Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
A letter from Dr. Mads Gilbert, a physician working in Gaza
Dearest friends --
Last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with bodies maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying -- all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.
The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24 hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment at all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!
Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).
My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace –- but we cannot afford that, nor can they.
Ashy grey faces -- Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out -– oh -– the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas –- the leftovers from death –- all taken away… to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs., enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here -– almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors -– all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday's hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormously resolute.
And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!
Dr Mads Gilbert with a patient at Shifa Hospital in Gaza: photo via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
And then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16s, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much of it made in and paid for by US.
Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
I invite you –- spend one night -– just one night –- with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.
I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.
Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.
But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.
The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.
Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue. MadsGaza, Occupied Palestine
Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Professor and Clinical Head
Clinic of Emergency Medicine
University Hospital of North Norway
A medic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society carries an injured
child to a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah following
an Israeli air strike before a five-hour ceasefire went into effect on
17 July. Four children were killed
when Israel resumed its heavy bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip
after the expiry on Thursday afternoon of a five-hour "humanitarian ceasefire" requested by the United Nations: photo by Eyad Al Baba / APA Images, 17 July 2014
Palestinian refugee at UNRWA school in Gaza: photo via UNRWA, 21 July 2014
UNRWA Gaza situation report, 21 July 2014
The following situation report was issued by UNRWA today.
GAZA SITUATION REPORT (ISSUE NO. 13)
21 July 2014 | Issue No. 13
On 7 July, in response to escalating violence between Israel and Hamas, UNRWA declared an emergency in all five areas of the Gaza Strip. The number of displaced people has since gone beyond the peak number from the 2008/9 conflict, and exceeds 84,000 in 67 schools. UNRWA has launched an emergency flash appeal for US$ 60 million to respond to the urgent and pressing humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, including the thousands who have already fled their homes to seek safety in UNRWA facilities.
GENERAL
Past 24 hours: The past 24 hours marked the deadliest period since the current escalations of violence began, with 107 Palestinians killed, including 23 women and 35 children. Tragically, the total number of children killed in the current conflict has now passed 100 and represents almost one quarter of all Palestinian fatalities. 13 Israeli soldiers were reportedly killed in this 24- hour period.
The densely populated Shejayeh area, in the Eastern part of Gaza City suffered the most extreme levels of violence during this period, with at least 72 Palestinians killed (38 men, 13 women and 21 children) in a major escalation of the IDF ground offensive. A brief humanitarian pause to evacuate the wounded and dead was only partially implemented, with rescuers reportedly unable to access some areas of Shejayeh to provide assistance. Scenes at Shifa Hospital following the escalation in Shejayeh have been widely reported, with hospital staff overwhelmed with mass casualties.
An expanded IDF ground offensive has resulted in an exponential increase in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); it is estimated that up to half of Shejayeh’s residents fled their homes in reported scenes of panic during this period. The number of displaced Palestinians in UNRWA shelters across the Gaza Strip climbed sharply from 63,000 on 20 July to 84,843 on 21 July. This sharp increase has presented significant challenges to UNRWA operations, with shelters overwhelmed with huge numbers of displaced.
The scope of displacement is expected to further increase, with a ground offensive in place in six areas of the Gaza Strip. In Beit Hanoun the ground offensive now reaches to 1000 meters inside Gazan territory. In Middle Area, leaflets were dropped by the IDF in Maghazi Camp overnight requesting residents to leave their homes, and raising concerns of a possible expansion of the ground offensive in that area.
The continuing conflict is having an impact on delivery of basic services. Despite strong commitment from UNRWA sanitation staff, the Agency is struggling to maintain solid waste management operations in the context of ongoing escalations in violence and high numbers of IDPs in shelters. This presents a potential serious public health risk.
The ongoing conflict also presents a major concern regarding the risk of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), especially to children. UNRWA is providing basic UXO awareness in shelters and will delivering a more comprehensive awareness program once current hostilities cease.
“Gaza is an open wound”. This is how, speaking from Doha on 20 July, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon described the current situation in Gaza. The Secretary- General condemned the killings of civilians, including children in Shejayeh as an “atrocious action” and called for an immediate end to the violence, stating that “too many innocent civilians are dying”. The Secretary- General’s statement was made during a late- night session of the UN Security Council, at which members reportedly expressed serious concern at rising casualty numbers and called for respect of international humanitarian law to be upheld. International pressure for an end to the conflict is continuing; with US Secretary of State John Kerry expected in Egypt discuss the crisis.
UNRWA RESPONSE
SUMMARY OF MAJOR INCIDENTS
- UNRWA is now providing shelter to more than 84,843 beneficiaries all five areas of the Gaza Strip. There are currently 67 designated emergency shelters, with more expected to open throughout the day. The priority continues to be the provision of food, water, sleeping and cleaning items.
- Over the past 24 hours, food and water rations were distributed to shelters. This includes 233 family hygiene kits, 168 baby hygiene kits, 6940 mattresses, 3191 blankets, 54,489 tins of tuna, and 16,512 50- piece packets of bread.
- Regular sanitation operations continue, with more than half of sanitation staff reporting for work, removing 136 tones of solid waste.
- Regular UNRWA operations are affected but continue as security permits. 15 of 21 health clinics remain operational, and regular UNRWA services are available. 4549 people visited UNRWA health clinics yesterday, including more than 300 children who had regular check-ups and/or immunizations. There were 174 visits to the dentist at UNRWA health clinics and 33 people had appointments with psychosocial counselors.
Reportedly, there were 101 rockets and 37 mortar shells fired towards Israel. IAF conducted 131 raids firing 182 missiles. Israeli navy fired 146 shells; and 721 tank shells were fired. 66 houses were bombarded.
UNRWA INSTALLATIONS
A total of 75 UNRWA installations have been damaged since 1 June, 2014.
In the past 24 hours, three UNRWA installations were damaged – one school in Bureij, a school in Nuseirat and the Microfinance Office in Middle Area.
FUNDING NEEDS
UNRWA has launched an emergency flash appeal for US$ 60 million to respond to the urgent and pressing humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, including the thousands who have already fled their homes to seek safety in UNRWA facilities. New funding will enable UNRWA to respond to the immediate shelter, food, health and psychosocial needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs), while replenishing emergency supplies and preparing for vital interventions necessary after a cessation of military activities. The emergency response phase is expected to last for one month, and the early recovery a further three to six months.
Based on the escalating number of IDPs and further destruction of shelters, a revised appeal will be released shortly.
CROSSINGS
- Rafah crossing was open for foreign passport holders and wounded Palestinians.
- Erez was open only for foreigners and humanitarian medical cases.
- Kerem Shalom crossing was open for food and fuel.
Since this report was written, the situation has continued to deteriorate. According to UNRWA spokesperson Gunness:
Today saw a massive wave of human displacement in Gaza with around 20,000 displaced: 20k personal tragedies, 20 tales of dignity denied RT -- Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) 21 July 2014
Today saw a massive wave of human displacement in Gaza with around 20,000 displaced: 20k personal tragedies, 20 tales of dignity denied RT -- Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) 21 July 2014
Palestinians who fled their houses following an Israeli ground offensive take shelter at a UNRWA school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2014: photo by Eyad Al Baba / APA Images, 19 July 2014
The Devastation
One of the at least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family killed in an airstrike last night. Still in diapers:photo via @kristenchick / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Another terrorist killed by Israeli army in Gaza: photo via MohannadArawi / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Horrible killing in Gaza. Gazan corpses lying everywhere: photo via @m_househ / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
At least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family were killed in an F-16 strike on their home in Khan Yunis last night: photo via sharifkouddous / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. Beisan's home was shelled and collapsed by Israel's military operation in Shijaiyah in the Gaza Strip. She survived the ordeal with her aunt and uncle. Beisan's mother, father, brother, sister and baby sister all died in the attack. According to a family relative, the house came crashing down around 11:00 am local time. During a temporary ceasefire, an Associated Press team accompanied Palestinian Red Cross volunteers who managed to speak to the aunt who was trapped under the rubble of her home pleading for help for her husband and Beisan. By 6pm local time the volunteers were able to free the young girl and her aunt and uncle from the rubble, leaving behind the rest of her family: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
Palestinians search for survivors under the rubble of a house was
destroyed by an Israeli missile strike, in Gaza City, Monday, July 21,
2014. On Sunday, the first major ground battle in two weeks of
Israel-Hamas fighting exacted a steep price, killing scores of
Palestinians and over a dozen Israeli soldiers and forcing thousands of
terrified Palestinian civilians to flee their devastated Shijaiyah
neighborhood, which Israel says is a major source for rocket fire
against its civilians: photo by Khalil Hamra / AP, 21 July 2014)
Smoke rose as Israeli tanks shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said that 10 Hamas fighters were killed Monday in Shejaiya, and that six underground tunnels had been “completely demolished” across Gaza in the past 24 hours: photo by Mohammed Saber / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
Palestinian men buried the bodies of members of the Abu Jamei family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Khan Younis in Gaza on Monday. At the family’s home, people searching beneath the rubble left by an overnight attack on Monday counted 26 bodies, by far the most victims of a single strike in this offensive: photo by Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times. 21 July 2014
A wounded boy arrived at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. On the fifth day of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, similarly chaotic scenes were repeated at overwhelmed hospitals across the strip, where medical supplies were already depleted and staff exhausted after 14 days of heavy aerial bombing now intensified by ground battles: photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
People looked for bodies amid the debris of a destroyed house in Gaza City. As diplomatic pressure for a cease-fire mounted on the conflict’s 14th day, the Palestinian death toll topped 500 and the number of Israeli soldiers killed hit 25, more than twice as many as in Israel’s last Gaza ground operation in 2009. Two Israeli civilians have also died from rocket and mortar fire: photo by Wissam Nassar / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
Israeli soldiers fired 155-millimeter artillery rounds toward Gaza: photo by Menahem Kahana / Agence France-Presse, 21July 2014
An Israeli soldier monitored the area as smoke rose from Gaza near the Israeli border. Rocket fire from Gaza slowed somewhat from earlier days, but more than a dozen sirens sounded around midday. One rocket hit a home in Sderot, near Gaza, while the occupants cowered in a safe room, and another landed in an open field near Tel Aviv. photo by Abir Sultan / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
"Kill
them; kill them all; kill their children; kill their children's children; only when nothing
more than a fading memory remains of them shall the blood of our land be
clean."
-- a stand-up comedian
“Madness, mayhem, erotic vandalism, devastation of innumerable souls - while we scream and perish, History licks a finger and turns the page.”
ReplyDelete--Thomas Ligotti
Manik,
ReplyDeleteThe only element in that package that's missing here is the erotic. I put that down to the Law of Phineas. You know, the racist taboo on miscegenation, mixing of the blood. In America this awful transgression is called "assimilation". Definitely proscribed. I recall Phineas discovered an act of copulation going on between one of pure blood and one of impure. The adroit and righteous nosy parker drove his sword through both offenders in one stroke -- in flagrante delicto as they used to say. I understand there is a renaissance of this practice now, among the new breed of thugs, vigilantes roaming through parks trying to catch people going at it with "unlawful" if consensual partners. Not that many would wish to dare mixing bloods, in this radioactive test-tube segregated environment. I mean just what is it with these dire and extremely dangerous weirdos -- is it all those years being cut off from anything remotely resembling a free society, that makes it so easy for them to deny it to others?
No politician on el planet is ever going to take the risk of actually standing up for these poor suffering people.
And where are the poets, then? Off at the conference, or what?
Marcel Khalife performs Darwish's Rita and the Rifle
Rita and the Rifle (English)
Staple Singers: Respect Yourself (live, 1972)
Well, all right, George Galloway. Fat lot of good that did those charred babies.
ReplyDeleteHow many times, though, does it have to be learned that you can take almost everything from people -- but that's all.
If Barack Obama has a heart, maybe it's time he wore it on his sleeve rather than hiding it under a veil of bloody hypocrisy
ReplyDeleteAlas, Vassilis, O'B has turned out to be somebody "we" didn't know. But what did "we" expect. In the business of politics, what you see and what you get are in almost all cases mutually incompatible categories.
ReplyDeleteAnd as to his heart -- that is, his putative compassion for the victims of a horrendous ongoing atrocity -- this bit of pip-squeakery from the Guardian, just now:
__
The state department on Tuesday said "Israel maybe could do a little bit more" to protect civilians being killed in Gaza, Guardian Washington correspondent Paul Lewis (@PaulLewis) reports:
Asked to respond to remarks by Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, who said Israel deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for the “unimaginable restraint” shown by its military, the state department's deputy press secretary Marie Harf replied:
"It is clear, I think, that while the Israelis say they hold themselves to very high standards, and we certainly hold them to the same standards as well, probably they could take some greater steps, maybe could do a little bit more [to protect civilians]."
How does any person anywhere of any faith or reason believe these horrors can be allowed to go on?
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've read more disgusting remarks than those by Israel's ambassador: "very high standards" has to be one of the most cynical responses yet. Hold one of those children in your arms, Mr. Dermer, and tell me who lacks a human heart?
Maureen,
ReplyDeleteAs I write this I am listening to a radio interview with a woman in Gaza whose neighbourhood bore the brunt of the Sunday atrocity, She is saying that she grew up in that neighborhood. After several days of hiding for safety elsewhere, she describes her return today.
"The whole neighbourhood has been erased," she says.
So what are you going to do, she is asked.
She says that during the worst of the attacks she and her family sought refuge in a United Nations school.
"Shortly after we arrived the school was attacked, and an hour later it was attacked again. We know that we are always being watched from the sky. We were afraid that they'd seen us, and the other refugees, and were attacking the school because they had seen us fleeing there.
"Hospitals, mosques, churches, schools are being targeted now. With the hospitals, it seems they are targeting the ER and operating rooms. The health workers don't want to evacuate, so they are killed in their hospitals.
"At one hospital, after they had destroyed it, there was a robo-call announcing it was going to be attacked."
Gazans flee Israeli bombardment – into the path of more bombs. Thousands of Gazans attempt to find shelter as the UN estimates that more than 100,000 are displaced: Peter Beaumont in Gaza, 22 July 2014
So -- I thank you for your brave voice, Maureen. The deafening silence in this country concerning the relentless attacks on the civilian population of Gaza suggest to me that the famous American sympathy for the underdog has been supplanted by craven fear and a gaping cynical acceptance of the extermination of innocent civilians by a racist state with the unbelievable audacity to require that its war crimes be rewarded as acts of kindness. So far more than 150 small children have been murdered for no reason beyond the repeated demonstration to a stunned and numb world that Israel can literally get away with mass murder.
When I say "craven fear" I mean of course the fear of being called anti-semitic.
Curiously, this fear seems strongest in the United States.
An English poet friend who has spent time in this country sent this along a few days back:
"Happy days in logic-land.
"All jews are not zionists
All zionists are jews
Therefore all anti-zionists are anti-semitic"
Oh, it is hard to look away, and even harder to keep looking.
ReplyDeleteA recourse to notions of ethics and morality, in these times of horrendous "bloody" atrocities, seems to be the only possible support one could show.
But oh helplessness! To entreat one's murderers!
This Washington Post piece of a few days back paints a disturbing picture of the surreal conditions under which Dr Mads Gilbert works at Shifa Hospital.
ReplyDeleteHe has been volunteering there for seventeen years now, and is currently the only foreign doctor.
Doubtless his fellow caregivers would be as hasty as he is in refusing to be called heroes.
And dear Aditya --
"But oh helplessness! To entreat one's murderers!"
It's so plain to everyone that the only "conversation" with these murderers now would have to be managed with head bowed, voice lowered, on one's knees.
Yes, as the W Post article reads,
ReplyDelete"Israel says it allows in medical supplies except for “dual-use” items — anything it suspects could be diverted by Hamas for military purposes — but won’t say what it has blacklisted."
----
“If we are in the middle of an operation (and) lights go out, what do the Palestinians do?” said Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has volunteered at Shifa on and off for 17 years. “They pick up their phones, and they use the light from the screen to illuminate the operation field.”
---
And, following yr comment, dare I say that this is how one goes about one's business, more or less, even if the daily violence one partakes in, is not bloody, and of course far far far less violent.
Dr. Mauds.. What a hero.
I feel helpless reading, watching all of this. One feebly hears one's own act of applauding the doctor (and the journalists, and others), amidst the din of breakfast bombing specials, an act which only reassures me of my own whatever humanity.
Hitler gave birth to a baby. And the baby was Israel.
ReplyDeleteAnd the midwife was Harry Truman, and the ongoing nanny, America.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThere is no lonelier feeling than the feeling, growing stronger each day, that the triumphalist techno world of the present has neither room left at the back of its bulletproof bus for this great whatever humanity, nor patience for that most noisome slice of it, the mass of dispossessed who will never show up as a useful demographic.
Dr. Gilbert by the way has for his many good works over many years on behalf of suffering people been rewarded with the predictable criticisms and dismissals. A few years ago the Israeli propaganda machine geared up to discredit a CNN video report on his work in the field. This is how they operate; they have armies and teams of energetic and industrious propagandists who never tire of the endless work of deceit and deception and intimidation (obviously the care and tending of a lie is a task which allows no rest). So it was charged that the video, revealing graphically the horrors of Israeli atrocities against innocent civilians, had been "staged". CNN reacted by presenting, two weeks later, a point by point response, showing the Israeli "charges" to amount to the usual brazen b.s.; meanwhile two doctors then working at the hospital swore that yes, the video was for real, and what it showed was Dr. Mads Gilbert saving lives in Gaza; at which point the busy little Zionist propaganda bees buzzed off to the next appointed task of helping see to it that those who never wanted to know the truth will always be securely protected from it.
Mads Gilbert has been charged with not separating medicine from politics -- to which he has responded, medicine IS politics. (To anybody living in the USA and not wealthy, the truth of this simple response needs no elaboration.) When not in Gaza, Dr. Gilbert makes his home and teaches and practices medicine in northern Norway. He is an internationally recognised expert in the field of emergency medicine. His feat in saving the life of a hypothermia victim with the lowest body temperature ever recorded in a human being, has earned him a place of honour in medical annals.
If there's any justice in history (always in question), he will someday come to be honoured not only for saving lives, but, just maybe, for rescuing some shred of the dignity once commonly attached to his profession.
His "critics" take pleasure in denouncing him for his activism. He is ridiculed (by idiots naturally) as "mad Mads".
These humans -- even as you're saving their lives, they're busy badmouthing you.
Abdal-Hayy, friend and brother, missed that till just now, evidently you've slipped in under the Protective Cast Iron Radar Umbrella here, perhaps using Aditya, gentle soul that he is, as a human shield -- we know those crafty tricks, unmistakeable procedural trademark of dangerous suspects with funny names!
ReplyDeleteDead giveaway!
(That one's sometimes useful in comedy gigs in the Catskills -- variation on the Rodney Dangerfield, Take my wife... she's a dead giveway... but dead or alive no one wantsta take her!!)
Next thing they'll be folding themselves into paper drones and flying their poems into the airducts of our shelters, which are already so cluttered up with pillows and cushions and laptops and cuddly toys and video games and snack baskets and drinks coolers and flatscreens that we barely have space to turn around, chug a lug, give a dog a bone and salute our allegiance to the holy shekel!!
But -- serious for a moment.
Obstetrics is no laughing matter.
And for that matter -- for crying out loud -- the terrible ending to the story is...
And that baby grew up.
Medicine IS politics
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, and at the most fundamental level.
Tom, thank you again for what you're doing here.
Mad Mads, is it?: I can't think of anyone at such a far remove from illusion.
Bibi and his gang of halfwit thugs would do well to listen to the Family Staples. They don't have the first notion of what respect is: playground bullies writ murderous large.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me that one's not on Bibi's MP3 playlist. More like a random shuffle surprise bonus track (in our dreams).
ReplyDeleteAt the time Mavis was proudly belting out that necessary anthem, it did feel that, for all the agony suffered along the way, the oppressed had at last risen up, and were having their say, and now and then even their day in the sun...
That was then.
great work indeed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I believe he's still at it -- somehow.
ReplyDeleteThe holocaust did not end when WW2 ended. Its happening right now.
ReplyDelete