Omar Suleiman – Nasser Hospital To Biden Walkout – Gaza Diaries with Dr. Thaer Ahmad
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The speaker discusses their experience working in a closely watched television network and the devastating consequences of recent attacks on their town. They emphasize the importance of faith and staying resilient, pray for others, and emphasize the need for people to be empowered to bring healing to their country. They also emphasize the need for people to be nurtured and educate about suffering, particularly in regards to the invasion of their country.
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Have been obviously following your work from Gaza.
You are Palestinian American
from Chicago
ER doctor, Alhamdulillah. You've been to Gaza multiple
times
with MetGlobal. First of all, may Allah Subhana
Wa Ta'ala reward you for answering the call,
to go there multiple times and to work
there. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala reward you
for your efforts. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala
accept all of the healing that you brought
and all of the awareness that you brought
as well. And, keep you under his protection,
Allana Ameen.
Walk me through,
you get a phone call
that gives you an opportunity to go to
Gaza in the middle of a genocide.
Yeah. How do you kind of process that
on an emotional, spiritual, mental level? Well, I
I mean, I think from our perspective, all
of us here, we're thinking about what can
we do. And we've been thinking about that
since October.
And so, we were looking into how can
we get in. You know, SubhanAllah, there was
a actual planned
trip to Gaza October 22nd.
But, of course, after October 7th it just
got totally scrapped. Nobody was getting into Gaza.
None of these organizations that usually bring in
delegations or teams for anything were getting in.
And, we heard at the end of December
at the end of December that there might
be a chance that we could get in
and,
I remember texting, doctor Zehr, who's the founder
of MedGlobe, and I said, if there's any
chance
I'm going to be on that trip.
And, he said, of course, he understood just
how, you know, emotional everybody was with seize
the
seize the opportunity to kind of show up
and, subhanAllah, just have the opportunity to be
able to go into Gaza as a physician,
and that's what they needed at that time.
But, of course, as, you know,
things move along and there's more requirements, I'm
sure everybody will feel the same way. Everybody's
gonna wanna step up, and I think that's
I always say this, but I think Gaza
changed all of us. As Ghazah let us
realize the nama and the barakah that we're
living in. I mean, just being able to
wake up in your bed every single day,
you think about the fact that people who
look like us, who talk like us, that
they're not able to do so. I'm able
to jump in the shower.
I think we think about that a lot
more now given what's happened in Gaza.
For me that's that's really all that factored
into the decision. I felt that, you know,
Allah
gave us this opportunity to be comfortable here
and that our voice can maybe be amplified.
And what better way than to go there,
bear witness to what's going on. And then,
if I'm lucky enough to be able to
get out to share that with everybody that
wants to know what's happening on the ground.
Why, Monica? When was the last time you've
been to Gaza prior to this one? It
was in March prior to October.
Yeah. That's how it works. It was in
March. I was at Shifa Hospital.
I know the Shabaab there
very well. Great people
that I talk to regularly.
They're so thirsty for knowledge. They're always asking,
you know, what else can they learn? What
else can they use? And so
very very good relationship with them and, I,
you know, ever since I had met them
probably 2 years ago, I made it a
habit to try to consistently go back.
Alhamdulillah,
so when October hit like I'm sure like
a lot
of those images of the things you'd already
seen in Laza were fresh, right? And Yes.
You were thinking about this. Can you kind
of talk to us about that, like when
the bombing started in October?
Yeah.
I mean,
it's really tough because Gaza is beautiful.
I mean, it's amazing. The coastline is
incredible. I mean, the scenery there is amazing.
It's a tough place to live. I mean,
there's make no mistake about it. Right? I
mean, there's a siege that's been there for
17 years,
but the people, the life, you know, they
call it the harakah, the the movement that's
there. It's it's enchanting. It's, you know, mesmerizing.
People are
incredible to be around.
And
when you just watch that place get leveled
the way that it was since October, every
single day, a new block is being taken
out, a new block is being destroyed.
You start to think about, you know, these
beautiful areas that are that's that's gone. The
memories of the people that are there. You
know, I
all that we have left is our misery.
Like, even our memories they've tried to destroy
that by taking away the structures that were
there You know, just being on the beach,
being able to look at the Mediterranean coast,
now that area has become a death zone.
You can't even walk up and down the
beach anymore.
And, you know, it's really tough because it
takes so long
to build up the infrastructure in Gaza because
of the siege, because of the blockade.
And to just watch it
be reduced to rubble within seconds by 2,000
pound bombs, it's a struggle. I mean,
you know, you really you feel you feel
helpless in that moment. You're trying to think,
you know, what are we supposed to do
now? How do we pick it back up?
And then instead of being able to focus
on that, it's another
devastating
destruction somewhere. It's another block that's taken out.
Is there anyone that passed away early on
before you got back? Yeah. I,
knew a couple of the doctors actually. You
know, there's been,
400 doctors that have been killed, 400 healthcare
workers since this started.
And there was one particular guy who attended
one of the sessions where I did a
training for.
You know, we got this portable ultrasound machine,
so you can just plug it into a
phone, into an iPad, and I remember the
doctors and Aza were they were so excited
about that. Like we're gonna use this, we're
gonna, you know, be able to kind of
implement this, and one of the doctors who
attended the very first training sessions and he
would always text and check up on me.
He would always say, you know,
how are you doing doctor? How's everything going?
I didn't even realize this until I went
that he had died and this sort of
the tragedy is I had showed up to
a Nassar hospital and I had recognized some
of the guys from Shifa
And
this is a bizarre thing to do, but
I started going through the pictures of the
guys I had met before and asked if
they were still alive,
the other doctors. You know? And then you
come up and you're, like, you know, Bil
Asafistashat,
this person
was a martyr, you know, and so,
that's kind of just how tragic things are
in Gaza, and, you know, it's a it's
a challenge and that's the other thing I
think many of us who have
friends in Gaza or even family,
it's bizarre you're sending messages,
You know? Are you okay? And you're hoping
that it gets delivered on WhatsApp, and then
you're hoping that there's a response.
And then after there's a response, you don't
know what to say. Right? Like,
making dua for them trying to say I
hope Allah
protects you, but,
what else can I offer? You know, I
think that it goes back to your first
question. It's factored into why I felt like
I, you know, I wanted to go and
I know
everybody in the community feels the same way.
Yeah. I figured, subhanAllah, and like that thing
about like
scrolling pictures and like is this person still
alive? Is this person still alive? Like,
this genocide is unfolding on everyone's screen and
so when someone who's been reporting from the
ground suddenly stops reporting for a few days
Right. Everyone's thinking, have they been martyred?
And it almost like it takes me on
a personal level to like Jannah, where people
are asking about each other. Right? Where you're
kind of looking around like, hey, where's this
person, where's this person? Like, and SubhanAllah you
wonder,
you
know, hopefully Elijah gives us that opportunity
to ask about these names and Yeah. To
go find these people in Jannah and to
rejoice with them once again within Aitan. That's
the hope, right? That's the shahada part. Yeah.
That martyrdom.
People who reduce Islam to a death cult
don't understand that. We just believe in life
in a way that they just cannot grasp.
And the people of Gaza have that belief
more than anything else. Kinda talk about that,
like that concept of like, hey,
we know we're gonna die but we know
that there's something after death. Like, how did
you kind of experience that for yourself and
for other people when you were there? I
mean, the first day that I showed up
to Nasr Hospital, it reminds me of the
very first patient that I had seen that
had been killed.
And it was somebody who had been injured
in the airstrike, 22 year old, 23 year
old, and he was brought in by his
mom, his dad, and his siblings.
And I remember because,
I had just shown up. I had put
my bags in the room. I was gonna
be sleeping at the hospital.
And I remember because
the when we walk in, he had lost
the pulse and so they were doing CPR
on this person. You know, they were doing
chest compressions,
and he was on the floor of the
emergency department. And I didn't recognize that his
family was there to begin with. So I
just kind of got on my knees. I
was trying to help the doctor. His name
is doctor Majdi,
very young brilliant,
physician.
But subhanallah, I mean, that was, you know,
that was his time. And, you know, he
met his maker,
and I remember kind of being shocked that
it had happened so quickly. 1st day, I
mean first 5 minutes.
And doctor Majdi gets up and he looks
at the guy's father and he said, you
know,
His last words were
And then the dad said, which that's
was very overwhelming for me, but he looked
at him and he said Amana?
Like Amana, those were his last words. Like
that was one of the most comforting things
you could say
to the father of a martyr, to the
father of the shahid, of the his son
who had just been killed. He said, Amana,
promise me that you're telling the truth. He
said those were his last words. He said
those were his last words.
And he turned around to his siblings and
to his wife
and he said, you know, that was that's,
you know, like he was comforting them and
then they picked him up
in the blanket that they brought him in
from their house and they went to go
bury their son.
And, you know, right away you start realizing
that,
the people in Gaza,
the way that they've perceived everything, they look
at that hardship is different because
I'd have to be honest with myself. Could
I could I have that sort of patience
in that moment?
On the emergency department floor looking at my
son,
you know, essentially
die, pass away,
am I gonna have that moment to reflect
and be able to take comfort?
You have to have that belief in the
afterlife. I mean, you have to believe there's
a ekhir. If you don't you're not going
to be comforted by that's your your son's
last words. And for me it made me
really start to think about, you know, all
of what's been going on in Gaza,
how people have been processing it and I
realized that when you have strong faith like
that, when you have the iman like that
you get the resilience of Gaza.
Because,
you know, I think we've been a lot
of a lot of people have been around
tragedy. They've had personal loss. They've been through
their own struggles.
And, you know, this is an entire
community of people that is dealing with an
in what seems like an insurmountable struggle. But
how do they stay so resilient?
And the only answer is their faith.
And, you get inspired by that. In a
moment of
sorrow and tragedy,
something inside of you clicks. I mean, something
inside of me was, you know, was coming
alive when you're watching that and so it
makes you wanna do better, makes you wanna
work harder, makes you wanna figure out solutions
for things and I mean I'll never forget
that moment. So what is like the difference
between, you're an ER doctor,
An ER in Chicago,
an ER in Gaza. Yeah.
Give me that contrast.
I mean,
I want you to I want to paint
the picture for you a little bit. You
know, I work at a trauma center in
Chicago,
a very busy place. We've got all of
the specialties, we've got all of the tools,
all of the tricks are up our sleeve.
You know, we've got private rooms. We've got
every single patient has a has a patient
bed, has a private room that they can
stay in.
In Gaza,
it's huddled masses.
Many people are on the floor. Imagine just
a concrete floor bloodstained,
muddy too because you're walking back and forth.
That's where people are have to seek care.
But I'll say one thing.
And this
is,
this is it's going to sound weird. But
the respect for dignity
in Gaza
was
I've never seen anything like that in the
United States. I was in Detroit, in Chicago.
If somebody's belly was exposed in the process
of us carrying them to a CT scanner
or putting them on the floor,
a nurse, a doctor was grabbing a sheet
to cover them. You know? If there is
an elderly person that comes in that's sick,
a young person who's injured or has a,
you know, has all these different tubes and
lines inside of them, He's getting up off
of the bed to give it to the
elderly person. You know, I mean,
the grandma who was shot by a drone
paralyzed from the waist down,
everybody's calling her mama,
you know, even you're not related to her,
but she's she's mama, she's, you know, she's
your mother. That's how they're all treating each
other there. I mean,
despite it literally being out of stock from
any medication, any anesthetics, no space in the
hospital at all. We're talking about 10,000 people
were sheltering inside the hospital and outside the
perimeter there. No space.
There's still
incredible amount of protection of dignity and respect.
I don't see that in the states. And
I just feel like, you know, they deserve
all of the tools that I have in
Chicago. They deserve the nice fancy private room,
the clean CT scanner to be able to
have a private suite if they get you
know, they deserve that. But,
the situation right now is it was it
was overwhelming for me. You know? I was
I think I was useless the first the
first day that I was there and if
it really wasn't for my colleagues, my fellow
Stini colleagues there,
I think I would have been an additional
burden on them. They had to show me
the ropes. I had to hold my hand
for the first thing and just see like,
this is what we do in this situation,
this is what we do here. So
I I owe them everything for that. I
would have done nothing if it wasn't for
them.
Tell me about your first, like, if you
don't mind, if it's not getting too personal,
like your first like real faith realization when
you were there like salah or Yeah. Something
that clicked with you that
maybe hadn't clicked before
like about
Ibada,
a connection to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Subhanahu
wa ta'ala. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know,
and, you know, I'm not trying to say
anything about Muslims in the United States or
Muslims anywhere else. I just wanna kinda highlight
and amplify
our brothers and sisters in Gaza. But, you
know, every single person there when it's time
for salah is praying,
every single person and they're praying anywhere, You
know, the I remember in the ICU,
that the ICU doctor and one of his
nurses stepped out into the hallway to pray
buhrer.
You know, and they've got their sejeda, they've
got their carpet that they're laying down. Nobody's
missing salah over there. In fact, they asked
me,
one time they said, you know, I noticed
you're they you're combining prayers.
And they're like, you know, you're home now,
so you don't need to combine your prayers
anymore. You know? And I said, well, yeah,
but I'm still living out of a suitcase.
You know, I was giving an excuse to
make it easy on myself. And then just
to make me feel better, they were like,
oh, what about the Nazeh, the displaced person?
Can he combine their pair of suit just
to kinda make me feel better? And so,
I mean that's, yeah, that's the thing is,
I remember because Salat al Jum'ah
basically had to be canceled in Khan Yunus
for a couple of weeks because of the
intense campaign. I mean, they were literally targeting
the masajid. You know, there was they made
sure that there was no masjid still standing.
And I remember them talking about just wanting
to have that jumah back, to have salatuljumah
back, to be able to go. And you
you see videos. I mean, the second they
got a chance to do so on rafa,
they did hutbatuljumah
and they were able to have a khutba'
and they were able to have a salah
even though they was on top of rubble.
I mean, I think they take,
the deen,
not how do I say they take it
very seriously? I mean, I think it's just
a part of their life. I mean, it's
just part and parcel for what they do.
They all are talking about when Ramadan comes,
they're all talking about being able to go
and make Hajj. And for a place like
Gaza, everybody wants to be able to make
Hajj. I mean, you can barely get out
to go to Egypt. You know? It's just
incredible how it's a part of their vernacular.
A part of their everyday life. They're talking
about, you know, what's halal and what's haram
and,
they look at it in a way where
they they wanna do the best and they're
all like, you know, there's not a lot
of putting down of each other either which
is incredible. There's not a lot of wagging
their finger or condescension.
It's, you know, everybody's
the the idea of brotherhood,
I felt it there. You know, this that
truly, you know,
I mean, it's like these guys believe that
and they practice that, you know. The believers
are brothers. The believers are brothers. Yeah.
If there was one story,
one person who you feel like fundamentally changed
you, like one incident or one person, what
would you what would you share with us?
There's plenty of them but there's one that
I always mention because it really got me.
I mean it really corrected me in a
way that you know, I needed that lesson.
I needed that reminder.
Every single night
at Nassar Hospital, the nurses from the ICU
would knock on the door where I was
sleeping, And they say, we're gonna have dinner
together.
And you have to keep in mind this
is Gaza. So everybody's dependent on the meals
that are being distributed.
And it's really just a can of beans,
some tamil, some dates.
And,
you get a bottle of water and sometimes
there's some bread.
And so, there's not a lot to go
around, but they wanted to invite me to
make sure that I had dinner with them.
They said we have to You're a guest
and we have to obviously,
you know, treat the guest well. And we
were sitting there and they're all combining their
stuff and they would insist that I eat
first and that I eat to until I'm
full. You know, they would not sit down
until I ate till I was full,
but I remember sitting and talking to a
nurse whose house had been destroyed in Rafah.
They had a farmland. It was him, his
father, his brother, their families, their kids, and
it just totally destroyed. And he lost his
brother's family.
And he actually was
rescued from the rubble. He was showing me
a video of himself kind of the rubble
on his face and his kids and he
was trying to make a joke about it
just saying like look I look so, you
know, look how disgruntled I look. I was
so nervous, but Allah, got me out of
this. Then he said this line to me.
He said, you know, Allah
really was teaching us how to be better.
He said before the war,
he said I was complaining that I was
only getting 60% of my salary.
He said, before the war I was complaining
that I can only go from the North
to the South.
Before the war, I was saying, we don't
have a lot of different restaurants, it's always
the same food over and over again. Before
the war
I was complaining about the water, and before
the war I was complaining about 12 hours
of electricity because Gaza operates at a energy
deficit.
He said after the war I have 0%
of my salary. So, I've got no food,
no water. He goes I can't even go
to the north of Gaza anymore, I can
only stay in Khan Yun and San Mafaa.
And he goes we have no electricity now.
So the day that this war is over,
every single day I'm gonna say Alhamdulillah.
I'm gonna appreciate the barakah that I live
in. I mean, this was in January. You
know, I
was I was really stunned by that. I
mean, that moved me so much that he
twisted it in that direction where he realized
this is an opportunity to better himself.
You know, I think it's pretty easy and
I was doing this to say,
look how terrible it is. Excuse me. It's
terrible. It's just so sad. So sad. Oh,
look, you know, woe is me kind of
mentality.
And he really just corrected it in that
moment. I mean, I'll never forget that he
just kinda had that position.
And, you know, he did it with grace
too and humility. He's not sitting there lecturing
anybody, he's just telling you this is my
this is what I'm gonna start doing and
you're like I wanna be like that. Subhana.
So it really puts in a perspective that
it's not about the world around you. It's
about how you see the world around you.
And if you have that gratitude to Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta A'la, then even an open
air prison can seem like a paradise. Yes,
ma'am. And even in the midst of a
genocide, you can see rays of hope and
you can see a Jannah that awaits you.
Yes, ma'am. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta A'la
choose you as a martyr
in that. And Lord Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make
it easy for our brothers and sisters and
grant them victory. Amen. I mean,
before we get into the Biden thing, I
just wanna mention one more thing, you're actually,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
You're from
Chicago
particularly,
Bridgeview
where,
young boy, little Palestine and the little Palestinian
boy was murdered very early on, Wadhir Fayyumi
Rahimullah.
May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta A'la make it
easy for his family. Ami. Was murdered just
within a couple of weeks of everything happening.
I remember attending that Janazah and thinking to
myself like man I wish I could
I wish I could be in Gaza right
now. And,
I'm wondering like what were your emotions kind
of being in a community where a young
Palestinian boy was martyred
for being a Palestinian.
Yeah. And how that kind of factored into
everything if it did at all for you.
I mean we were reeling. I mean I
you you were there, you saw an entire
community was was grieving and it was across
the United States. It wasn't just Bridgeview. Right?
I mean, everybody
was mourning,
you know, a 6 year old. And it
it really felt like, you know, for us
as Palestinians,
as Muslims too,
it's like, you know, people don't think that
we're human.
It was like that whole dehumanization
campaign, like, the fact that somebody could bring
themselves to stab a 6 year old that
many times. I'm an ER doctor. We see
stab wounds. I just the thought of sort
of that trauma and that pain, I couldn't
shake it. Obviously, I'm a father as well
and you're just thinking that, you know, I
don't think,
we're given that same sort of,
you know, that same sort of
I don't know. Is it dignity by other
people and so it's from
my perspective, I mean,
it shook me in a way that made
me realize that
no one's gonna sort of help us or
no one's gonna give us, you know, no
one's gonna extend their hand, especially in that
moment. It seemed like
the entire world was against Gaza, the entire
world was against Palestinians,
And for me it was, okay, we're gonna
have to do something ourselves.
We're gonna, you know, that whole idea of
pick yourself up by your bootstraps is like,
you know, all we have is Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Like, and you hear that all the time.
You hear that all the time.
And so and it's just, you know, I
think something that came out of Wadhir's
murder, that tragedy was, you know, realizing that
it was it was on us to sort
of do this. Not to look to anybody
else for help. Not to look for it
to any other human being. Just sort of,
you know, be prepared for this long haul.
There's going to be a struggle here.
You know, it's still I think it's still
pretty shocking but there's been so many incidents
too that have kind of afterwards where you're
just
you we continue to grieve and we continue
to mourn, but it's just more reminders about,
I think our status. I mean, I think
about those kids in,
in New Haven or I think it was
in Connecticut, the 3 Palestinian kids. Raleigh, North
Carolina. Oh, yeah. The oh, yeah. Raleigh, North
I forgot about that. Yeah.
Raleigh, North Carolina. Yeah. You're just like, this
is the series of attempts. You're like, wow.
You know, there's there's a lot of people
working against us and there's a lot of
people who wanna paint us in a certain
light and,
I think it's on each and every one
of us to kind of fight that and
fight that in our own way. Alright. Yeah.
Yes, sir. Awesome.
Make it easy for their families. Obviously, they're
from a sham and our 3 winners, but
they were murdered.
Yeah. And, may Allah accept them as well.
Yeah. SubhanAllah, it's been years. Yeah. And,
we move on. Yeah. The families don't move
on. No. Right? It's something that
I think is very important. Like, we're gonna
be coming up on a decade of that
at some point very soon, you know?
May Allah make it easy for them and
for all of For the mother of Wadiya.
Amen.
The family of Wadiya. The mother's inspiring woman
by the way, SubhanAllah, and like she went
through a lot. She's an inspiring woman. Wow.
Like I was really really shocked and and
I think that's,
that idea of being nurtured in something different.
Everything that you just said could be summarized
in Hasbun Alloa nebulukit. The first thing I
heard from Wadhir's mom was Hasbun Alloa nebulukit.
Hasbullah Nirmala Waqith. The first thing you hear
from everyone of us is Hasbullah Nirmala Waqith.
Amazing. It's
La'illaha illallah manifested
in your deepest moment of tragedy, right? And
they've been able to do that consistently.
And we ask Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la to
give us that tawfeeq to be able to
have the same type of orientation.
So I'm gonna come to sort of what
got you in the headlines recently,
but it's important and, first of all on
behalf of, I I think many of us,
DazaqAllahu Hayra, my God, I reward you for
doing that.
I think a lot of us have probably
visualized,
you know, walking out on the president the
way that you did.
We've obviously been chanting in front of the
White House,
but not in the White House. Right.
You know and,
just tell us about the meeting then, maybe
a little bit more than what you shared,
you've already been, Rochelle, on CNN, CBS and
some different things. But like, just tell tell
us like how did you get invited? When
you got there? Did you already have the
intention? It seems like you already kinda planned
Yeah. It was to walk out so just
walk us through it. Yeah. I mean it
was it was, the week
leading up to it really kind of solidified
my decision. I mean we get an I
we get a phone call saying,
you know, we want to make sure that
this year we don't do this big Ramadan
fest and we want to do a working
dinner with the President of the United States.
And I was told that I would be
the 1st person who would brief him
about Gaza
who had actually been on the ground after
October 7th.
And there would be other medical professionals there
and other Muslim leaders there and I had
already known how the broader Muslim community felt
about engaging
with the President at this time. I mean
it was clear like, you know, we don't
wanna do that. We don't wanna sort of
tokenize ourselves.
We don't wanna put ourselves in a position
where we're gonna try to say something but
we're not listened to and it just becomes
like we're sort of white washing everything that's
happened over 6 months. The photo op that
was coming right now. Yeah. Exactly. You you
and Biden and then Exactly. The tweet dot
Right. Exactly. So yeah. From heroic heroic doctor
from Gaza. Yeah. Thank you for coming and
sharing your experience and thank you for supporting
me, you know, kind of thing. But,
we, you know, I I definitely was very
concerned and I'm still very concerned about Rafah,
having been there. 1,700,000
people,
intense. They're talking about a ground invasion. So
that for me has been something that I've
been panicking about over the past couple of
weeks. And so I really wanted to get
that message out there.
But then you heard about
weapons approval, fighter jets being sold, you heard
about
undermining the UN Security Council resolution calling for
a ceasefire by saying, oh, it's not binding.
I mean everything that indicated that this meeting
is not serious. I mean, I'm not going
to sit there
and while
literally all of the pain and suffering is
going on and there may be a
catastrophic event that takes place with respect to
Rafa. I'm not gonna just sit there and,
you know,
sort of be played in
kind of talking in Chicago terms. But I
really, you know, I I wanted to do
something. I mean, I was so angry. I'm
so resentful about everything that's been going
on. And so we went to the White
House and, you know, you kind of walk
through and,
we waited in the room and they said,
you know, the President should be arriving any
moment. And then, you just kind of see
different members of his staff and it's the
President and the Vice President.
He kind of walks around,
sits down,
and I remember, you know, he's saying, okay.
Well, you know, kind of let's get started.
You know, we've been working on this a
lot, he said. And I said, and I
just thought about what that meant actually, you
know, working on this a lot with respect
to Gaza.
He said,
this is a listening session, you know, I
hope you guys can trust that we know
a little bit about what's going on too.
And I, you know, for me I was
I could feel it building up, like, I
gotta stay calm. You just deliver the message
that you want to deliver, that Rafa has
to be off limits because of all of
the human beings that are there.
And that, you know, it's not just about
stopping an invasion or a ceasefire.
There needs to be some help for the
people that are there with respect to water,
to even blankets. How how are they gonna
rebuild their homes again? Like that needs to
be in the calculation here moving forward. We
need to help the people in Gaza rebuild
everything that was destroyed.
And then finally, I wanted to give him
a letter from Hadil, an 8 year old
orphan in Gaza in Rafah
in a tent who lost her family. She
lost her uncles and her father. She's an
orphan.
And, I was like I'm I have to
do this. I mean, if I have any
respect for myself,
I gotta I have to actually make this
statement. I should get up and walk away.
Not gonna throw anything around. I'm not gonna
kick the chair. I'm not gonna yell, you
know, I just want the message to be
clear, like, I'm doing this because of the
pain and the hurt and I want you
to feel that. I want you to see
that.
And I knew that there would be people
in the room that would also still be
able to communicate
the messages, you know, that that we that
we wanna get out there. You know, the
the idea of the humanitarian crisis and the
famine and the malnutrition.
So I I wanted I just wanted people
to feel like they got a chance to
tell the president, like, we're not happy with
this. We're gonna walk away from you. We're
walking away from this table. You need to
do something that needs to be concrete steps.
And, I got that opportunity and,
you know, people ask me,
were you
nervous at all? And honestly, I was not.
I I was I was just I'm not
nervous because I'm not doing anything special. Really,
I'm getting up and walking, I have the
ability to walk, I can walk outside of
a door.
But for me it's more about can we
use this moment
to translate into change? If that happens then
I'll be incredibly happy. But until that that's
the case, you know, I think all of
us are in that mode where what what's
the next what's the next step here? What
can we do to bring some attention, to
put some faces on the people that are
there, and to get the massacres to stop.
And I I know everybody feels the same.
So let me ask you like a deeper
question.
Did you feel like when you were speaking
you were getting through to anybody else in
the room?
Did you feel like, I mean like you
can read sentiments. Yeah. You're an emotionally intelligent
like guy, like you can probably feel like
what's going on in the room, right? Right.
Who's, did you, did you feel like staffers
or like people are like kind of like,
were you getting a sense like man, like
this is disgusting, like we're doing this, right,
you're literally it's Kadin Ma'at Haqqara in this
Sultanate just started speaking it right in his
face, right, and like you got a lot
of people around him and we know like
staffers and
there's a lot going on in there, right?
So did you feel like your message was
actually getting across to anyone like making their
stomachs turn a bit, maybe their hearts? I
I think they felt the tension. I mean
I think they felt also in my voice
the urgency. I mean
when we talk about Gaza now we can
there's a there's a tone that's there and
I think people understood that and you can't
take away from the fact that
we were on the ground and we saw
this with our own eyes. I don't have
an agenda. I'm not a part of I'm
not a registered participant in any political party.
I'm not the president of any organization.
I'm not selling anything that I need to
make money off of to the president. I
don't need his contracts.
I'm just telling you based on what I
saw, and you can feel
how nervous I am about what's happening in
Gaza right now. And I feel and I've
gotten to the point where I'm concerned about
this, you know, this this
invasion that may take place. And I do
think that there were people who actually received
that message, they understood.
Because at the end of the day, I
mean, you know, when we're when you are
just only focused on the truth
then, you know, what can you argue against
me? Right. What can you push back in
my face? And I'm, and the one thing
I did mention because I know that they've
been meeting with their Israeli counterparts,
and they're saying that there is no famine,
and there is no malnutrition, and that they
are bringing aid into there. I said, I'm
telling you firsthand, and I can give you
examples and details about how everything that they've
said about this is not true.
And whether you want pictures or you want
people
I'm talking on behalf of thousands of starving
children on Gaza Strip. We have been under
for 135
days.
No food, no water,
no medicine.
Our message to the world, check on you.
How can you put
your children
while we eat animal food?
Are you waiting for our death? Check on
you. Our message to us, we
don't ask you to fight Israel.
We are asking for food.
There are plenty of people who can attest
to this. And I'm here now in this
room. So, you know, I think,
you know, I think I hope
that that message does get through. I think
it was received
by several people. At the very minimum,
I think you you ever have that sort
of feeling when,
you know, you're about to discipline someone? I'm
not saying that I was gonna discipline the
president or or the guy. I was saying
you always if you feel like maybe there's
something wrong that happened,
you have that feeling inside of you and
I do think some people felt like, yeah,
something wrong did happen with respect to what's
going on in Gaza. There are
lots of areas where we fell short and
we could have done we could have made
a difference in people's lives. So I do
think that that message is loud and clear.
Everybody's been saying it and I think I
was just kind of repeating that message and
I hope it soaks in.
Alright, last thing, American Muslims,
courage,
you learn courage and character and resilience and
faith from the people of Allah.
By taking these types of steps in your
career, you're risking your career. We've got people
that have been fired from hospitals
over sharing an Instagram story, over a tweet,
we've got people that have lost their jobs
at law firms. The doxxing is crazy. Yeah.
What's a message that you can give to
American Muslims
about courage right now? Yeah. I mean, I'm
gonna go back to the people in Gaza
and I'm gonna I'm gonna mention 2 things
from them honestly that,
stuck out to me. There's this level of
honesty that's there that I didn't haven't seen
replicated anywhere else. Just this willingness to speak
the truth even if it's against themselves.
And I'll give you an example. I was
at Shohadah Al Aqsa hospital in Deir el
Balah,
and there was an ICU doctor there and
he was one of 5 people that stayed
in the hospital to treat the patients when
the Israeli tanks started to surround the hospital
and actually hit the ICU.
And many people fled reasonably. I mean, like,
many people went to go take care of
their families. They they got out of there.
But he was one of the people that
decided to stay in the hospital.
And as the Israeli tanks withdrew,
many of the medical staff started to come
back. And I remember them talking about it
and he asked one of the guys why
did you leave? Why don't you stay with
me? And the guy told him, he goes,
I'm gonna be very honest with you. I
was terrified. I was scared. That's why I
left. He goes, now I'm not scared, so
that's why I came back. And
that sort of honesty to me is like
incredible. It was again, he was basically testifying
against himself, but he's just willing to put
it forward. I think that's something we have
to think about. I mean,
these people are willing to speak up the
truth in the face of fighter jets,
tanks,
massive military.
We should be able to at least say
what we think is right and communicate in
an effective way. My only message is think
about how you're communicating and messaging it. We
want the person to respond to it because
we know the truth is on our side.
We know that we're speaking the truth. We're
not lying, we're not propagandists,
We're just trying to communicate about the suffering
that's there. We want our people there to
have the right to life, to be able
to live freely and to live with dignity
and to be able
to do what they want without having to
worry about being killed.
Just think about how you how that message
can be received. I know how my colleagues
at work can receive it. It's gonna be
different than how the president receives it. You
know within the community that you deal with
how they're gonna receive it, people who are
also non Muslim. Let's just get this story
out there because we know we're speaking the
truth. Yeah.
And
I do wanna point out here by the
way, SubhanAllah,
your wife and you got 2 kids under
3.
Yeah. May Allah SubhanAllah bless you and your
family. And me, thank you. SubhanAllah, I think
that,
when you take this type of a step
and I've said it and I mean it,
I'm
extremely proud of all of my friends who
are doctors,
brothers
who have gone forth.
SubhanAllah, there are over 20 people that I
know right now are doctors on this. It's
like, we have a community here in Dallas,
we're just talking about this, like we've sent
more from Dallas probably than anywhere else. Amazing.
So
indebted to each one of you guys but
also your families.
Because your wives are at home,
you know, for the sisters that have gone,
their husbands are at home. Yeah. Little
kids sometimes and not knowing what's gonna happen.
So may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala reward them
as well, reward the families and reward them
all, inshaAllah ta'ala allow this to be a
means of bringing healing
to our people in Gaza and may Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta A'la give victory to the
oppressed everywhere
and allow us to be vehicles of conveying
that truth.
So, jazakAllah khaydum. Yeah. Thank you. And Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala reward you and accept that.
Thank
you.