How Gaza's doctors endure the impossible

“The only thing that will help us deliver medical care is full liberation for Palestinians,” Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canada-based emergency physician tells The Electronic Intifada Podcast.

He joined us to talk about the medical catastrophe inside Gaza, after Israel closed all the crossings in early March, and several weeks after it resumed mass-scale airstrikes on Palestinians.

Loubani is the co-founder of Glia, an international medical solidarity organization with field clinics inside Gaza.

We discussed the Israeli army’s impunity following its executions of 15 medics and rescue workers in Rafah on 23 March, their bodies found in a mass pit a week later.

He talks about how he testified at the United Nations in 2019 – to a commission of inquiry on Israel’s shooting of Palestinians during the Great March of Return – and warned them that the consequence of inaction would be severe in the years to come.

“I said, Look, you know what has happened today, and your actions today will dictate how the Israelis behave tomorrow. And I do not want to be one of the victims when they get the message that this is okay. And I do not want to see the other victims when they get the message that this is okay.”

He adds, “the world is one of the key perpetrators that’s walking hand in hand with Israel. Israel cannot carry out this genocide alone.”

Loubani assessed the systematic destruction of all basic infrastructure, the acceleration of engineered starvation and the dire shortage of medical supplies. He also highlighted the psychological toll this genocide has taken on medical workers.

“When Ramadan started, it was as though the very idea of Palestinians being at peace in even the smallest way was just so unacceptable, they cut off all food,” he says. “That’s not coincidental. It’s not coincidental at all. It is that the Israelis are seeking the absolute, complete destruction of Palestinians.”

The medical catastrophe, he adds, “sits as part and parcel of something much, much larger that’s happening. And of course, the Israelis don’t want Palestinian physicians to keep practicing medicine. They look at the practice of medicine as the antithesis of their goal, which is to destroy, to kill, to loot, to pillage, to rape, and to absolutely eliminate all Palestinians.”

Watch the episode via YouTube above, or listen via Soundcloud below or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Produced by Tamara Nassar

Photo: The destruction of al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, April 2024. Khaled Daoud/APA Images