“American Doctor” in Gaza

The Ralph Nader Radio Hour interviewed an American doctor, Dr.Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteered as a worker in Nassar hospital in Gaza that has been militarily targeted by the Israeli Defense Forces since the Hamas attack upon Israel on October 7, 2023.

News services throughout the world report that Israel’s response to the heinous attack is extreme and many cite Israeli actions as a crime of genocide. This has been an ongoing attack and assault for three years.

Dr. Sidhwa is featured in a new documentary film "American Doctor" that reveals the healthcare collapse and a mortality analysis of the contemporary state of affairs in Gaza.

His report first focused on the hospitals that exist, though with only a fraction of their past capabilities.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has resulted in destruction of the hospital infrastructure and life-saving medical equipment as well as disintegrating secondary civic and public health infrastructure across the area.

This includes disrupting pharmaceutical warehouses and destroying medical supplies needed for the onslaught of patients that flow into the facility daily in need of mending, surgical operations and an unprecedented number of amputations.

Destruction of water facilities has made water scarce. The bombing of the underground sewage system has contaminated ground water in the area that has 14,000 to 15,000 people per square mile.The people of Gaza are experiencing an extreme public health apocalypse by modern standards.

Agricultural structures and livestock bases are destroyed and farmable land is depleted and rendered inaccessible. All food production has been intentionally destroyed, causing the elimination of growing vegetables and fruit and the storage of staples nonexistent, affecting greenhouse complexes, poultry houses and basically neutralizing all food production.

Food distribution networks such as grain mills and bakeries have been targeted for destruction.

These are foods that are essential in the caloric intake for the general population.

Two-thirds of the housing, schools and public institutions have been destroyed, depriving two million plus people of basic housing, housing reduced to rubble with no water or sewer system.. Many are housed in tents hoping for peace so they can rebuild.

 

Gaza is an area the size of the city of Philadelphia with a population of  2.1 million inhabitants. Three hospitals (Shifa Hospital 750 beds, Nassar Medical Center 250 beds and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital 50 beds) serve the area. 

Dr. Sidhwa worked in the Nassar Medical Center and documented his account of the painful struggle to work in a facility that is under constant attack by the Israeli Defense Forces. 

Experiencing the dire circumstances in his hospital, staff shuffling within the complex looking for room to operate and facilitate patients. The other hospitals in the area face the same dilemma as their facilities deteriorate before their eyes.

Mortality statistics were astounding to hear from the terrestrial radio. 

Civilian rates from the first 25 days after the October 7th attack were 88 to 113 times higher than the single deadliest attack during the Iraq air war in 2017.

The child fatality rate is much higher (also 100 plus times higher) than the child casualties in the current Russian war against Ukraine. Also comparatively, the same with the ongoing war in Syria.

Shockingly Dr. Sidhwa reported that a comparative metric shows that the Russian military operations kill the same percentage of Ukrainian children over a 10-month period as US-supplied Israeli operations kill in Gaza every 18 to 37 hours.

Aside from all the direct casualties, there are the indirect fatalities due to the poor water and sanitary systems. The lack of facilities to treat diabetic patients, oncology patients and the increased spread of infectious disease has led to high mortality rates not experienced before.

Prenatal, postnatal or any type of maternity care is scarce and due to the lack of potable water and lack of sanitary sewer has led to premature death of children, especially from birth to the ages of 5 years old.

Acute malnutrition, lack of vaccines and unsanitary birth environments has led to a catastrophic mortality rate of infants.

Collectively, 100,000 people have died from direct violence.

Overall death by violence is estimated between 200,000 to 400,000, ranging from 10 percent to 20 percent of the entire population in Gaza, much of which is still buried in the massive amount of debris generated by the indiscriminate bombing of the area.

Due to decomposition those bodies can’t be definitively identified.

Physical destruction of property was notable and a disturbing aspect of Dr. Sidhwa’s testimony.

He stated that a comparative analysis of the rubble in Gaza: “The volume of rubble generated within Gaza's compact footprint exceeds the combined total of all rubble generated by every recorded military conflict globally over the preceding 18 years.”

The TNT equivalent used in the acute area of Gaza is comparable to 8 bombs used in Hiroshima in 1945.

It’s an astounding report – one that reflects not only the complicity of the media underreporting the deaths of the people of Gaza but also the unilateral punishment to the people of Gaza by American supplied attacks by the Israeli military.

The elephant in the room is the complicit intention and willfulness of the United States to continue supporting and financing the Israeli administration with arms and logistical support.. The collective crime to eradicate the inhabitants of Gaza can be called nothing other than an intentional effort to violently remove the Palestinians people from the Gaza Strip and if removal fails, the goal is to kill them.

 What the US is supporting and financing is a genocide.

The podcast reviewed for this article can be accessed through the following link:

https://audioport.org/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=338741&nav=&

Check your local theatres for the film “American Doctor” and listen to WGRN 91.9 FM in Columbus,Ohio or stream at www.wgrn.org