Yasir Qadhi – Doctors In Gaza – Gaza Is Alive Conference
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the tragic events inona, including the closure of the Red Sea and deaths of many people, the importance of understanding natural hazards and the importance of praying for success and creating a doctor. They attend panel discussions on the topic of Zionism and pray for Dr. Shadman Beg, a vascular surgeon, and attend panel discussions on the responsibility of individuals to act proudly and share experiences. The speakers also discuss the use of warfare as a means of protecting troops and the loss of family members. They end with a mention of a woman in a nursing facility and her potential impact on the healthcare industry.
AI: Summary ©
I welcome you all to our conference that
is taking place more than a year after
the tragic events began in Gaza.
And it is the least that we can
do to come and show our support, to
come and understand what is going on, and
most importantly to be educated ourselves so that
inshallah ta'ala we can begin to influence
other people.
But before we begin our talks, obviously, we
want to begin first and foremost with a
recitation of the Holy Qur'an.
And for that I invite our dear Shaykh,
our Hafiz, Sajjad Gul to the stage.
Bismillah.
Brothers and sisters, there's no exaggeration to state
that the incidents that we've been seeing for
the last year are definitive for our lifetimes.
Years from now, decades from now, these incidents
are going to be talked about, discussed, analyzed.
And the most important question we're going to
have to ask ourselves, what did we do
in the face of this tragedy?
What is truly heartbreaking, we don't even have
words to express, is the fact that the
world is watching the genocide go from bad
to worse.
The number of casualties increase exponentially.
The video footage becoming even more explicit.
It is as if every time we think
a red line cannot be crossed, and it
is crossed.
And yet still, the world does absolutely nothing.
There are many lessons to learn.
There are many morals to be extracted.
But right here and now, the urgent reality
is we must do something.
And one of the things we need to
do is to not only be aware of
what is going on, but to understand why
our country in particular, the United States of
America, is so involved in that region.
And why this country has decided to take
such an odd stance, an immoral stance.
And in order therefore to illustrate this reality,
we have convened this conference that inshallah ta
'ala will be composed of a number of
speakers.
First and foremost, we're going to have three
doctors come.
Two of them from our own neighborhood, our
own communities, our own epic members who have
gone to Gaza.
And they'll be able to explain firsthand.
Because we really need to understand what is
going on over there.
We need to understand the human tragedy, the
medical tragedy.
And what better way to do that than
to listen directly from those that have been
there.
So we'll listen to three doctors, one after
the other.
And then inshallah ta'ala, we will invite
to the stage a very fearless warrior.
Somebody who has taken on so many different
challenges.
Even though he himself has come from a
background of Zionism.
And his father and grandfather were both key
figures.
His grandfather was one of the signatories of
the independence of Israel.
And he himself was born into such a
family.
And yet he will tell you his story
about how he transformed from how he was
to becoming an advocate for the Palestinian cause.
And that is Mr. Miko Pilate.
He is on his way here.
He will be here inshallah ta'ala after
our doctors.
We're then going to inshallah take a break
for Salatul Asr.
And then we're going to come back and
hear from a up and coming scholar, an
academic.
Who also comes from a similar background.
That he was born and raised in a
certain environment.
And yet when truth became clear to him,
when he understood the realities of that land.
He himself had a transformation.
And in fact his entire academic study.
And he's founded institutes for this as we
will hear.
And that is Professor Zachary Foster.
Who did his PhD in the history of
Palestine and Zionism.
And one of his areas of expertise, that's
why we invited him.
Is to help us understand why this country
in particular is so involved with the Zionist
cause.
So that will inshallah ta'ala be after
Salatul Asr.
And then we will take a short break
where there will be some snacks, some chai.
We're going to then pray Salatul Maghrib.
And then after Salatul Maghrib, there will be
inshallah a panel with all of us.
Where we will entertain all of your questions.
And also some of our speakers had other
points that they wanted to make.
That time did not permit them.
So we're going to be having that panel
discussion in the Musalla area.
So let me begin first and foremost by
inviting Dr. Shadman Beg to the stage.
Dr. Shadman Beg is a vascular surgeon.
Who is one of our own community members.
He went to Gaza twice.
First on April 1st to 10th at Shuhada
Hospital.
And then once again he spent three weeks
over there.
From July to August in the Nasr Hospital
in the south.
And then in the Indonesian hospital in the
north.
So we welcome Dr. Shadman Beg to the
stage.
Dr. Shadman Jazakumullahu khair.
Bismillah.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Bismillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah.
It's an honor to be here.
To speak to you about this topic.
I was asked to just speak about my
experience there.
What I saw there.
Maybe some lessons that I learned for myself
over there.
I had the honor of going there in
Ramadan the very first time.
So the last nine or ten days of
Ramadan.
And Eid were spent in the south of
Gaza the very first time.
And I didn't know what to expect over
there.
I had never been to Gaza before the
war.
I know people from Palestine here in America.
But I didn't really have a sense of
what the Palestinian people were like.
And when we first entered, I would say
it was quite.
The first time we went, we were able
to go through the Egyptian border.
So we went through Palestinian security.
Egyptian security.
Palestinian security.
And the remarkable thing was the attitude of
the people there.
Even though they were living in a very
dire situation.
In April, things were very bad in the
north.
And in the south, there was pretty intense
attacks in Khan Yunis.
And this was just a little bit before
they took Rafah.
And our team was split into two.
One went to the European hospital.
And we went to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital.
And there we met just remarkable people.
First, the hospital grounds were completely full of
families.
When we were driving from the border to
the hospital, there was just devastation everywhere.
When you meet the people there, though, you
were expecting that people there would be depressed.
People there would be, you know, wailing about
their situation.
But remarkably, the people there have an unbelievable
level of suburb and even understanding.
And one of the things that I took
from that experience was that the people that
grew up there, the people that lived there,
unlike, I think, people that live in, you
know, the luxury of other parts of the
world and the security of other parts of
the world, know very well from childhood they're
programmed to know what their role in this
world is.
And I think that's because if you think
about it, why is it that the cause
of the people of Palestine has struck a
nerve with so many people all across the
world?
Not just with Muslims, but even non-Muslims,
people who may have very little interest in
politics.
You don't see people engaging the world in
the same way about Kashmir, about the Rohingya,
about Sudan, about any other place.
But for some reason, there is something about
those people that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
put a love for them and that place
in the hearts of Muslims and non-Muslims.
And so when you look at those people,
one of the things you realize is that
they really understood the purpose of this life.
They understood their mission.
They understood that they are there basically as,
and this is how they view themselves, they
view themselves as the defenders of that land.
They are up against an extremely powerful force.
They are outnumbered, outmatched.
They have the major superpowers of the world
against them.
But you don't sense fear in them, even
though they know that they may die.
And almost everybody there has a family member
that's died.
And it's not like all of them are
just these amazing worshippers that are, you know,
praying every sunnah prayer and they're up every
night praying the hajj, they fast every single
day.
No, they're very ordinary Muslims who perform their
faraid.
You know, they are normal people.
But the difference is they have a deep
understanding of what it means to be Muslim,
what it means to have Islam as your
religion, what it means to be, that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala put them in that
land.
They accept that whatever happens, happens from the
Qadr of Allah.
That's why they're able to deal with tragedy
in a way that was mind-blowing to
me, to see people come in, you know,
their family members just been killed.
And you see them crying and wailing.
And then very, in a very reasonable amount
of time, they are calm.
Next day they're, you know, burying their dead.
And you don't hear them, you know, distraught.
Then they go about, you know, the rest
of their life.
You meet people there who say, yeah, my
whole family died or this or that.
And they just tell you as if this
is just something that they had been preparing
for for their whole life.
So this is the lesson that I learned
from them.
And I think one of the things that
we all need to learn is that it's
not just about performing our ibadat and, you
know, being Muslim.
It's about recognizing what does Islam mean?
What does it mean to be Muslim?
What does it mean to carry this message?
And what's the responsibility that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala placed upon us?
And then being proud of that and holding
firm to that.
Obviously, I don't want to go over my
time.
So I think that's sufficient.
Jazakumullah khair.
And I've said this before and I'll say
it again.
It is a testament to the bravery of
our doctors who walk into a war zone
and not know whether they're going to come
back or not.
And to sacrifice of their time and their
routine.
And to leave the safety and the comfort
of their family, their practices.
And to go there and volunteer.
Forget, you know, volunteering and not getting paid.
The threat of not coming back, subhanallah.
And that really is an act of courage
and bravery.
And only Allah can reward them for that
dedication and sacrifice.
And subhanallah, this also needs to be said.
It is one thing to go and, you
know, you're going as a male strong person.
How about our sisters walking into that reality?
And so it is a great honor, a
great pleasure for me to introduce Dr. Hina
Cheema, an OBGYN who has also gone three
times to Gaza.
And she has been to Shifa Hospital, to
Emirati Hospital, to Nassar Hospital.
And mashallah, tabarakallah, she has volunteered her time
and services.
So we'd like to invite Dr. Hina Cheema
to come to the stage, inshallah, and share
her experiences with us, inshallah.
Assalamualaikum.
I'm so, so honored to be here, subhanallah.
But I just want to say that I
do not speak for the people of Palestine.
And I just pray that inshallah, one day
the doctors of Palestine would be standing here
and speaking.
And it would not be us who go
from these lands and, you know, to go
and serve there.
But inshallah, one day they will be here.
I speak as a witness, as a witness
to the atrocities that our brothers and sisters
in Gaza are facing.
Dr. Shadman Beg told you guys about the
March entry in Rafah.
My procedure was exactly the same.
I was there again in June and July
of this year.
And before this time, I had been to
Gaza in 2022.
When the blockade was present, and the war,
the last war that happened was in 2021,
when the aggression, the Israeli aggression happened.
So in 2022, I was at Al-Shifa
Hospital and I'd made a few friends.
And when I went back in March, you
know, I was able to see what they
were going through, what they were feeling, and
just, like, able to connect with them.
Subhanallah, just seeing Gaza completely destroyed in March
was heartbreaking.
And I say that over and over again,
that we feel like crying, but they're not
crying.
And they're strong, they're resilient, and they try
to give us hope.
And try to, you know, make sure that
we continue being strong, even though that we
need to give them support.
Subhanallah, I learned a lot from them as
a people.
But I really want to touch base on
what is actually happening there and what I
saw as a physician.
So walking in, coming into Gaza, you see
the entire infrastructure bombed.
The water sources are bombed.
There are kids lining up to get water.
And you can only have, like, a specific
amount of water every day.
There are little kids, what was so sad,
that you would see literally five years old
dragging those big gallons of water in cans.
And the diseases have significantly increased.
We saw so much infection.
It was absolutely heartbreaking.
This reminds me of one of the cases
that I saw.
I do surgery, but I don't do it
as much as the actual, like, surgeons do.
So this was something that I had never
seen before.
And subhanallah, there was this woman in so
much pain.
We didn't have pain medications.
We gave her just, you know, a very
mild anesthesia.
We opened up her stomach.
And I just remember seeing, subhanallah, the pus
just coming out like a volcano erupting.
And it was something that we were all
saying, well, we have not seen anything this
crazy.
And we were in ORs where the lighting,
the air was going in and out.
The physicians and the surgeons were sweating.
And the, you know, your drops of sweat
can fall into the abdomen.
If any of you are physicians, you know
what that means.
Just a very high risk of infection.
There were flies in the OR.
And this is Palestinian.
This was at Nasser Hospital, which I went
in June, July.
And this was after Nasser Hospital had been
completely evacuated.
But imagine their resilience, their incredible resilience that
they had equipped this hospital at the best
of their capacity.
And they were doing the best that they
absolutely could.
I want to take a moment to also
tell you that when we physicians, we go
there, we don't go there to fill a
gap.
We will never replace them because we only
go there for a short period of time.
So when we go there, we go there
as humans, as fellow Muslims, or as someone
who will hold their hands and tell them
that we are here.
We are seeing you.
We're listening to you.
And just give whatever support that we can
at that moment.
Or just tell a very tired physician to
go sleep while I can take care of
whatever work that you were doing.
So thank you so much.
I'm sure that if anybody has questions, inshallah
khair, we're happy to answer afterwards.
But my time is up.
Thank you.
Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
Mashallah, we also have with us Dr. Ahmed
Yusuf, who has spent a number of weeks
in Gaza.
He is a double board certified internal medicine
pediatrics physician.
He has gone on multiple medical trips around
the world, including Haiti.
And he has been to Syria.
He's been to refugee camps in Jordan, in
Greece, and amongst the Rohingya.
And mashallah, tabarakallah, just recently he has also
spent a few weeks in Gaza.
And many of you probably saw the interview
on CNN, in which his interview went viral.
The CNN interviewed him.
So we decided we also need to hear
from his perspective as well.
He has some really powerful anecdotes and stories.
And he has traveled all the way from
Alabama to be with us.
So inshallah, Dr. Ahmed Yusuf.
Jazakumullah khair.
It was Arkansas.
I was close.
Alhamdulillah.
I don't take offense.
I'm from Jersey originally.
Bismillahir rahmanir raheem.
Alhamdulillah.
Rabbil alameen.
Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the name of God, most gracious, most
merciful.
All praise and glory and thanks be to
God alone.
And we ask and beg of him to
send peace and blessings upon our beloved prophet.
We also ask Allah in this time where
we feel very far away from our brothers
and sisters.
But our hearts remain there.
That within our lifetime, within this year, within
this moment, we see a free Palestine.
Say ameen.
We ask Allah to remove the hardship from
them.
Oh Allah, we ask you to let us
see smiling faces in Gaza.
Every time I get a microphone, probably the
reason I go viral is I think I
just cry a lot on microphones.
I appreciate Sheikh Yassir inviting me to come.
I don't like actually talking to friendly audiences
too much.
People that already know because I think you
already know.
I think your hearts already ache and you've
already cried as much as I have.
You know, for a year prior to going
to Gaza, just like you, me and my
wife would, after putting our kids to sleep
and doing after school programs, sit down and
watch Instagram and Telegram and TikTok and cry
together like I'm sure so many of you
did.
And there came a point where during my
Umrah in December, the year prior to leaving
last year, I kept making one du'a.
I made a du'a that my Sheikh
Yassir Fahmi told me over and over again.
He said, make this du'a.
Allahumma astakhdimni wa la tastaddimni.
Oh Allah, use me in your service and
do not replace me with someone who's much
more willing to do it if I don't
take up the responsibility.
And I made the du'a over and
over again.
And eventually I was invited by a good
friend of mine.
He told me to say hello.
It was John Caller, messaged me.
And he said, hey Yusuf, I see you
posting all this stuff.
If you want to go, there's a chance
to go.
Him and Zahra Sahlu from MedGlobal.
And I was able to go with a
lot of mixed emotions and feelings and those
things and went and I'm going to tell
you something strange and then I'm going to
describe my experience there and then maybe give
just some advice for yourself and myself.
You know, after leaving, I've been on many
mission trips.
And when I leave, you always feel a
little bit of guiltiness, right?
You feel a little bit of guilt.
You leave Syrian refugees in Greek fields and
you leave Rohingya in the jungles of Bangladesh
and you feel an immense amount of guilt
because you get to go back to a
normal life.
You get to come back to America where
you can choose between ten different fast food
options and not worry about your kids being
in danger or hungry.
And there's always a little bit of survivor's
guilt with every one of the trips I've
ever been on.
That is not what I felt when I
left Gaza.
I cried, just like I'm about to in
front of you, but not for that reason.
I cried because, and this is going to
sound strange, I had some of the best
moments of my life with my brothers and
sisters in Gaza.
It's a strange feeling to explain that, you
know, Sheikh Yasser said in a war zone,
they're brave.
Wallahi, we aren't.
You should be jealous of me for the
time I got to spend with the best
people I ever met in my life.
You should be jealous of the opportunity that
we had where we got to sit with
these people that had persevered through so much
with smiles on their faces.
And it's not that they didn't cry and
it's not that they weren't in agony, but
they understood something different than what we understand.
And I can't tell you that I tasted
what they tasted, but I felt the essence
amongst them.
I can't tell you what they already know
in a yaqeen, in a certainty that I
wish I had, but I felt it when
I was with them.
And I know you felt it and I
know you felt it without ever meeting you.
Every doctor I've met who's been there, it's
unanimous.
There is a unanimous feeling.
I don't have to talk to both these
physicians to know what they felt.
Because every single one has felt the same,
which is that we wish we were there
now.
And not because we were doing something brave
or courageous.
We weren't doing anything.
The capacity to treat people well within Gaza
is almost impossible.
By design, Israel and the IDF have destroyed
the entire healthcare infrastructure.
They have completely halted all access to medical
aid.
When I went to Gaza the second time,
mine and Dr. Chima's rotation overlapped.
And I know that because the Jazira interviewee
that was trying to interview had just interviewed
me and we were talking about you being
there and my wife's like, wait, you get
a chance to meet Dr. Chima?
May Allah reward you for encouraging all of
our brothers and sisters.
When I was scheduled to go to Gaza,
I was scheduled to go in mid-May.
And the IDF and COGAT, which is the
evil portion of the, evil organization of the
IDF that controls movement in and outside of
Gaza through absolute control, kept changing the date
of entry after Rafah was closed.
They told us May 15th and then they
said June 4th and then they said June
13th and June 18th and June 23rd and
eventually I entered on June 24th after being
in Jordan for a couple of days.
We couldn't access Rafah from the south anymore
where you could bribe an Egyptian soldier and
maybe get some extra stuff in.
We were going through occupied Palestine through the
King Hussein Bridge on a bus of 25
people.
What I want you to take away from
the end of this is that everything was
by design.
When we talk about the mechanism of genocide
as the topic of what I'm talking about,
the mechanism of evil perpetrated against the Palestinian
people and the Gazan people even more specifically,
it is by design.
There is nothing by accident when it comes
to the structured and systematic manner in which
the IDF ensured that they weren't just going
to kill people but they were going to
eliminate them in the long run and make
Gaza unlivable.
This is their intention and it became very
clear the moment you entered because we were
allowed only 25 people and I was supposed
to go with a group of 8 doctors
ended up being just myself because it's impossible
to change a 4-week trip for most
people who have a normal job, right?
The UK, Australia, we all have normal work
schedules.
Alhamdulillah, I was blessed with the opportunity to
go with 24 other humanitarian workers.
There was about 4 doctors on the bus
with us and we entered by crossing through
King Hussein Bridge through occupied West Bank down
through Jerusalem and then eventually ended up in
the same spot we would have entered through
if we had come through Rafah to the
Karim Shalom or the Karim Abu Sad crossing
and we transitioned from the bus and we
learned in that moment the first thing, which
is they only allow 25 people in when
they've let 25 people out.
By design, they restrict the number of international
eyes on the ground and you say, that's
a strange thing you know, they made sure
that the bus that dropped us off is
the same bus that picks up 25, so
the number of people in Gaza have international
eyes no journalists no international diplomats just physicians
and humanitarian aid workers are limited to this,
maybe 100 or so at any given time
in Gaza today and we transitioned into UN
vehicles and we crossed over and they said,
hey, a rule from Kolgat don't videotape by
design because they didn't want people to see
what we saw, which is the moment that
you drive through Rafah and drive north through
Rafah and then Khan Yunis and then Dirbarah
where we ended up being, there wasn't a
building left standing you know, the UN aid
workers, those people are amazing people, right, so
they said hey, you know, we've got to
tell you this, you're not allowed to videotape
so they let us videotape a little and
I said, see, that used to be a
police station, that was a school that was
an apartment complex this was the nice neighborhood
this is where people who didn't have as
much money lived, this is where the water
tanks used to be and every single one
either had a bullet hole a tank shell,
Apache helicopter missile or an F-16 and
completely decimated the building in some capacity, making
it unlivable and every single person on that
little convoy we all had the same reaction
we couldn't speak it's unspeakable and if I
showed you the videos which I have many
of, it wouldn't change what it felt like
that it was by design there, making Gaza
unlivable on purpose in every single way when
you restrict five year olds from getting clean
water after malnourishing them for a year and
for since 2005 on top of that through
the Gaza diet, what you're doing is you're
exposing them to infectious disease through contaminated water
and then not letting them have the immune
system to fight it so they die from
simple diarrheal illnesses what you do when you
limit physicians ability to take in with us
wound care supplies, which was limited we had
six, seven bags of medical supplies that were
left in Jordan because they refused to allow
anything but one bag per physician Hamas was
not going to use wound care supplies or
IV fluids or antibiotics or sedative medications or
Tylenol or pediatric medications or antibiotics it is
by design and when we entered the hospital
Al-Aqsa hospital, which was a hospital that
was supposed to be an OBGYN hospital pre
-October 7th, a place where happy moments would
happen, every hospital left, which was just three
when I was there, because EGH European hospital
was closed while I was there and evacuated
there was Aqsa hospital which was a 120
bed capacity hospital with 700 people inside of
it, including family members sleeping on the floor
next to their loved ones because it was
the only safe place to be there was
Nasr hospital, which had been raided twice by
the time I was there and has been
raided one more time since I've left and
there's Al-Auda hospital, which if you're paying
attention to the news about two weeks ago
was essentially destroyed from the inside we met
physicians and people that had been displaced four
or five or six times by the time
we met them I'd say, hey, where do
you live normally, would be my question and
they'd say, oh, we live in the north,
but then we were pushed to Rafah, then
we were pushed again and again and again
and now we're here the physicians work for
free, the nurses work for free they have
nothing, they know that all they want to
do is serve their people Wallahi these people
fed us when they didn't have food, when
I was there, there was no food it
was limited in the center area, right, now
we know the north is true famine in
the central area World Central Kitchen which is
an organization I would tell you to support
because they were doing such amazing work while
you were there, they were feeding people balls
of, foil balls wrapped of rice and some
type of protein, some type of bean of
some sort, and they'd come at the end
of a day and drop off to the
hospital, a certain number for people to distribute,
and they would make sure I would eat
before they ate when I'd say, how are
you doing, how's your family they'd say, no
Yusuf, we want to know, how is your
family just think they're in a war zone,
they've lost family members yesterday, and they'd say,
Yusuf this must be hard on your wife
and your kids since I've left, I get
a message every week hey Yusuf, just making
sure how are you doing, how are things
over there have you gotten yourself in trouble,
because they knew I wouldn't shut up when
I left, have you gotten in trouble are
you okay, hey don't, you don't have to
say too much don't get in trouble and
when I would sit there, and they would
tell stories the way Dr. Big and Dr.
Schumer described of family members dying, and they
would they would tell it flatly yeah, I
lost my brother three days ago I lost
my, we would start crying, right, you would
start crying, and you would start crying, and
they'd say, hey hey, don't cry, you know,
it's okay we're okay, alhamdulillah the trauma area,
the trauma bay of the hospital was about
twice the size of what I'm standing on
the platform, it wasn't made to do trauma
the moment we entered Gaza, there was a
buzzing over your head 24-7 from the
drones that circle overhead, and so the children
and a vast majority of Gaza are children
are acclimated to the sound of drones, they
only look up when two things happen when
it goes away, because that often means there's
an F-16 coming behind it or when
the drone sound changes to a different pitch,
and they think, oh no something else has
changed the children in Aqsa Aqsa's courtyard Aqsa's
hospital's courtyard used to come to us and
be happy that there was an American or
somebody different and say oh, did you hear
that bomb?
that's an Apache helicopter missile hey, did you
hear that?
That's an F-16 oh, did that one?
I'm not sure with that one, that's a
new one they must be trying something new
today 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds
talking this way when they felt the ground
shake the children would have a traumatic response,
it would shake them and their eyes would
become furrowed and they would stare as a
pediatrician, there were so many kids that I
saw in that trauma bay, they weren't the
direct ones impacted, maybe their brother or sister
or their parent was dead on the floor,
in the middle of the concrete flooring of
the trauma bay because there were no more
beds left and they would sit there and
stare when we talk about the trauma you
know, we take for granted what post-traumatic
stress disorder, it's not post-traumatic stress it's
active and prolonged and continuous traumatic stress the
impact on these kids is forever it is
forever and by the time I left I
was no longer sad the only feeling I
have to this day and the reason I
cry tears to today and this is me
just being real with you is all I
feel now is anger all I feel, when
I cry every day every day when I
cry for the people of Gaza it is
not because I am sad for them because
they would think that's silly they would pat
me on the back and say hey man,
don't worry about it, we're okay, say alhamdulillah
I'm angry that we've allowed this to happen
and I'm angry about who I was six
months ago, six months ago when I was
given the microphone to talk at rallies and
these other things, I would be really careful
about the words I used, I'd say, you
know, we gotta strategically use certain words avoid
certain words, be careful I will never do
that again after my experience with those people
I will use the word genocide because that's
what it is I will use the word
apartheid because that's what it's been for 76
years I will never ever again in my
life critique or disclaimer my language when talking
about people fighting back how dare I how
dare the coward that I was six months
ago try to disclaimer the way I talk
by starting a conversation with, oh October, you
know, it was a bit garbage for myself
absolute garbage and I'm gonna say something to
you as my advice as your brother you
have no right to disclaimer your language when
talking about Gaza anymore you have no right
of the rights of your sisters and brothers
upon you to hold your tongue because it
makes you uncomfortable or because it makes someone
else uncomfortable, F those people, F anybody now
and I'm sorry to use that language, I
modified it as best I could, but if
there's anything worth cursing about it's about dead
children on the floor in a cold concrete
building with bombs dropping around them I removed
macaroni from a little girl's mouth on the
ground as she lay unconscious with shrapnel holes
in her chest because the bomb dropped on
her head while she was eating dinner with
her family she was no military combatant and
neither were her parents that died the woman
who was burned with second and third degree
burns, I didn't even know fourth degree burns
existed, fourth degree burns is when you get
burned so badly by a weapon that the
bone goes all the way, the burn goes
all the way to the bone I didn't
know that existed in medicine, I never learned
that in medicine and there was a pregnant
woman laying face down on the concrete the
first day I got there in the drama
bay and she was alive and she was
pregnant, 18 weeks and every single one of
us very quickly understood something about Gaza is
that when you take away wound care and
you make it sterility and impossibility, that every
single person that comes this way is going
to die and we sat there and we
did the things that doctors do and nurses
do and we flipped her over and we
did wound care and we tried our best
to give her ketamine to relieve some discomfort
because that's the only medicine we had, we
knew that we were doing all those things
knowing she was going to be admitted to
an ICU where the mortality rate is 90
% the mortality rate of being admitted to
the hospital with wounds is astronomical in Gaza
you were going to die we were using
hemostats which is the thing we use to
pull shrapnel out of somebody on one child
here pouring betadine in it and pulling it
out of the next child because that's all
we had for sterility, autoclaves didn't exist I'd
love to tell you that ingenuity and innovation
existed in this environment, it didn't by design
it is impossible to succeed from a medical
perspective in this environment it is purposeful and
by design that they not only kill the
people with the bombs but they make sure
they die a prolonged and suffering death afterwards
for anyone else who survived it is by
design that they know that the children are
watching what's happening to their family members and
being in fear so that they can demonize
them 10 years from now when they do
the same, the playbook is written and it's
out there for everyone to see so the
next moment that you decide as their brother
and sister you know I just, I can't
risk that my professor may give me a
B or put me in trouble or hey
you know at the hospital as a doctor
if I say the wrong thing maybe the
administrator is going to get mad at me
correct yourself and speak the truth because it
is there right upon you that you do
so you know, the people of Gaza didn't
ask me to fight with them they didn't
ask me to fight with them they knew
I was Muslim I'm not Palestinian, I don't
have Palestinian but they knew I was on
their side obviously they never asked me hey
Yusuf, you got people you're from Arkansas, you
probably have an A, I do help us
never once did they want me to put
my life on the line for them in
fact they felt bad that I had even
showed up, they would joke and say we're
trying to run away and you're coming, you
know but don't worry we're going to win
and this is something I want you to
understand about the yakin the lack of doubt
of the Palestinian people they are going to
win inshallah there is no doubt in their
hearts that victory is inevitable for them and
it may not look the way that we
wish it did and it may not be
with them present they may die beforehand but
the victory was certain in their eyes, you
didn't have to them to completely articulate from
a spiritual they've already won there is no
losing for the Gazan people, there is none
they know that existing is resistance, they've won
already there is a reason that they keep
having babies in Gaza, because they've won already
they're not scared of the consequences of this
world I will tell you, wallahi from a
spiritual perspective, that they are already on the
other side and I don't know how to
explain that to you, except by what I
felt they're already on the other side, they're
already on the side that won do not
doubt that their victory is coming and do
not allow yourself to put your own vain
wishes and desires in this dunya, in this
world to come before their right upon you
to stand up for them and speak for
them at every single chance you get I
was one of those doctors who signed that
65 doctor thing about children being shot in
the head by sniper rifles I was one
of the doctors that said, I put my
name to that paper in the New York
Times and I got a question by an
interviewer later and they said hey Yusuf, do
you think that Joe Biden is going to
read this, do you think it's going to
have an impact I said I don't give
a damn if he does, I'm not doing
it for him anymore, I'm doing it for
them I don't give a damn if a
politician listens to us anymore I don't care
if they hear these words, what I care
about is that I get to text message
my beloved people there and say hey I
spoke about you today again, this time it
was in front of the audience, it was
a little easier but I will speak about
you every single time I have a chance
and I will stand up for you and
I'll make sure the world knows that in
a world that has shown them no dignity,
that they showed utmost dignity and in a
world that had abandoned humanity, that they showed
me the best of humanity while it was
there you
know, the best moment of my life to
this point was an evening where I sat
with a couple of guys in a hallway
outside the ICU of Aqsa Hospital they had
gotten a lamb liver and it was the
first time they were going to eat meat
in about six months and they demanded that
I show up they said Yusuf, you got
to come and eat with us you haven't
tried Ghazan lamb liver, I said hey I'm
married to an Egyptian, they eat you know,
Gibbs it's a pretty famous way to eat
liver they said no, no, you don't know,
we do it different here you know Ghazans
eat spicy food spicier than desi food, I'm
Pakistani Israel and I sat there with them
and they cut pieces of liver and they
we ate from the same bowl and wallahi
it was the sweetest moment of my life
and they said at one point in the
conversation because we were making jokes that guys
make when they're with each other long enough
they said you know at this point you're
just one of us and I squeezed the
guy so hard he probably thought I was
going to pop his eyes out because I
said you have no idea what that means
to me my heart will always be here
with you and there are people like me
here in Dallas and in Arkansas and New
Jersey that love you and they'll never see
you and you'll never know their name but
wallahi they love you show them that you
love them by doing the bare minimum may
Allah make us worthy of being brothers and
sisters of the people in Gaza oh Allah
make us of those who are able to
uphold their honor and dignity in a time
where the world tries to crush it oh
Allah destroy their enemies oh Allah remove the
evil oppression that's above them, oh Allah remove
it from their sides and below them, oh
Allah make it so that they stand proud
as your sign in this world of what
it means to believe in you and the
success that comes with it oh Allah know
that we love them and unite us with
them on a day where we get to
face them on the day of judgment and
say we didn't shut up and when we
were scared we continue to speak for you
oh Allah forgive us for our shortcomings and
our cowardice and forgive us for the times
that we held our tongues because of personal
gain and personal vain desires oh Allah make
us of those who moving forward we follow
in the footsteps of our beloved prophet who
upheld the truth even when it hurt who
upheld justice even though it was difficult and
was never afraid to stand up for the
most vulnerable amongst us and we ask Allah
to send peace and blessings upon our beloved
prophet Muhammad and upon his family and his
children and all those who follow them and
I appreciate your time and I appreciate the
invite sheikh Jazakallah Khair, Assalamualaikum Can we introduce
our guest?
Assalamualaikum may Allah bless you, may Allah bless
all of our doctors and no doubt from
our perspective there is no question all of
you are heroes but we also have a
presence here that is the real hero, we
are very very honored to have in our
midst a genuine hero of Gaza may we
welcome brother Adam to the stage Alhamdulillah brother
Adam Adam Khalili is a Gazan child who
is a he was Alhamdulillah one of the
children that was able to get out and
get medical care here, he is actually staying
with a community member here in our community
Say Takbir That's for you Adam
Assalamualaikum Assalamualaikum They
can never destroy Gaza, Gaza is alive, this
is Gaza, this is the hero of Gaza,
there is no way they can get rid
of Gaza Gaza shall always remain alive May
Allah bless you Adam Assalamualaikum Say Takbir Alhamdulillah
Mashallah May Allah bless all of our brothers
and sisters in Gaza May Allah allow us
to see you inshallah Alhamdulillah