By As the international community grapples with obstacles, there has been a dire need to tap into the unspoken details about the medical crisis in Gaza and unveil the crucial next steps needed to extend a lifeline to Gazans in the midst of their unprecedented plight.
Our founder Amani sat down with Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr. Swee Ang in London to unravel the urgent challenges and impassioned pleas for a permanent ceasefire. With a spotlight on the stifled arrival of aid, this conversation provides a unique glimpse into the uncharted territory of Gaza’s crisis from the urgently needed perspective of healthcare.
Note: The interview is edited for conciseness and clarity.
AMANI: Especially with aids not being able to get into Gaza, what should be everybody’s focus right now?
DR. GHASSAN ABU SITTAH: The call to action has to be an immediate ceasefire and an opening up of all humanitarian corridors to allow for medical teams, field hospitals, medics, medicine, and material to enter. There are 50,000 wounded; 70% of them still need surgery. These wounded will eventually die of their wounds unless the siege is lifted and medical teams are allowed to go in and treat them.
DR. SWEE ANG: Right now, at this moment, we have to work ceaselessly to educate our people, and our governments, that there must be a ceasefire [that is] number one. Number two, we have to mobilize our people to say healthcare is not only for doctors and nurses; healthcare is for all. Without our support, healthcare cannot take place. So it’s all our responsibility. Thirdly, then we go into the nitty-gritty. Right now the priority in Gaza is food, water, shelter, fuel, and communicable disease. So that is the next priority.
Then, if there is a ceasefire, there must be a safe place for the doctors and nurses to look after their patients. You cannot look after the patient in the street. So we have to rebuild. And side by side with rebuilding, we have to set up temporary hospitals so that people who will come out to return home to Gaza can actually have a place to have their medical problems addressed. So that’s what we have to do. And it’s not today, tomorrow, or one week [from now]; we were talking years.
Are we setting a precedent for how the international community protects health workers through the situation in Gaza?
DR. SWEE: Yes, I think we have to do that and we have to create it.
DR. GHASSAN: Obviously, [diplomacy has] failed. And we now need to talk about sanctions against Israel. Israel needs to be expelled from all United Nations organizations and all international organizations.
You’ve seen a lot of horrors in Gaza. What is the situation now over 70 days into the crisis?
DR. GHASSAN: The situation is dire. Not only are people being wounded, but the epidemics [have spread] as a result of this overcrowding; the fact that people have lost their homes, the damage to the water and sewage. Malnutrition means that infectious diseases are now rife, and people are dying of infectious diseases.
What’s the best way that we can support healthcare workers at this time?
DR. GHASSAN: The most important thing is for us to fight for a ceasefire so that they can have the rest that they need, and to support them with medical teams so that they can treat their patients.
There’s a lot of attention also on the prices that women and girls are facing: women with their menstruation, with childbirth, with going into labor, and how dangerous it is there, especially because we don’t have the resources necessary. How have you seen women and girls impacted by the conflict?
DR. SWEE: Nobody can go in, even Ghassan won’t see it because it’s difficult. The babies are dying because of lack of care.
DR. GHASSAN: Israel has intentionally targeted maternity services. Even yesterday, Israel attacked, again, one of the very few maternity units still functioning in Northern Gaza. [There is] overcrowding in the centers of refuge in the schools. I mean, these are schools with toilets that are designed for schools. They’re not supposed to have nine or 10 times the number of people living in them with no shower facilities, and women and girls are disproportionately affected.
Where are we going next?
DR. SWEE: Continue what we are doing, don’t lose hope, and help people to understand that this is a human cause because we cannot allow our 21st century to start off with this sort of crime; it’s a sacrilege.
DR. GHASSAN: They want to continue the genocides until they wipe us out. But we will resist this genocide and we will persist.
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