Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: Nothing can prepare you for Gaza. Gaza is just different.
Speaker 1: You have no idea whether you're going to be alive,
Speaker 1: whether you're going to be bombed, the level of injuries
Speaker 1: that you're seeing, and the lack of medical equipment, the
Speaker 1: lack of food. I mean, it is a scary place
Speaker 1: to go and work. You know, I really didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave. I wanted to stay and I wanted to
Speaker 1: continue working, but you know, I was told that I
Speaker 1: needed to leave for my own safety.
Speaker 2: I'm Jesse Stevens and welcome to No Filter. The conversation
Speaker 2: I'm about to share with you, which we recorded last week,
Speaker 2: was the most impactful of my career. I have not
Speaker 2: stopped thinking about it. Our guest today is doctor Mohammed
Speaker 2: Mustafa known as doctor Moe, a Perth based emergency doctor
Speaker 2: born to Palestinian parents and raised in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2: In the last eighteen months, he has embarked on two
Speaker 2: medical missions to Gaza. While there, he did something he
Speaker 2: wasn't meant to. He pulled out his phone. He filmed,
Speaker 2: and then he published those videos to social media. Doctor
Speaker 2: Moe brought global attention to the suffering of Palestinian civilians,
Speaker 2: especially children. Alongside him, we saw the aftermath of a bombing,
Speaker 2: children with no access to pain relief or surgeons, hospitals
Speaker 2: with barely any resources running on the desperation of doctors
Speaker 2: whose lives were also at risk. Conversations about children suffering
Speaker 2: in any context are the hardest and the most necessary
Speaker 2: stories to listen to. That is what this story is.
Speaker 2: It includes graphic descriptions of the injury, suffering, and death
Speaker 2: that doctor Moe witnessed firsthand. It's confronting, and it speaks
Speaker 2: to the human toll of an ongoing, heartbreaking conflict that
Speaker 2: has claimed tens of thousands of lives. No one tells
Speaker 2: doctor Moe's story better than he does, so I will
Speaker 2: leave that to him. Here's my interview with doctor Moe.
Speaker 2: Hello doctor Mo, and welcome to No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I wanted to begin today by asking you know, I
Speaker 2: know you've been on the ground in Gaza. You have
Speaker 2: seen things that most of us could never imagine. For
Speaker 2: most of us, this is headlines, this is Instagram, this
Speaker 2: is images that maybe we can put our phones down
Speaker 2: if we want, But for you, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: put words in your mouth. But it's a live trauma.
Speaker 2: How are you today? How are you going emotionally psychologically?
Speaker 1: So I don't want to make here about me, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't want to talk about how
Speaker 1: I'm coping and how I'm dealing with this because I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, the most important thing is to
Speaker 1: center those people that are actively dying in Gaza, not
Speaker 1: me who's had breakfast this morning and had a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee. That's not who needs to be centered. Who
Speaker 1: needs to be centered as those one million children or
Speaker 1: however many of them are left in Gaza that are
Speaker 1: currently being staffed to death. That's what we need to
Speaker 1: talk about. And I understand, you know, people always say,
Speaker 1: how are you coping? How you doing? Listen, I'm not coping.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm tired. I've barely slept. I live out
Speaker 1: of a suitcase. Ever since I got back from Gaza,
Speaker 1: I've traveled around the world trying to make a tangible
Speaker 1: difference to what's going on. I've been pleading with the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister to meet with me. I've been working with
Speaker 1: different NGOs to bring the plans for a hospital to
Speaker 1: get it into Gaza. I'm trying to come up with
Speaker 1: solutions for what to do. I want the government to
Speaker 1: step in and do what they have to do, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately somebody like me has to step up and has
Speaker 1: to talk about what's going on, has to come up
Speaker 1: with solutions of what we can do because I don't
Speaker 1: see people doing it. I don't see people in the
Speaker 1: government doing it. And it's a very very scary thing
Speaker 1: to be and it's a very scary thing and to
Speaker 1: be where you know, you've got the whole weight of
Speaker 1: this on your shoulders, and I just sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: lonely road. It's a very very lonely road. Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: you get criticized. I get death threats, so you know,
Speaker 1: like how am I doing. I'm just I just put
Speaker 1: one foot in front of the other. Like that's it.
Speaker 1: I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 1: Turn up every single day, you know, and see what
Speaker 1: I can do. And you know, if I've just got
Speaker 1: to keep going, that's essentially it.
Speaker 2: I think that point that it's like you're asking ordinary,
Speaker 2: I would argue you're not that ordinary by the way,
Speaker 2: and we'll get to that, but people to do pretty
Speaker 2: extraordinary things. I want to go back to you. Are
Speaker 2: you grew up in the UK as the son of
Speaker 2: Palestinian refugees? Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, my dad was born in Gaza. Yeah.
Speaker 2: What was that experience like growing up as someone with
Speaker 2: a Palestinian background in the UK.
Speaker 1: You know, look, I remember when we were first when
Speaker 1: I was first born, I was born in Mecca. You know.
Speaker 1: I moved over to the UK when I was four
Speaker 1: years old, But I remember when we were in Mecca,
Speaker 1: Like our house didn't have running water, you know, my
Speaker 1: dad used to there used to be a truck that
Speaker 1: used to arrive once a week and it used to
Speaker 1: have like barrels of water and that was our drinking water.
Speaker 1: So my dad used to go downstairs and like there
Speaker 1: was no elevator in this like apartment complex, as it
Speaker 1: was like a essentially like you know it like kind
Speaker 1: of like a ghettoized apartment complex. But he would walk
Speaker 1: down the stairs, it'd be like twenty flights of stairs,
Speaker 1: and he would carry this barrel of water, put it
Speaker 1: on his shoulders and he would carry it and that
Speaker 1: would be our drinking water. We had essentially a one
Speaker 1: bedroom apartment for five of us, Me and my two
Speaker 1: sisters and my mum and dad had a blanket between us.
Speaker 1: You know, that was our life when we grew up
Speaker 1: in Mecca and then we moved over to the UK.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad's a doctor, so when we moved
Speaker 1: over to the UK and he was working as a doctor, essentially,
Speaker 1: like he had to provide for everybody, you know, so
Speaker 1: we you know, I remember when we would when we
Speaker 1: were growing up, knowing that we had so many miles
Speaker 1: that we had to feedback home. Like the sacrifices that
Speaker 1: we would make as a family, you know, buying secondhand
Speaker 1: clothes all the time, and going to like grocery stores
Speaker 1: late at night when they would reduce items of food
Speaker 1: so we can buy that to eat. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what it was like. But you know, look, my parents
Speaker 1: gave me an amazing life. I never once went hungry
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And you know my dad now
Speaker 1: is like the leading fertility specialist in the whole UK.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So you know we're okay now. But you know, from
Speaker 1: where we've come from and where we are now is
Speaker 1: night and day. But that's what it's like growing up
Speaker 1: as a refugee, and not just like as a as
Speaker 1: a Palestinian, but anywhere in the world, Like when you
Speaker 1: get you know, stripped and taken out of your home
Speaker 1: and have to start with nothing. You know, my dad
Speaker 1: didn't known a pair of shoes to do was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old. He used to be barefoot up until the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen. His trousers or his pants that are
Speaker 1: used to wear were you know those USA aid flower bags.
Speaker 1: They used to cut a hole in it for his
Speaker 1: legs and then they used to just tie it up
Speaker 1: with some string and that would be his trousers. This
Speaker 1: is the level of poverty that my father had to
Speaker 1: deal with because his village was taken over and he
Speaker 1: was displaced and kicked out from his home and his village,
Speaker 1: and you know, he had to move into the refugee
Speaker 1: camps of Gaza because seventy percent of the Gaza population
Speaker 1: are refugees from what is today Israel.
Speaker 2: Were you aware growing up in the UK or did
Speaker 2: you have contact with extended family who still lived in
Speaker 2: Palestine at all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got family in Gaza right now. I've got
Speaker 1: my uncle, my auntie, my cousin's my Mum's aunties and cousins,
Speaker 1: like all of them are in Gaza.
Speaker 2: Prior to October seven, What did you know about what
Speaker 2: their quality of life was, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Mean a lot, because we support them, you know, we
Speaker 1: used to support them. I would speak to them, you know,
Speaker 1: and then it's like every year, you know, like we
Speaker 1: we used to try and like you know, and things
Speaker 1: like Ramadan or ed we would try and bring food
Speaker 1: for the whole area, you know, through my uncle. We
Speaker 1: would try and get everyone fed. And when I was
Speaker 1: there in June last year, we were seeing kids like
Speaker 1: what we're seeing now emanciated skin and bones dying from
Speaker 1: starvation then in June, so you know, and look, this
Speaker 1: is not controversial thing to say. The Israelis said, I
Speaker 1: think it was the Defense Minister at the time of
Speaker 1: ag Golong. He says, we're going to put a total
Speaker 1: seage on Gaza. There'll be no food, water, in electricity
Speaker 1: going into Gaza. And he said that on October the ninth,
Speaker 1: two days into this and Netnya, who's saying there's no
Speaker 1: starvation going on in Gaza. This is this is how
Speaker 1: absurd it is, and this is how nut it is,
Speaker 1: and this is why, Like, you know, words of condemnation
Speaker 1: mean nothing. The tone and these governments have just shifted now.
Speaker 1: But we've watched the same images on our screens for
Speaker 1: almost two years.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and those images, a lot of those images
Speaker 2: have been shared by you, and I want to I
Speaker 2: want to get to that experience. You were in a
Speaker 2: very specific position when this war broke out because you
Speaker 2: had training as a doctor. What made you decide to
Speaker 2: go into medicine and what to specialize in? What was
Speaker 2: behind that decision?
Speaker 1: Well, you know growing up and watching my father, when
Speaker 1: you grow up as a refugee, right, you're not very
Speaker 1: well liked. You know, you're not treated very well. And
Speaker 1: the one specialty and the one area, one profession that
Speaker 1: you know would always treat as like humans would be doctors.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it was a doctor's giving ye vaccines
Speaker 1: or whatever, it.
Speaker 2: Was treated with respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I saw what medicine did for
Speaker 1: my father. You know, he went from being this kid
Speaker 1: with no shoes and wearing flower bags as his trousers
Speaker 1: to now, you know, flying around the world doing conferences
Speaker 1: and being one of the leading fertility specialists in the world.
Speaker 1: And that's what medicine did for him, and it's empowering
Speaker 1: and it allows me to help people without me being political,
Speaker 1: because medicine isn't political. Medical medicine is and discriminate that
Speaker 1: same virus that you have, or that same bug. It
Speaker 1: will do the exact same thing to you as it
Speaker 1: would do to somebody who's gay, somebody who's Jewish, someone
Speaker 1: who's Muslim, someone who's black, white, whatever. It's the same thing,
Speaker 1: and the treatment is the same. For the most part.
Speaker 1: We do have some physiological you know, that's what medicine is,
Speaker 1: and that's why I always wanted to do medicine, and
Speaker 1: you know that's why I chose it as a career
Speaker 1: path for me.
Speaker 2: I want to take you back to October seventh, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, because for a lot of people, perhaps shamefully,
Speaker 2: they didn't have the context of what had been happening
Speaker 2: between Israel and Palestine. Maybe they'd seen a few headlines,
Speaker 2: but to them, you see the greatest loss of Jewish life,
Speaker 2: the Holocaust horror. Remember the opera house, the Israeli flag
Speaker 2: was there. What was your response, as someone who had
Speaker 2: family who was in Ghaza, who had a very particular
Speaker 2: vantage point, what was your response on that day.
Speaker 1: I remember because I was on night shift that night
Speaker 1: when news came out. I remember opening up my phone
Speaker 1: and thinking, oh my god. Like, so you've seen some
Speaker 1: of these images that are coming out of Israel and
Speaker 1: you think, oh my god, what is happening. There's this
Speaker 1: like level of like you don't know how to feel
Speaker 1: as a Palestinian because in one hand, you feel pain
Speaker 1: for these people and what's happened to them, and then
Speaker 1: being taken ostagen and you can't you can't feel anything
Speaker 1: but feel sorry when you see people screaming as they're
Speaker 1: being carded away, right. And then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, these images are so powerful because
Speaker 1: everybody knows what was going to come next, and what
Speaker 1: was going to come next was a massive bombing campaign.
Speaker 1: Put it in a context in the first like you know,
Speaker 1: before the first seas fire in November. So the first
Speaker 1: I think about thirty days, twenty four days, these really
Speaker 1: skilled one thy nine hundred children, one nine hundred children
Speaker 1: in about twenty five days. This is just children. Forget
Speaker 1: the women and the men in Gaza. This is just children,
Speaker 1: one nine hundred kild And you know, look, I don't
Speaker 1: ever want it to be about a competition if you've
Speaker 1: killed more than hers, any of it. But what I
Speaker 1: want people to see is, is it if your heart
Speaker 1: breaks and bleeds for what happened on October the seventh,
Speaker 1: to people that how can your heart not break for
Speaker 1: what's happened to these children in Gaza? How can your
Speaker 1: heart not break for the largest cohort of children amputees
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: And your heart has space to break for both?
Speaker 1: I think it does, It does, it does. And I'm
Speaker 1: a Palestinian gas and refugee, and my heart breaks for
Speaker 1: Jewish people who have suffered. Yeah, my heart's always broken
Speaker 1: for Jews people stuff, not just that have suffered, you
Speaker 1: know in Israel, say necessarily on October the seventh, but
Speaker 1: like you know, just reading history and reading the atrocities
Speaker 1: of what happened to Jewish people in Western Europe. But
Speaker 1: you know what happened to Jewish people in Western Europe.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the crime of Palestinians. But yet we are
Speaker 1: the ones that have to pay the price. We are
Speaker 1: the ones that had to leave our villages.
Speaker 2: And I think that that creating space for the grief
Speaker 2: of both of those, I think is really important. And
Speaker 2: your perspective. I think that the horrors of October seven
Speaker 2: and the grief of that and what that did to
Speaker 2: the Jewish community all over the world was you know,
Speaker 2: it's just just awful, unimaginable. But your perspective, I think
Speaker 2: was bracing for what was about to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you decided that you were going to go
Speaker 2: to Gaza. How did you come to that decision? I mean,
Speaker 2: we were hearing so early on that Gaza was one
Speaker 2: of the most dangerous places on earth. How did you
Speaker 2: come to that decision that you would go?
Speaker 1: Do? You know, when you grow up as a refugee
Speaker 1: and you're never allowed to go to your home, you're
Speaker 1: never allowed to see your people, you're never allowed to
Speaker 1: see your land, and when you start seeing what was
Speaker 1: unfolding in Gaza, you know, part of me was like,
Speaker 1: I tell you that now or never?
Speaker 2: Were you scared?
Speaker 1: Was very scared, and my mum was scared because she
Speaker 1: knew what I was willing to do. You know, when
Speaker 1: I was there, I was getting in the back of
Speaker 1: ambulances transporting patients from hospital hospitals. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: do that because it has to be done under un
Speaker 1: coordination and I was just getting in the back of
Speaker 1: ambulance and transporting you know, children were missing limbs and
Speaker 1: children on ventilators but we didn't have ventilators, but bagging
Speaker 1: and masking children, trying to take them from one place
Speaker 1: to another. Cause I knew what I was willing to sacrifice,
Speaker 1: you know, when I went over there to try and help.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was in a lot of danger
Speaker 1: a lot when I was there. But I've been scared
Speaker 1: my whole life, my identity, and you know, I've been bullied,
Speaker 1: I've been being at schools. I've you can't let fear
Speaker 1: be the thing that drives you in life. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing that I just learned, like going into Guds, like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm scared, but you know, I've been scared my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I still had to live my life despite being
Speaker 1: you know. And that's just the thing, like even on
Speaker 1: the campaign trail of this of like going around and
Speaker 1: trying to humanize Palestinian people. I mean, the threat that
Speaker 1: I get, the vitriol in which I've dealt with, the
Speaker 1: racism that I get online and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like it is, it's scary. You know,
Speaker 1: all of it is scary, like to see this kind
Speaker 1: of level of violence like thrown at you. But I
Speaker 1: just say to myself, like, it's just one foot in
Speaker 1: front of the other. You just have to keep going
Speaker 1: one foot in front of the other and until you
Speaker 1: eventually get something done and you know, I've made peace
Speaker 1: with whatever fate comes my way.
Speaker 2: You're an emergency doctor. You walked in to the hospital
Speaker 2: in Gaza. Yeah, can you paint a picture of what
Speaker 2: the resources are like, what the supplies are like, what
Speaker 2: the infrastructure is like, as you know, someone who's had
Speaker 2: your training in Australia, so you know the comparison. What
Speaker 2: was it like walking in there?
Speaker 1: Do you know like there was we basically had no painkillers,
Speaker 1: right so you did? Yeah? Yeah, I mean you know,
Speaker 1: there's like a very very small amount of morphine, but
Speaker 1: like I'd never use I didn't use morphine the whole
Speaker 1: time that I was there. That's just how little there
Speaker 1: was of it there. And we didn't have a single
Speaker 1: ventilator in the emergency department that I was in, not
Speaker 1: one ventilator and the ringoscope that we used to intubate people.
Speaker 1: That when you you know, when you have a look
Speaker 1: down people's throats. There was one of them, and in
Speaker 1: a mass casualty event, that l ringoscope was just covered
Speaker 1: in blood because we were trying to tube so many people.
Speaker 1: And you know, all you do is you just you
Speaker 1: pick up this thing. It's covered in blood by like
Speaker 1: you know, this person's blooding this retubed and you just
Speaker 1: have to like you know, grab mask, rubs, wipe it
Speaker 1: down and then just onto the next one and it
Speaker 1: and then you know, we we were talking about no
Speaker 1: beds there. There's like seven beds in the department and
Speaker 1: like five of them don't have wheels that fully function
Speaker 1: and work. So you know, during these masks events, I
Speaker 1: was like carrying people and taking them to the CT scanner.
Speaker 1: People were dying as they were waiting because there was
Speaker 1: only one CT scanner in the whole north of Gars.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have a mass casualty event
Speaker 1: and you have like you know, one hundred dead, three
Speaker 1: hundred injured or whatever, and you have one CT scanner
Speaker 1: to scan them, all, people die waiting for CT scanners.
Speaker 1: And there when we're dealing with burns, you know, after
Speaker 1: these burn injuries from these these blasts, you know, we
Speaker 1: just have nothing but normal bandages. So when you dress
Speaker 1: these wounds with these inappropriate dressings and then you have
Speaker 1: to change them two days later to stop them getting
Speaker 1: infected because they're not the appropriate dressings. As you're pulling
Speaker 1: the dressings off, you're pulling whatever formed of tissue or
Speaker 1: skin is formed, and you're doing this without any painkillers.
Speaker 1: And these are children and you're literally pulling their skin
Speaker 1: off every two days, and.
Speaker 2: Their screams and no pain relief.
Speaker 1: No pain relief, nothing. And then you know, you know,
Speaker 1: because with the hospitals are so overcrowded, people are staying
Speaker 1: intent around the hospital and these are sick patients and
Speaker 1: you're going into these tents and you're seeing that muggots
Speaker 1: have begun to grow out of their wounds. We just
Speaker 1: don't have enough time to take them all to theater.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you've got one hundred people that
Speaker 1: need surgery today, tomorrow, there's another hundred and another hundred
Speaker 1: and another hundred.
Speaker 2: A lot of people will have had a lot of
Speaker 2: arguments with either family or friends over the last few years,
Speaker 2: and one of the arguments that comes up, you know,
Speaker 2: and there are more than two narratives. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of competing narratives would be I have heard this,
Speaker 2: I've seen it published. Her mass is hiding under the hospitals.
Speaker 2: So maybe that is why there's a disproportionate amount of
Speaker 2: health workers who are hurt because her mass wants their
Speaker 2: own people to die. They talk about human shields. We've
Speaker 2: heard these stories, you've been on the ground, I haven't.
Speaker 2: What did you see?
Speaker 1: Well, look, i mean just the framing of that. You know,
Speaker 1: I want our own people to die, and you know
Speaker 1: that we as Palestinians were just okay with death. And
Speaker 1: you know, oh, well, because you know, there was a
Speaker 1: Israeli prime minister, she was the first ever female prime
Speaker 1: minister as well, and she said there will be peace
Speaker 1: when they love their children more than they hate us.
Speaker 1: So this idea right of human shields, and the Palestinians
Speaker 1: are just willing to sacrifice their children.
Speaker 2: That's not what you saw.
Speaker 1: It's not just what It's just that this is the
Speaker 1: dehumanizing language. It's been used for decades to justify killing children.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm a Palestinian, right, I'm a human being.
Speaker 1: I don't want my children to die. I don't want
Speaker 1: kids to die. I value them I love them. I
Speaker 1: treasure them. To say that I hate somebody more than
Speaker 1: I love my own children, right, think about what that
Speaker 1: does in the psyche of people when that is what's
Speaker 1: been perpetuated for decades, that these uncivilized Arabs, you know,
Speaker 1: for them, you know, they're just savages. Death means nothing
Speaker 1: to them. You know, they hate us so much. Look
Speaker 1: at them, and I'm sat there and I'm like, I'm actually,
Speaker 1: life means a lot. We want to live, We want
Speaker 1: to be free, that's all we want. We just want
Speaker 1: our freedom. We just want to be able to have
Speaker 1: the right to self determination. And that's why indigenous people
Speaker 1: here feel so much for what's going on to Palestinian
Speaker 1: people because they see their own history and what's happened
Speaker 1: to Palatin, the dehumanization. So you know, when we look
Speaker 1: at like what happened on October the seventh, it's horrific
Speaker 1: what happened. And I'm saying that as a Palestinian. You know,
Speaker 1: the killing of women and children, the taking of vostages
Speaker 1: of women and children is horrific. But it's just like
Speaker 1: everybody says, there's no justification for October the seventh, but
Speaker 1: everything is justified because of October the seventh, and again
Speaker 1: people still use to say, well, you know, if they
Speaker 1: release the hostages, it would stop. It won't stop. If
Speaker 1: they release the hostages.
Speaker 2: Well said, it won't stop.
Speaker 1: It won't stop. He said, it won't stop. But we've
Speaker 1: been saying that from day one, and who's broken the
Speaker 1: ceasefire agreements multiple times. I think people now will begin
Speaker 1: to see what you're dealing with.
Speaker 2: So what did you see then in twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: you arrive? What sort of injuries are you are you seeing?
Speaker 2: What sort of patients are you trading? What does that
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 1: Well, so when I when I was there in June,
Speaker 1: I was there for one of the worst mass casualty
Speaker 1: offens of the war. I was there when they rescued
Speaker 1: the four Israeli hostages. We had people coming in with
Speaker 1: missing limbs, missing heads, eighty percent body burns, ninety percent
Speaker 1: body burns. We were seeing children who had been shot
Speaker 1: in the head and neck. We were seeing people that
Speaker 1: had been pulled out from under the rubble and they'd
Speaker 1: been under there for three four days and they were
Speaker 1: coming in completely emanciated. Just doa'nt figures, zombie like figures.
Speaker 1: We were you know. I remember there was this one
Speaker 1: guy who'd come in from you know, from a blast injury,
Speaker 1: and he had half of his you know, his jaw
Speaker 1: was completely missing and his face was like half open,
Speaker 1: and again, no painkillers. We're in this emergency er department
Speaker 1: and it's just overcrowded and full, and this guy's right
Speaker 1: there in the middle with half his face missing, and
Speaker 1: you know, what do you say to someone like that
Speaker 1: and you've got no pain killers? And I remember going
Speaker 1: up to him and I did a dental block on him,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, because there was a part of
Speaker 1: his jaw that was there. So did this thing called
Speaker 1: an inferior alveola nerve block, and I did a superior
Speaker 1: alveola nerve block. But I was like, literally I pulled up,
Speaker 1: like literally a piece of meat that was dangling off.
Speaker 1: The skin had come off, and it was like a
Speaker 1: piece of his cheek muscle, and I'd pulled it up
Speaker 1: and I got my needle and I just tried to
Speaker 1: position it because you don't have any anatomical landmarks. His
Speaker 1: face is all mangled. And I injected him with a
Speaker 1: local anesthetic and I just paused for like, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty seconds and then he looked at me and he
Speaker 1: went he slimm me, theacred doctor just means like bless
Speaker 1: your hands. And I said, are you? I said, how
Speaker 1: does it feel? It's gone numb? I was like going,
Speaker 1: thank God, because I don't know if I could have
Speaker 1: coped gone back to my room, knowing as a guy
Speaker 1: with half his face missing and like just in agony.
Speaker 1: But that's what we were dealing with.
Speaker 2: There's those, you know, attacks and the catastrophic injuries. There
Speaker 2: are the people who who don't even have the catastrophic
Speaker 2: injuries and are living alongside it. How would you describe
Speaker 2: the trauma that you witnessed, the trauma that you witnessed
Speaker 2: from fellow doctors, from communities, from children who have lost parents,
Speaker 2: from parents who have lost children, Like, how do you
Speaker 2: even begin trying to describe the horror that he's living
Speaker 2: in Gaza right now?
Speaker 1: I remember there was one mass casualty event and there
Speaker 1: was this like nine year old girl who'd come in
Speaker 1: and she was injured, and she was barefoot, and she
Speaker 1: was carrying her three year old brother who was also injured,
Speaker 1: and she'd walked kilometers with a three year old brother.
Speaker 1: Whole family had been killed. She's sat there walking with
Speaker 1: her three year old brother in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: bombs going off everywhere, drones shooting people as they're coming
Speaker 1: to the hospital. And I remember just thinking to myself, like,
Speaker 1: this girl has had to watch her entire family be killed.
Speaker 1: She's had to pluck up the courage to pick up
Speaker 1: her injured brother who's crying and is almost lifeless. And
Speaker 1: she's walked in the middle of the night, in the
Speaker 1: dark because there's no electricity, while she's seeing these explosions.
Speaker 1: And you've seen the images of what these explosions are like,
Speaker 1: and just the shaking that it does. And she's walking
Speaker 1: in amongst these explosions to get to the hospital to
Speaker 1: save her brother's life. Do you know I just felt
Speaker 1: I just said to herself, like I wonder how alone
Speaker 1: she feels in this world. And I remember thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: like how alone I feel here? Just you know, we
Speaker 1: are these people are coming in. We have no equipment,
Speaker 1: we have little to no staff to deal with the
Speaker 1: amount that are coming in dead and injured. And this
Speaker 1: little girl is just carrying a little brother, wanting somebody
Speaker 1: to help her. She probably hasn't eaten, She probably hasn't drank.
Speaker 1: I don't know even know if we can save her brother.
Speaker 1: And she is scared, and I'm scared. I'm scared, and
Speaker 1: I'm the grown man and I'm scared, and I'm just
Speaker 1: like I have to be brave, but I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just sat there. I'm just like, somebody needs to
Speaker 1: help us. We can't have this is a slaughter It
Speaker 1: is a slaughter house here, these children and men are
Speaker 1: being slaughtered, and you know, I'm just sat there. I'm
Speaker 1: just like going, is this the best that we have
Speaker 1: is me? Why can't there be somebody better than me
Speaker 1: here that can be here, can save them? Why can't
Speaker 1: someone stop this carnage? But do you know I just
Speaker 1: had to keep going And.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I think I'm better. I think I
Speaker 1: can I think I can talk about it and not
Speaker 1: not break down. But you know, it's just hard.
Speaker 2: With what you're describing, I'm going to inject some absolute
Speaker 2: naivety into it, which is I'm sitting here in my
Speaker 2: comfortable Sydney studio wondering why can't we have resources, Why
Speaker 2: can't we have enough baby formula for the babies, Why
Speaker 2: can't We like, why can we not just load your
Speaker 2: suitcase right when you entered those hospitals? What could you bring?
Speaker 2: Can can you bring aid? Can you bring supplies? Can
Speaker 2: you bring the paintings?
Speaker 1: You can't? You know, we've had doctors just recently who
Speaker 1: were stopped and because they've tried to bring in baby
Speaker 1: formula and the baby formula was taken out of their bags.
Speaker 2: Was there a reason? Was there an explanation?
Speaker 1: The reason is they don't see these people as human beings,
Speaker 1: even children. We keep trying to rationalize what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Why would they say no to baby for There's no
Speaker 1: reason why you would say no to baby formula, no
Speaker 1: reason whatsoever. I never grub, you know. It's it's different
Speaker 1: for me compared to other people because I'm a fluent
Speaker 1: Arabic speaker, you know, so, and I work in the
Speaker 1: emergency department, so I'm right there when the disasters happen.
Speaker 1: I'm right there when the carnage ensues, and people talk
Speaker 1: to me, and you know, I'm going out, like you know,
Speaker 1: in the marketplaces and I'm doing food shops for the
Speaker 1: for the for the staff and getting some food for
Speaker 1: them and things like that. So like I lived the
Speaker 1: life in and amongst these people, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I would stay at my uncle's house, you know, not
Speaker 1: in the safe house, not in the hospital, my uncle's house,
Speaker 1: you know. And man, I mean it was it's really scary,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember one night I was staying at
Speaker 1: my uncle's house and there was an Apache helicopter that
Speaker 1: had flow around the neighborhood and it was just shooting
Speaker 1: at rooftops and it was shooting at our uncle's house.
Speaker 1: And we were just sat there as a family in
Speaker 1: one room because we were like, if there's going to
Speaker 1: be a bomb drop or anything like that, then we'll
Speaker 1: all go together. And we just said that. I just
Speaker 1: remember it myself, this is fucking nuts.
Speaker 2: And that's just the reality every day life.
Speaker 1: That's just the reality of everyday life.
Speaker 2: When you were there in twenty twenty four, because I
Speaker 2: know that recently the images of starvation have circulated around
Speaker 2: the world and has perhaps contributed to some sort of
Speaker 2: international tipping point. You're there in twenty twenty four. Was
Speaker 2: there evidence of starvation?
Speaker 1: Then? Yeah, there was. You know, we had plenty of
Speaker 1: kids that were coming in that was being starved to death.
Speaker 1: Children that were coming in Cacasia, I think you've got
Speaker 1: to remember. And and then we bought with us shampoo
Speaker 1: and body wash, right, yet that was gold dust. There
Speaker 1: was none of that in Gaza because remember that there
Speaker 1: was only like fifty eight trucks a day going into Gaza.
Speaker 1: Back then, there was no aid that got into Gaza.
Speaker 1: For like four weeks, no trucks had got in. So
Speaker 1: you're drip feeding like fifty eight trucks in a day
Speaker 1: and then you cut it off for six weeks. There's
Speaker 1: no toothpaste, there was no body wash. That's why skin
Speaker 1: infections were so rampant. So our shower gel was like
Speaker 1: gold dust. You know. When we were like we would
Speaker 1: have like little bottles of like water and we'd fill
Speaker 1: in a little bit with some shower gel and then
Speaker 1: fill it up with water and we would hand that
Speaker 1: out to people you know, living in terms so that
Speaker 1: they could use that to shower and wash. So you know,
Speaker 1: like there wasn't like this was how desperate the situation
Speaker 1: was then.
Speaker 2: Because you went back in twenty twenty five the second time,
Speaker 2: what was the first you know, hours days like when
Speaker 2: you went back the second time, because was that when
Speaker 2: the seats fire broke the second time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I was like I arrived during the seasfire. Yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. We'd finish work at like eleven o'clock at
Speaker 1: night or something like that. We would go out to
Speaker 1: the streets in Gaza and just like explore and there
Speaker 1: was loads of like people who had you know, because
Speaker 1: it was Ramadan, so people would make food out on
Speaker 1: the stalls and stuff like that, and we would go
Speaker 1: around and explore there.
Speaker 2: So were you fasting? Yeah, so people are fasting in
Speaker 2: the midst of these yeah wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah we used to. Yeah, so you know, we'd fast and.
Speaker 2: And then you would congregate at night because it's it's
Speaker 2: a celebration, right that it's a.
Speaker 1: Villigious Yeah, well, now you'd congregate to eat together. But
Speaker 1: the problem was was that the Israeli is used to
Speaker 1: bomb when it was the call to evening prayer for
Speaker 1: people to you know, when people would pray and then
Speaker 1: come together and eat, that's when they would bomb. So
Speaker 1: it would be ten minutes after the call to prayer
Speaker 1: when people would be gathering together as families to eat,
Speaker 1: and that's when the bombings would be at its most intense.
Speaker 1: Would be about ten minutes after the col to prayer.
Speaker 2: What happened when the seas fire broke? What was your
Speaker 2: experience of that?
Speaker 1: And that was a horrific night, you know, the night
Speaker 1: that is firebroke. I mean I'd finished work at like
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock. I've gone up to my room, you know,
Speaker 1: and finished texting my mom, family, friends, just letting them
Speaker 1: know I was all okay, And then one o'clock, one
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, just the explosions that you would
Speaker 1: hear coming from outside.
Speaker 2: Were you terrified that it was going to hit the hospital?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean we were terrified because we just
Speaker 1: didn't know. You know, you don't know like comms have
Speaker 1: been cut, you know, once the bombs start, they cut
Speaker 1: comes for like however many few hours, you know, and
Speaker 1: so coms have cut, we don't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: and all we're hearing is like just the room is shaking,
Speaker 1: literally dozens of bombs going off in the space of
Speaker 1: like five minutes. And you're looking around and you can
Speaker 1: see the explosions out from your window, like that's how
Speaker 1: close the bombings is, and you just have no idea
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next. So I remember you going
Speaker 1: in during the seas fire. Now the bombing has started,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I knew going in the second
Speaker 1: time round. It just so it happened that I you know,
Speaker 1: I was always planning on going back, but it just
Speaker 1: so happened that I went back during say, this is fight,
Speaker 1: but I knew this is fire was not going to hold.
Speaker 2: What do you say in the aftermath of that in
Speaker 2: the hours you're an emergency doctor, it must be bracing yourself.
Speaker 1: We we had I remember just like these these families
Speaker 1: coming in, and these mothers coming in, and they would
Speaker 1: bring in plastic bags and it would just be their children,
Speaker 1: just organs that were left of their children and body
Speaker 1: pieces that they'd gathered and they'd bought in in plastic bags.
Speaker 1: They would have that a plastic bag of one of
Speaker 1: their children, and they would know they'd have their other
Speaker 1: child that they would carry that would be injured. Do
Speaker 1: you know you just sat there and you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: where like what is going on here? Like what.
Speaker 2: How do you even? How do you triage? How do
Speaker 2: you decide? When you were that overwhelmed, you have no supplies,
Speaker 2: barely any start. You went into this, I would imagine
Speaker 2: to save lives. That's why doctors go into it. Where
Speaker 2: do you begin with children that need you.
Speaker 1: It's difficult for me compared to other people because those
Speaker 1: children they look like me. You know, I'm a Garden,
Speaker 1: I'm a Garsen, and you know, when I'm there in Gaza,
Speaker 1: most people don't believe I'm an international doctor. They think
Speaker 1: I'm from Gaza. And when you see a child that
Speaker 1: looks like you or looks like your sister, who really
Speaker 1: hits home. And then when you know there's no tree,
Speaker 1: it's just chaos, like there's just bodies everywhere and people screaming,
Speaker 1: and you get so overwhelmed right in that moment that
Speaker 1: I say to myself, if I start going around and
Speaker 1: looking at everyone, I'm not going to see everyone because
Speaker 1: there's just so there's like literally dozens of people, hundreds
Speaker 1: of people. So I just focus on what's right in
Speaker 1: front of me, like what can I see in front
Speaker 1: of me? And I remember there was this guy and
Speaker 1: he was literally at the entrance because it was so crowded.
Speaker 1: He was literally at the entrance to the emergency department.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just got down on the floor
Speaker 1: and I had my pocket ultrasound and I scanned his
Speaker 1: chest and he had, you know, blood in his lungs,
Speaker 1: and I knew we needed to get a chest train in,
Speaker 1: so I literally grabbed a scalpel and I stabbed him
Speaker 1: in the chest and put in a chest train in
Speaker 1: on the floor and he's like, you know, badly injured,
Speaker 1: bleeding everywhere, and I'm putting this chest strain in securing
Speaker 1: the tube. Once I've got that in with one of
Speaker 1: the nurses, and I've told him to stay with him,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go see if there's anybody else
Speaker 1: that's in a critical condition because I've got the ultrasound
Speaker 1: to see if I can scan more people, see who's
Speaker 1: in critical condition, who's bleeding out. But I remember, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to go carry this guy to
Speaker 1: the CT scanner. And I got him to the CT
Speaker 1: scanner and we scanned him in the cets kander and
Speaker 1: we scanned his head initially, and then we were about
Speaker 1: to scan his body and he died. Died on the
Speaker 1: CTS kander, and we literally didn't even have the time.
Speaker 1: We just literally put him down off the CT scanner
Speaker 1: and then we got the next person on there. And
Speaker 1: the next person was this woman who had it intestines
Speaker 1: hanging out. That was the next person that we were scanning.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's just carnage, just total carnage. And
Speaker 1: you know, every day you're losing staff in Gaza because
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses are being killed every single day in Gaza.
Speaker 1: So you know, you don't know what's going to turn up,
Speaker 1: what kind of workforce is going to turn up?
Speaker 2: Then are they being killed in the bombings like you saidyeah, yea, yeah, yeah, they've.
Speaker 1: Been killed in the bombings as well. So you just
Speaker 1: you know, you go into this and you have no
Speaker 1: idea one who the staff that are going to turn
Speaker 1: up today, what kind of mass casualty event you're going
Speaker 1: to see, Like what kind of bombs they're going to
Speaker 1: use today? You know sometimes you know when they burn
Speaker 1: the journalists in their tents, there's a certain type of bomb.
Speaker 1: They sometimes use bombs that like cause shredding of people,
Speaker 1: like they spit out these blades.
Speaker 2: Had you worked in war zones before this? Like, had
Speaker 2: you what some hospitals had you worked at?
Speaker 1: You know, I'd work at refugee camps before and stuff,
Speaker 1: but never in a war zone. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: like a young guy. I mean, you in my medical career,
Speaker 1: and it just so happened that this was the first
Speaker 1: big major conflict event where I was in my training.
Speaker 1: I was ready to deal with quite a lot.
Speaker 2: And how did it compare You've been to refugee camps,
Speaker 2: which is not like your hospital in Australia, Like I
Speaker 2: can imagine that you had some image maybe of what
Speaker 2: to expect. How did it compare to what you've done previously.
Speaker 1: Nothing can prepare you for Gaza. Nothing can prepare for God.
Speaker 1: And I think everybody has said that, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: major figures in the UN who have been to thirty
Speaker 1: different war zones have said Gaza is just different. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like I say, like you have no idea
Speaker 1: whether you're going to be alive, whether you're going to
Speaker 1: be bombed, the level of injuries that you're seeing, and
Speaker 1: the lack of medical equipment, the lack of food, the
Speaker 1: power outings and the cuts and electricity, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is a scary place to go and work. And it
Speaker 1: is just you know, the guilt when you leave Gaza.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave Gaza, you know, I really
Speaker 1: didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and I
Speaker 1: wanted to continue working but you know, I was told
Speaker 1: that I needed to leave for my own safety because
Speaker 1: you know, I was going viral while I was there,
Speaker 1: and I was posting lots of videos and people were
Speaker 1: worried for my safety.
Speaker 2: And so you shared those videos, which were incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2: I mean, witnessing and broadcasting feels like when you're powerless,
Speaker 2: one of the only things you can do.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What was the response to that? Obviously within Australia globally
Speaker 2: people are watching it, But did you have second thoughts
Speaker 2: when you were in those hospitals about sharing it, knowing
Speaker 2: that that was putting you in danger?
Speaker 1: Well? I remember when I was filming this mass casualty
Speaker 1: event and we had this like doctor who'd come in
Speaker 1: and she was like an American doctor from a major NGO.
Speaker 1: She said to me, you're not allowed to film. Switch
Speaker 1: that off. You're not allowed to film. It's against the rules.
Speaker 1: And I remember just stood in a part of these
Speaker 1: bodies and I went and is this the rules? Is
Speaker 1: this the rules? Is this the rules that we're playing
Speaker 1: by here? I'm not allowed to film what's going on,
Speaker 1: but they can kill these children? Is this the rules?
Speaker 1: Is this the double standard? But this is why I
Speaker 1: was like, we need to do something about this. And
Speaker 1: this is why I was like, I need to do
Speaker 1: something about this because it's not working what we have now.
Speaker 1: We have NGOs that are so scared to talk in
Speaker 1: case they lose access to Gaza that they won't call
Speaker 1: it for what it is. I mean, just imagine, imagine,
Speaker 1: like you know, coming in there and saying no, we're
Speaker 1: not allowed to record what's going on. I'm like, what
Speaker 1: do you want? You want us to die quietly then
Speaker 1: so they can allow a few ventilators to come in
Speaker 1: and some small amount a couple of boxes of antibiotics.
Speaker 1: Is that why we're not going to film?
Speaker 2: When people look at this, you know so many people
Speaker 2: are horrified and completely overwhelmed in terms of what they
Speaker 2: can do. And you left your second stay in Gaza
Speaker 2: and you came up with a plan. Can you talk
Speaker 2: us through that plan and what you need in order
Speaker 2: to make that happen.
Speaker 1: I know that I can't stop the bombs. It's not
Speaker 1: me that's going to stop it. It's going to be
Speaker 1: these powerful government figures that come together and decide one
Speaker 1: enough is enough. And you know what we have to
Speaker 1: do as a population is we just have to keep
Speaker 1: applying pressure. So we're going to apply pressure for the
Speaker 1: bombs to stop. That's what needs to happen for as
Speaker 1: the bombs need to stop and there needs to be
Speaker 1: food and aid that goes into Gaza. But my aim
Speaker 1: as a doctor was to re establish the healthcare system
Speaker 1: in Gaza and it was to bring in a mobile
Speaker 1: hospital into Gaza. Now, the whole idea of bringing a
Speaker 1: mobile hospital into Gaza is this would be under the British, Australian, Canadian,
Speaker 1: New Zealand Irish flag. That would provide some form of
Speaker 1: protection for the hospital because now it's like a essentially
Speaker 1: like a diplomatic base that hospital now because it is
Speaker 1: under the governance of the British the Australians, which are
Speaker 1: allies with Israel, that hopefully that would provide it with safety.
Speaker 1: But it would also mean that we have an unrestricted
Speaker 1: access line to medicine and medical equipment and also that
Speaker 1: what that would mean is when we bring in the hospital,
Speaker 1: what comes in with the hospital is dozens of doctors
Speaker 1: and nurses, not the eight doctors that come in on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday and the eight doctors and nurses that come
Speaker 1: in on a Thursday. And as they get swapped in
Speaker 1: and out only you know, a handful of doctors that
Speaker 1: go into Gaza at a time. This is a self
Speaker 1: sufficient hospital. It's solar panel powered, it has operating theaters,
Speaker 1: it has a pathology lab, pharmacy, it even has transfusion
Speaker 1: centers in it as well. It has doctors quarters, it
Speaker 1: has a kitchen in it, and you know, I've traveled
Speaker 1: around the world to try and get these governments to
Speaker 1: sign on to bringing in a hospital and to take
Speaker 1: back some level, you know, because they say that they're
Speaker 1: disgusted at what they're seeing and it's unacceptable. We'll do something.
Speaker 1: Bring in a hospital and start treating these these people
Speaker 1: and trying to alleviate some of these images that we're
Speaker 1: seeing out of Gaza. We can't even evacuate children out
Speaker 1: of Gaza. There's literally thousands of children that need evacuating
Speaker 1: out of Gaza, that need medical aid treatment that are
Speaker 1: not being evacuated. And I know this because I'm actively
Speaker 1: behind the scenes trying to get these children evacuated, helping
Speaker 1: out with filling in their referral forms and going through
Speaker 1: different and finding hospitals that will take them. And it's
Speaker 1: a very hard process and you know, we'll try for
Speaker 1: weeks to try and get someone out and they might
Speaker 1: die while they're waiting. These kids. So, if we can't
Speaker 1: get these kids evacuated out of Gaza, if it's too
Speaker 1: much of a political nightmare to bring in brown kids
Speaker 1: here because you know people will complain if we bring
Speaker 1: kids here that or what about the kids? Our kids here?
Speaker 1: What about our hospitals are already And I totally get all
Speaker 1: of that right, But if you're not going to do anything,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to bring them over here, then
Speaker 1: at least we can do is bring a hospital over
Speaker 1: there and start treating children over there.
Speaker 2: So have you spoken to politicians? Where is that plan at?
Speaker 1: I have spoken a lot with politicians. I've traveled around
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Have you spoken to Anthony Abenezi yet.
Speaker 1: I've not spoken to Anthony Abenzia. I've been reaching out
Speaker 1: to him over and over again to speak to him.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to anyone, but I've spoke to anyone, you know,
Speaker 1: when I first came out of Gaza and not since
Speaker 1: we've materialized this plan. I speak with aunt Ali, who's
Speaker 1: the full development minister.
Speaker 2: What would you need so you would need?
Speaker 1: I need courage, I need courage. I need courage. I
Speaker 1: need my Prime Minister. I need him to be a
Speaker 1: leader here. I need him to save those children's lives.
Speaker 1: That's what I need him to do. I need him
Speaker 1: to take leadership. I know the amount of flak that
Speaker 1: he gets and the put like you know, what I'd
Speaker 1: say to him is you're the Prime minister. It's your job.
Speaker 1: People are not going to like what you do. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, history is going to
Speaker 1: judge and what we did for these children. And I
Speaker 1: can't be the one that carries this. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just a junior doctor from birth. I'm just a just
Speaker 1: a kid, not a not a politician. And I've had
Speaker 1: threat on my life, my you know, my wife and Gaza.
Speaker 1: Her home was bombed two days ago. Luckily she wasn't
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: I'm in awe of that courage for in absolutely awe. Sorry,
Speaker 2: and I think that there will be a lot of
Speaker 2: people listening who want to help. I don't know how
Speaker 2: you argue with the children's hospital. I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: I just we just have to keep going. Look, I
Speaker 1: hate breaking down, but it's like so hard because I
Speaker 1: watch her every single day and I see the weight
Speaker 1: that she's losing, and I see that she's struggling. And
Speaker 1: our home was bombed and then my uncle's home. And
Speaker 1: I asked them, I say, look, I will stop if
Speaker 1: you want me to stop, and they just say you
Speaker 1: have to keep going because it's needed. People need you
Speaker 1: to be successful here. People's lives are relying on this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the one that carries this.
Speaker 1: I want I want it. I want I want Anthony
Speaker 1: Alberty easy to step in. I want him to help.
Speaker 1: And I'm pleading all the time. Just meet with me,
Speaker 1: talk with me. Let's get this done. Do you know
Speaker 1: I've I've got the Irish I'm on board. I've got
Speaker 1: the British government talking now with the Australian government behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. I've you know, got World Central Kitchen on board,
Speaker 1: and they've said that they would provide the food for
Speaker 1: this hospital and they would feed all the doctors and nurses.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just a kid. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just a thirty five year old junior doctor.
Speaker 1: And if I'm able to do this, you could do
Speaker 1: this with one phone call. Anthony Albanezi And look, I
Speaker 1: know I'm simplifying it and saying with one phone call,
Speaker 1: but like you can be the guy that leads this, right,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do this and I've got my family's
Speaker 1: and my wife's life on the line here, and it's hard.
Speaker 1: And it's hard every day getting up in the morning
Speaker 1: and just reading the abuse and the threats and knowing
Speaker 1: that your family's in danger and the amount of family
Speaker 1: members that I've had killed in the last few weeks
Speaker 1: in Kaza, and it's just it's relentless. But we just
Speaker 1: have to keep going because I just feel like if
Speaker 1: I stop, then what's going to happen? And you know,
Speaker 1: I wish there would be more people that would be
Speaker 1: brave enough to talk. And I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are talking about it, but I just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: thrown into this. I've not chosen this. I've not chosen
Speaker 1: to be out here talking to people and speaking about this.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not media trained, I'm not a politician.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fundraiser. I've never built a hospital in
Speaker 1: my life. Somehow I've managed to put a blueprint together
Speaker 1: of how to build a hospital. I've got governments on
Speaker 1: board of how to do it. I've got an infrastructure
Speaker 1: in place, I've got an enng O that I'm willing
Speaker 1: to do it. I've had to do all of these
Speaker 1: things since coming out of Gaza, living out of a suitcase.
Speaker 1: But if I can do these things right, then then
Speaker 1: then our government can do a lot more. If I
Speaker 1: can get this done, then then I just need Anthony
Speaker 1: albin Easy to sit down with me, talk with me,
Speaker 1: and I need him to take on the bat And
Speaker 1: I know, I know this is politically it's a political minefield. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this right, But this is not politic. This is children's
Speaker 1: lives on the line. Here. There are moments in your
Speaker 1: life where you get tested on your character of who
Speaker 1: you are. Right, you can sit there when you have
Speaker 1: your victory speech after the elections and you can say
Speaker 1: that we are a compassionate nation and we are built
Speaker 1: on kindness. But it's not easy to do that. It's
Speaker 1: not easy. It takes risky, It comes with risks, It
Speaker 1: comes with risks. And I'm telling Anthony albanias I'm telling
Speaker 1: him that these risks that you perceive right here, the
Speaker 1: rewards are so much more, and there's so many more
Speaker 1: people around the world would be grateful for your leadership here,
Speaker 1: for your courage to stand up for these people. But
Speaker 1: it can't be left to ordinary people to stand up.
Speaker 2: If we can't agree on a children's hospital, then what
Speaker 2: are we doing. I think that that's a sense that
Speaker 2: I bet a lot of a lot of people have.
Speaker 2: And in one of the most despairing, you know, apocalyptic spaces.
Speaker 2: You met someone when you were in Gaza and you
Speaker 2: are now married. What is life like for her right now?
Speaker 2: What's that been like? That that distance and advocating for
Speaker 2: someone who you just must be so scared?
Speaker 1: Do you know? Like when I met her, I was
Speaker 1: working in the emergency department and she was there, and
Speaker 1: you know, look, it's been two years of this where
Speaker 1: you know, you have these children coming and they're dying
Speaker 1: on the floor and stuff, and a lot of doctors
Speaker 1: have compassion fatigue. You know, there's not the same adrenaline
Speaker 1: rush when you see an injured child now in Gaza
Speaker 1: because there's just so many.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the trauma that they're living with. How
Speaker 2: you just get up and go to work.
Speaker 1: The next day and they do it every single day.
Speaker 1: I mean, credit to them, they get up every single
Speaker 1: day despite this trauma. Right. I remember just seeing her
Speaker 1: and like she didn't have that compassion fatigue that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have. She was there seeing every single patient,
Speaker 1: giving time to every single patient. Like I remember, just
Speaker 1: I remember just hitting myself out, like this woman's empathy
Speaker 1: and kindness and compassion really shine through. And I was just,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just so nervous to even approach
Speaker 1: to talk to her, because I was just like, she's
Speaker 1: like this angelic thing like walking around and I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to approach her. And I remember thinking to myself, right, tomorrow, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak to it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd spoken to her, but in a professional context of
Speaker 1: like dealing with patients. But I said, tomorrow, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I want to speak to her and just like get
Speaker 1: to know her a little bit. And then at four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, we got a call from the
Speaker 1: un saying that we had to be evacuated from the
Speaker 1: north and go to the South, and that the bus
Speaker 1: was going to be there at eight o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: So I had to leave at eight o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning before I got to see her. And I remember
Speaker 1: thinking of myself here, you know, just there's there's no
Speaker 1: way that this is ever going to be, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember because you know, at that stage, I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen my own cool because because they were in
Speaker 1: the south and I was placed in the north. So
Speaker 1: when I was there in the South, I went to
Speaker 1: go visit my uncle at his house and I was
Speaker 1: I was going to stay there, and you know, I
Speaker 1: said to my uncle said, oh, yeah, you know, there
Speaker 1: was this girl at the hospital. But you know it's
Speaker 1: not my it's not my destiny of but to be
Speaker 1: with her. And he went, no, he went new call
Speaker 1: up the head of the hospital and you ask him
Speaker 1: about her. And I was just like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's just I was like, this is this is slack.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's busy, the head of the hospital, like
Speaker 1: with an entire you know, there's a war going on here.
Speaker 1: And then I called up the head of the hospital.
Speaker 1: It was doctor name, and I said to me, you know, doctor,
Speaker 1: there was a girl that worked in the er, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just really liked her name was not
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, I know, her father. Her father
Speaker 1: is actually an orthopedic sursion he works with me. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'll speak to him. So he spoke to her father,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of hours later, her father called
Speaker 1: me and he was like, you know, I heard that
Speaker 1: you're interested in my daughter. I was thinking myself, what
Speaker 1: this is getting real serious. I was just I just
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to her, and you know, we sat there,
Speaker 1: we spoke on the phone, and then he just said, like,
Speaker 1: you know, look before I talked to her, I want
Speaker 1: to meet you in person. So he came from the
Speaker 1: north of Gaza to the south of Gaza, and he
Speaker 1: came because there's only one road that's open and into
Speaker 1: the Sea road. So he came via the sea road
Speaker 1: to where I was at my uncle's house. And then
Speaker 1: he spent like three four hours with me, just talking
Speaker 1: to me and getting to know me. And the next
Speaker 1: day he went and he, you know, he said, I
Speaker 1: want to speak to Nord. I like you you're a
Speaker 1: good guy, and doesn't want to go to speak to Nord.
Speaker 1: So he spoke to Nor and Noah said yes, that
Speaker 1: she would meet with me. So then the next day
Speaker 1: he came again with Laurence. She came from the north
Speaker 1: to the south. It's so dangerous, like traveling from the
Speaker 1: north to the south. And he came and you know,
Speaker 1: me and her I were in my uncle's house and
Speaker 1: it was so funny because they gave us like a
Speaker 1: room for me and her to sit in and to talk,
Speaker 1: and my cousins would like knock on the door and
Speaker 1: like bring in like coffee, and like I was all going, guys,
Speaker 1: you two love birds. And you know, at the end
Speaker 1: of like that conversation with me and her, you know,
Speaker 1: you know when you just know, you know, look, I've
Speaker 1: been born and I was raised in the west. Like
Speaker 1: I always thought that I would, you know, the way
Speaker 1: that I would meet somebody would be like you know,
Speaker 1: I would get to know them and you know how
Speaker 1: I'll date them for a while and then and then
Speaker 1: get married. But like, you know, just listening to the
Speaker 1: way that she spoke and her grace and her manners
Speaker 1: and her kindness and her empathy, I was just blown away.
Speaker 1: I was just like, there's there's there's no one better
Speaker 1: than this than this, than this woman. And you know
Speaker 1: when you know, she's so graceful, so like when when
Speaker 1: you know, when we finished talking, she said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pray and then I'll and then I'll give you
Speaker 1: my answer of what we want to do. So you know,
Speaker 1: she they went home and in the morning, after morning prayer,
Speaker 1: I got a call and I was in the hospital
Speaker 1: at the time. I was working, and I got a
Speaker 1: call from her dad and he said congratulations, he said,
Speaker 1: she said yes, she wants to go ahead, and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, cool. I was like, so you know,
Speaker 1: we'll get engaged in will halal date or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then you know, I told my uncles like yeah, she
Speaker 1: said yes, and he was like all right, good. He
Speaker 1: was like all right, go get a suit and I
Speaker 1: was like what he was like, He's like listen, well,
Speaker 1: He's like, we're in a war zone here, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to mess around here. He goes, you're going
Speaker 1: to marry this girl. And I was like, oh my god, okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's go do this. And there was no suits
Speaker 1: that would fit me in Gaza because so we ended
Speaker 1: up getting like this shirt that didn't even close. So
Speaker 1: it was me wearing a white shirt and this pink
Speaker 1: shirt and coincidentally, we match. She was wearing this like
Speaker 1: pink Palestinian dress. And you know, the crazy thing about
Speaker 1: all of this as well as is I I hadn't
Speaker 1: even seen her without her head jab so like I
Speaker 1: didn't know what she looked like. This was purely based
Speaker 1: on her as a person and as a character. And
Speaker 1: you know, I got married and everything like that, and
Speaker 1: I still hadn't seen what she looked like. And it
Speaker 1: was only after like the day after she came. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: the day after she came, and took a couple of
Speaker 1: days later and we hung out at my uncle's house,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's where I saw the first time
Speaker 1: about her head scoff on, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've struggled here, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: since then, we talk every single day, every single night,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's been so supportive of everything that
Speaker 1: we that I've been doing.
Speaker 2: And she's is she still working in the hospital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just this morning I was speaking to
Speaker 1: her and she just performed a cesarean section, and the
Speaker 1: day before she had operated on someone's leg. Because her
Speaker 1: father's an orthopedic surgeon, so she she assists with him,
Speaker 1: and she does now the full surgeries like from A
Speaker 1: to B by herself. And now she's performing these sections,
Speaker 1: she's complete different, Like this is what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: she is so incredibly smart, so incredibly compassionate and kind
Speaker 1: and beautiful.
Speaker 2: And do you know when you're going to say her next?
Speaker 1: I hope soon, because you know she's really really struggling.
Speaker 1: And like I say, her home was bombed yesterday, and
Speaker 1: you know, I feel guilty sometimes, you know, and seeing
Speaker 1: family being killed every day, seeing your wife suffer, it's tough, man,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's tough. And do you know sometimes I
Speaker 1: wish I wish I wasn't in this position. I wish
Speaker 1: I just was just a quiet life. But you know,
Speaker 1: I know that my experiences in my life have shaped
Speaker 1: me for this moment to be ready to help. And
Speaker 1: this is this is now where they need me to
Speaker 1: stay focused and they need me not to cave into
Speaker 1: the pressure. And I know that the pressure now is mounting.
Speaker 1: It's mounting because we're close. Yeah, it's mounting because we're close.
Speaker 1: And you I just hope that the Prime Minister does
Speaker 1: eventually meet with me. You can take a bit of
Speaker 1: this pressure off. You know, I can't carry this all
Speaker 1: on my own.
Speaker 2: You have an enormous amount of support and I think
Speaker 2: in a moment that has been so divisive, it has
Speaker 2: broken families, it has broken communities, and this is on
Speaker 2: the other side of the world that's not even acknowledging
Speaker 2: the real crisis which is happening in Gaza. I just
Speaker 2: want to end by saying thank you. Thank you for
Speaker 2: what you do with your hands, thank you for having
Speaker 2: the skills that mean that you actually can make a
Speaker 2: tangible difference in Gaza. But also thank you for your patience,
Speaker 2: because this is not the first interview you've done. You've
Speaker 2: been doing interviews for a long time with a lot
Speaker 2: of people revisiting trauma, talking about some of the worst,
Speaker 2: most horrendous things a person could ever witness. And it
Speaker 2: is patient, and it is gracious, and it is truly
Speaker 2: truly making a difference. And I hope that when you
Speaker 2: get some sleep and a moment to rest, you can
Speaker 2: feel the gravity of what you're doing because you do
Speaker 2: have the Australian community behind you, you really really do.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to thank you. I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: After listening, I hope you can understand why I was
Speaker 2: so deeply moved by our conversation. If this interview brought
Speaker 2: up anything for you, there are links to Lifeline and
Speaker 2: Beyond Blue in the show notes. If you're wondering how
Speaker 2: you can help, we've included links to charities and organizations
Speaker 2: that you can donate to in our show notes. And
Speaker 2: of course, if you want to continue to follow the
Speaker 2: work and the advocacy of doctor Mo, we have linked
Speaker 2: to his instagram, The Beast from the Middle East. Thank
Speaker 2: you for listening. The executive producer of No Filter is
Speaker 2: Nama Brown, the senior producer is Pre Player, and our
Speaker 2: audio engineer is Jacob Brown.