Surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta said that Gaza’s medical staff are being systematically wiped out as part of an Israeli campaign to destroy the Strip’s health structure and force its residents to leave, stressing that the Palestinians will not leave their land no matter how hard the killing machine intensifies.
In an exceptional episode of Al Jazeera’s “The Interview” program, Abu Sitta, a Palestinian-British doctor, emphasized that he does not feel a sense of survival despite having survived the Baptist Hospital massacre, considering that those who survive death in such events remain captive to the experience for the rest of their lives, and carry within them a sense of guilt and a moral obligation to be a voice for those who died.
He added that the recent Israeli aggression on Gaza revealed a Zionist desire to change the social structure of resistance societies, whether in Palestine or Lebanon, by systematically targeting and killing entire families, stressing that what characterizes this war is the shift from targeting individuals to wiping out entire bloodlines.
The Palestinian doctor spoke about his constant struggle between the medical profession as a practice of life and the reality of wars that force doctors into the heart of death, recalling the moment he prepared to die inside the operating room at Al-Shifa Hospital during a heavy bombardment, when he sat in the corner to review his life’s journey.
He explained that his political and professional awareness began from his childhood, specifically at the age of 13, when he saw on television the scenes of the 1982 invasion of Beirut and the targeting of medical staff, which made him decide to become a doctor in the service of his people’s project, a decision he has adhered to ever since.
Previous experiences
Abu Sitta said that he participated as a volunteer in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the first Intifada, and later went to Iraq after the first Gulf War as part of a medical team to study the effects of the war, before working in South Lebanon during the “Grapes of Wrath” aggression, and later in Syria and Yemen.
He noted that his move to the American University of Beirut in 2011 allowed him to establish an academic track in conflict medicine, combining field practice and scientific research, which helped him document the relationship between war and human health from a broader medical and societal perspective.
He revealed that the Gaza Strip served as a testing ground for the Israeli occupation’s weapons, explaining that the use of white phosphorus began to appear frequently since 2009, and that he personally witnessed the horrific injuries resulting from it, as the skin burns and the phosphorus reacts with oxygen to re-ignite inside the body.
He praised the efforts of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which was able to develop its medical staff despite the blockade, and succeeded in training ambulance teams to provide advanced first aid and stabilize injuries in near-field conditions.
He highlighted the most difficult moments he experienced during the aggression, when he had to perform surgeries on children without anesthesia due to the lack of medicines, stressing that such experiences leave a great psychological impact on the child and permanently change his pain threshold.
Loss of loved ones
He spoke tearfully about the martyrdom of a number of his fellow doctors, including Dr. Medhat Saidam, Dr. Hammam Allouh and Dr. Adnan Al-Barsh, who lost their lives either under shelling or after arrest, describing what happened as a deliberate targeting of medical staff to paralyze the health sector.
He explained that more than 1,200 medical staff were martyred, 33 out of 36 hospitals were destroyed, and only four operating rooms are not working at full capacity, considering that rebuilding this sector will need at least 10 years financially and a whole generation in terms of human resources.
Abu Sitta did not hesitate to testify before the International Criminal Court, speaking about the bombing of the Baptist Hospital and the targeting of the wounded inside hospitals with drones, and this testimony was adopted in the arrest warrants issued by the court, despite the enormous political pressure to obstruct accountability.
Abu Sitta criticized the silence of Western medical and human rights institutions, despite the action of many individuals in Europe and America, noting that the liberal values on which the European state was founded after World War II are being sacrificed today in defense of Israel’s genocidal project.
He warned that the Gaza Strip is in danger of becoming an unlivable area, as the number of children injured in the war is about 50,000, and each of them needs 8 to 12 surgeries, which means the need for hundreds of thousands of operations once the war ends.
Western complicity
He expressed his surprise at the complicity of the ruling elites in the West with these crimes, in contrast to the great popular sympathy that has appeared in Western universities and the street, noting that more than 3,200 American students were arrested during demonstrations in support of Gaza, while Western regimes continue to suppress the voices of solidarity.
He criticized the lack of interaction in the Arab world, especially in universities and educational institutions, stressing that this war revealed the isolation of Arab societies from the Palestinian cause, and even their absence from history, as he put it, compared to the advanced Western movement.
He spoke about his election as president of the University of Glasgow with more than 80% support from students, considering that this represents an influential symbolic message, especially since Balfour himself was a former president of the same university, and now one of his victims is returning to the same position, in a deep historical significance.
When asked about the events of October 7, 2023, Abu Sitta believed that what happened was an attempt to block the liquidation of the Palestinian cause, pointing out that the situation in Gaza before the operation indicated international acceptance of the continuation of the siege and marginalization of the Nakba, which reinforced the feeling of the need for action.
He concluded by emphasizing that the Palestinian people will not leave, and that the refugees who tasted the bitterness of the Nakba will not accept its reproduction, adding that those living in Gaza prefer physical death to the social death associated with being a refugee, and that this deep-rooted conviction will prevent the passage of any deportation projects.
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2025-06-01 17:21:00