then SubhanAllah there's what's in my mind is
the image
of saying this to the child.
They just it's ingrained in them Sheikh.
They believe it. Allah has decreed he's gonna
give victory to himself and his and his
messenger.
SubhanAllah
I don't think there are people that can
be defeated,
but I think that we have a lot
to learn
from their faith, and and we have to
do the best we can to
fulfill their rights upon us. Exactly. Allah Subhanahu
wa Ta'ala give them victory and may Allah
Why? To allow us to be a means
by which
they are given victory and may Allah forgive
us for our shortcomings.
Mhmm. Lord reward and protect all the doctors
that have gone as well. May Allah subjud
reunite them with their families, reunite the people
of Gaza with their families, and all of
us
with our beloved prophet SallAllahu 'alayhi wa sallam,
like that 8 year old boy. Yeah. May
Allah allow us to be reunited with our
prophet SallAllahu 'alayhi wa sallam.
See a free Palestine here and see Firdaus
in paradise there. Alhamdulillahi
baqfirhan for all of that. I know those
are hard for you to do that and,
ask Allah to reward you for
the times you've gone, the times you've wanted
to go,
for every human that you treated, for every
cat that you fed.
May Allah reward you man.
I think your desire is all the same.
We don't want to be there, SubhanAllah.
Azadullah.