Gaza Doctor Aziz Rahman MD – This Past Weekend with Theo Von 602: A Firsthand Account of the Humanitarian Crisis

In this sobering and urgent episode of This Past Weekend, host Theo Von sits down with Dr. Aziz Rahman, a radiologist who recently returned from a humanitarian mission in Gaza. Dr. Rahman provides a harrowing firsthand account of the crisis, sharing the brutal realities of working in Nasser Hospital amidst constant bombardment and a systemic targeting of specialized physicians. The conversation, which is serious and somber, highlights the emotional toll on medical staff and civilians alike. Dr. Rahman details the dire conditions, the lack of resources, and the profound trauma experienced by a population living under siege. This episode serves as a powerful call for global awareness and action, as Dr. Rahman expresses his hope for international intervention to stop the suffering.

GUEST:

Dr. Aziz Rahman is a radiologist who volunteered in Gaza through the humanitarian organization Rahma Worldwide. He joined Theo Von on the podcast to share his direct experiences and observations from working in Nasser Hospital. He is not active on social media, but you can learn more about the organization he worked with here: https://www.rahmaww.org/

HOST:

Theo Von

Main Talking Points

  • Dr. Aziz Rahman’s decision to volunteer in Gaza and his personal motivation to “decompress in a war zone”.

  • The systemic targeting of specialized physicians and the dangers faced by medical staff.

  • The tragic story of an Al Jazeera reporter who was allegedly sniped in the street.

  • A graphic account of a woman with a head injury and the reality of seeing “brains coming out of people’s heads”.

  • Discussion of a news clip about the U.S. vetoing a U.N. resolution.

  • A mention of the UN and a critical statement about a ceasefire resolution.

Quotes & Key Takeaways

  • On his motivation: “I’m saying this dichotomy is so hard to like reconcile. And so when I got this invitation it was almost like this opportunity to like decompress if that makes any sense in a war zone. And it’s weird right? It’s like a paradox. Like why the hell would you decompress in a war zone? But I almost needed to do something with my hands.”

  • On the targeting of doctors: “…there is a systemic targeting of specialized physicians in Gaza.”

  • On the US stance on a ceasefire: “It is unacceptable for what it does say. It is unacceptable for what it does not say. And it is unacceptable for the manner in which it has been advanced.”

  • On sharing his story: “…it’s not normal to hear that brains are coming out of people’s heads and being shot in the head so routinely but it is what it is we saw it and I would like to share it and I apologize to the audience if this was too gruesome or grotesque but it is what it is.”

Resources, Links, and References

  • Rahma Worldwide: The humanitarian organization Dr. Rahman worked with. https://www.rahmaww.org/

  • U.N. Ceasefire Resolution: Mentioned during the episode.

Calls to Action

The episode does not contain any direct sponsor plugs, social media pitches, or other commercial CTAs. However, the entire interview serves as a powerful call to action for listeners to become more aware of the situation in Gaza and to encourage world leaders and organizations, particularly the U.S. and U.N., to take action.

What are 5–10 moments

  • [00:02:55]: Dr. Rahman explaining his paradoxical motivation to find decompression in a war zone.

  • [00:08:11]: Dr. Rahman discussing the targeting of specialized physicians.

  • [00:13:02]: The story of the Al Jazeera reporter being sniped.

  • [01:37:03]: Discussion of the U.S. vetoing the U.N. resolution.

  • [01:40:21]: Dr. Rahman’s emotional closing statement about the importance of sharing his gruesome experiences.

Transcript

Today's guest is a doctor from Wisconsin who recently returned from a two-week medical mission trip in Gaza where he

provided aid at one of the last functioning hospitals there. We're going to talk about all of it. The tragedy,

the ups, the downs, the diabolicalness, uh the hope. I am very grateful for his

time. Uh this episode can get a bit intense um or a bit graphic at times. So

if that's not for you, then this may not be for you. Today's guest is Dr. Aziz

Ramen. [Music]

[Applause]

[Music] Dr. Ramen, thanks for joining me today, man. Thanks for having me, especially on

short notice. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. You um we'll just get right into you did a service in uh you're a doctor.

Yes. Okay. And you just got a you just did a service in uh Gaza. And how did they say it there?

They say Gaza. Um but you can say Gaza. Okay. I I was saying in Gaza when I was there. Yeah. Yeah. It worked out.

Cool. I came back. Um what hospital were you stationed at over there? So Naser Hospital. Um you know, you

probably heard on the news that's a last functioning hospital in Gaza and it truly is. Um there's other smaller

hospitals, but they're really not functioning at at a scale of a hospital. And how do you get chosen to go there?

You live in Milwaukee and you um you doctor out of Milwaukee currently. That's right. Yeah.

So, you go through your own hospital to do it? Uh no, this has nothing to do with my hospital. In fact, I didn't even tell my hospital I was going.

You didn't? Um I just told one of my colleagues. He helped me with my schedule and I reached out to one of these organizations and

then they reached out back to me when there was a spot available and uh they told me, "Hey, we got this uh spot

available in 2 months. Are you willing to go?" And when I got that invitation from them, I I was on a plane back to my

family and uh I was like, "Man, how am I going to tell my wife, my kids, my mom, my dad?" So, that's all I was thinking,

you know, and uh yeah, landed uh the kids were put to sleep. went to my wife

and I was like, "Hey, let's go have some cup of coffee." And um I was like, "Hey, I have this opportunity." She's like,

"It's Gaza." And I was like, "God, how'd you know?" She knew. She knew because, you know, this has

been going on for so long. Yeah. You know, and I've been talking about it at work. I've been talking about with my friends what I would call and many would

call a genocide, even though it hasn't legally been defined. I mean, it hurts, man. I I found myself

coming home from work, you know, after a good day's work, but just unhappy, you know? I was just like, man, like there's

kids dying out there, you know, I'm taking care of these adults, you know, with alcoholic cerosis, you know, they

they made these decisions to their liver, for example, you know, but these kids, they are innocent, right? And so, and

then I come home and see my children running up to me asking me to play video games with them, watch TV, have some snacks. I'm saying this dichotomy is so

hard to like reconcile. And so when I got this invitation, it was almost like this opportunity to like decompress, if

that makes any sense, in in a war zone. And it's weird, right? It's like a paradox. Like why the hell would you decompress in a war zone? But I almost

needed to do something with my hands. And you know, I'm a proceduralist as a

background in my in medicine. So I like to do things with my hand. Right. What does proceduralist mean? Yeah. So I'm an interventional

radiologist. Actually was the first interventional radiologist to go to Gaza in the world. And um it's it's one of

the newest specialties in medicine where we use image guidance to do basically like minimally invasive procedures.

Okay. So like for example historically if you have a big you know infection in your stomach they would insize your you

know your your your abdomen open and take you know drain the infection. So now we could just take a cat scan and

put a drain right through your skin into it. So instead of a 1-hour procedure it's 5 minutes. Okay? you know, and you don't have to

stay in the hospital. You don't have to get sutures and and there's, you know, you can basically take clots out of the

the arteries of the legs for diabetics and and uh it's a whole different specialty. It's actually the newest

specialty in medicine. I think it was officially credentialed, I think, in 2013 when I was graduating medical school.

Okay. Yeah. So, you have to tell your wife, she signs off. How uh how long after that are you on a plane to go to uh Gaza?

Two months later, I'm on a plane uh to Aman, Jordan. So you're still not even

though I got permission from my family, I have not gotten permission from the authorities that be. And you might ask

who that is. So that's Israel. Israel makes all final decisions about who comes in and who comes out. As you know,

international journalists are not allowed in. In fact, doctors are pretty much healthcare workers are essentially the only people allowed in. And even

that is extremely scrutinized. So we had 22 applicants for this twoe medical mission that we were on and only six of

us got in. So you had 22 applicants. What do you mean that just said applied for it?

Yeah. 22 uh physicians across the world for this two weeks um were intending to

come and um the organization I went with was Rahma Worldwide. They're based in Michigan and they basically overaccept

people knowing that there's about a 75% rejection rate. So, um, so after all

that rejection, like some people flew in from the UK, some people flew in from Egypt and they just flew right back

after they got the denial letter in Jordan. You mean in Jordan? So, you have to be there cuz you find out if you're in or out 12

hours before we go in. God. So, 7 a.m., for example, on a Thursday morning where the bus is waiting for us

in front of the hotel. Well, you have to be there by 10 PM. That's when we get the Excel document that shows us if

we're in or out, you know. And so some of you staff don't know until right there in Jordan if you're if

you're if you're getting approved or not, like if you made the team. Yeah. That's that's every position. Got it. Yeah. So you have to go all the way there, all

that, and then you still might not make it. Yeah. Even even after you get accepted, you still might not make it because now you have to go through Jordanian

checkpoint, then you have to go through the Israeli checkpoint, and um and then after you get through the Israeli checkpoint, then there's a Gaza

checkpoint. And so what would be a three-hour journey if there was no checkpoints takes about 14 to 16 hours.

Okay. Yeah. Wow. And are does Palestine have a say on in who it lets in? Like is there a Palestinian authority also that you go

through? Uh there's no border crossing that you have to go through through Palestinian

governance um that determines if you can go in and out. It's all Israeli and Jordanian. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Jordanian just gets you through

into the Israeli side and then Israeli uh authorities basically, you know, check your bags and, you know, do all

your background checks, check your passport, and then they give you a little document saying you can go. So, take me through like your your first

day arriving at the hospital. So, we left at 7:00 a.m. Aman, and we

got to a safe house, uh, like 11:00 p.m. or something along those lines, and they fed us some pita bread and hummus, and

they apologized for not having any real food, like meat and whatnot. Um, so we didn't actually get to the hospital until the following morning. So, Friday

morning. Okay. So, about 24 hours after we left and Jordan. And is there like are like hopes high?

Is there like excitement? Like what are what are some of the energy going on at that point? Are you guys just exhausted? Yeah. So, the the six of us um this was

our first time going to Gaza. Some some people have been multiple times. Oh, we were excited, man. We were like, we're going to save Gaza. We are going to do

it. And um it was a it was a fun group. We were all there for the same mission, for the same intentions. Um, I had a

5-month old baby that I left behind. One of the guys had a six-month old baby and the other guy went up to us and had like a two week old baby. Like, dude, what's

wrong with you, man? Dude, you got to It's a little soon to be leaving. It is, right?

But somehow our wives all let us go, right? So, we kind of bonded over that, too. Got it. Um, but the energy was high.

The energy was high. And how many doctors are at the hospital that you're working at? Oh, man. That's that's tough to answer.

Hundreds. Okay. The reason for that is because there's a another hospital major hospital in Kanye called European

General Hospital. Okay. And that just got blown to smithetheriness kind of in before June

before we went and um you know they were saying there's a Hamas operative in the tunnel. So they basically dropped a

bunker buster in front of the the the European General Hospital and basically shut that down. So all those doctors all

those nurses are essentially got shunted to Nasser Hospital. So now there's an overabundance of some doctors at Nasser

Hospital but you know as we can get into there is a systemic targeting of

specialized physicians in Gaza. So for example there's only two neurosurgeons you know um and so there are some

specialties that are lacking and uh what do you mean a systemic targeting?

So, um, if you look at UN data, um, about 500 physicians and nurses have

been killed. Um, a thousand have been injured. I think 300 are still in custody.

Wow. Um, there's one of the hospital directors. He's a pediatrician, Abu Safia, Husam Abu Safia. He has he's been

in jail since December. No charges against him. Um, in America. No, no, in Gaza. In Gaza.

Yeah. Yeah. He he's a amazing individual and I think one of the most iconic pictures of him being arrested is he's

the last person to leave his hospital cuz he just wouldn't leave the incubated babies behind. And once they left then

Israel basically said come walk to the tanks. So he's in his white coat in this like debrisfilled Gaza picture and

there's two tanks there and he gets arrested and he's never seen since then. Um it's pretty wild man. The United

Nations Human Rights Office issued a statement on July 16th, 2025 providing data and deal details regarding the

killing of medical professionals in in Gaza. Look, look at since 2023, Gaza's Ministry of Health reports that

at least 15 Oh, wow. 1,581 health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7th, 2023. Oh my god.

I mean, you know, healthcare workers in America are probably like the most sacred specialty in society,

right? Like I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, but I respect my physician,

right? Like my primary care doctor's taking care of me. I'm going to respect that guy, you know? Um, so this was a risky choice for you to

make to go. It was. And that, you know, I actually wrote some letters to my kids before I

left because I was like, I don't know if I'm coming back. I had I had the hope I would come back, but

you know, anything could have happened. Yeah. I mean, look at those numbers. Yeah. I mean that's I mean realistically they're targeting Gazin doctors, Palestinian doctors.

I don't think they would want to target an international especially American physician. That's just such a PR

nightmare. But has it happened before? Absolutely. You know, look in the West Bank. They just killed a American uh kid

from Florida on vacation there. Another um was the Alazer reporter. They you know they they sniped um and she died on

the spot. Well, Israel's whole country is a PR nightmare right now it seems like. So I wouldn't put anything past them right

now, I don't think. But I just feel like it's very brave of you to go. Um, are you guys sleeping at the hospital or

what's like? Yeah, so there's an international doctor's lounge basically on the top floor and all the doctors from the

different NOS's kind of sleep in this one area. Um, whether you're from, you know, America or UK or Australia,

whatever. So, you know, the men have their own call room and then the the females have their own call room, but

then there's this joint space where the local goins make us food, kind of just hang out. The news is going, there's a little balcony we can look out the

window. It's a nice place to kind of just breathe um without any patients or or locals there. So, we kind of had our

own space which was nice, but we were eating the local food. And what was your shift like? Like what is it what's your shift there like?

Um yeah, so it depends on your specialty. I was again I was the only interventional radiologist

in the area. I mean, there was three two interventional radiology doctors in all of Gaza.

Just for comparison, there's probably like 600 in Chicago, you know. Wow. Um, so when I got there, basically

those other two told everyone at Nasser, hey, there's this guy, he's an intervention radiologist. Give them all your cases because they come down like

once a week. So if there's a patient who needs a procedure, they need to wait 7 days essentially. Um, as for like for

example, the ER doctors, especially the ones we came with, they typically do eight or 12 hour shifts in America. So when they got there, the energy was

high. They're like, "Oh, we're going to do, you know, 12-h hour shift." And then the locals just laughed. They're like, "No, you're not. you're gonna do a

four-hour shift because you're not gonna make it more than that. And turns out they were right. There's no way. It's

just so intense. It's the most intense traumatic experience I don't think any

physician can understand. I would say take the the most experienced trauma surgeon, you know, in Baltimore, which is like one of the biggest trauma

centers in America, and put them in Gaza, and it's like child's play compared to what's going on in Gaza.

You're talking about like an influx of like 400 patients in like four hours with 30 casualties on arrival, 30 head

shots on arrival, 30 critical mass shots on arrival, and then like everything in between, women, children, elderly, men,

young boys, and it's just like what? How the heck do you triage all this? And um

that was every day, man. So it it took a mental toll. What's that first moment that you noticed like, oh my god, this is a lot?

Yeah. So, the first day we got there um was actually pretty chill the Friday,

but then the Saturday they had the MCI, it's called a mass casualty incident, and they basically pull a fire alarm. I

was like, "What the hell is that?" They're like, "Oh, every doctor come down to the ER to try to help." And so, I was like, "Okay." So, went downstairs,

got in there, there just like brain matter coming out of people. There's guts coming out of people's abdomen.

There's people's legs blown off and someone's carrying it in next to the, you know, one of the family members bring bringing it in for the doctors.

you know, they think you can just reattach it and it's just like absolute chaos. There's family members, security

in the hospitals trying to push out the family members so the doctors and nurses can take care of the patients. Uh it it's it's absolute chaos. And then us

American physicians are just like looking at each other. They're like, "What is going on here?" And uh you

know, that was that was that's when reality hit and I was like, "Okay, this must be like a one-off." And it just

kept happening every day and sometimes multiple times a day. And essentially basically we can we we found the pattern

related to when the GHF sites were opening up. GHF sorry Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is

this American and Israeli uh initiative to um bring in aid to Gaza which

basically takes over uh has taken over all of the UN aid agencies which the the

UN has been doing this for 75 whatever since World War II, right? And um and then I think in March officially Gaza

Humanitarian Foundation is the only one allowed to bring aid into to uh Gaza. Yeah, we've been hearing a lot about

this recently in the news that there's like these long lines for aid for food, right? You've been hearing a lot about

like mass starvation and uh famine being created being used as a a genocide tool.

Um what do you see or notice with that? Right. Like you're hearing that people are like the food is set up and it's a

trap. You're hearing that Hamas controls the food. You're hearing all of these things, but we know, like you said

earlier, uh, international journalists aren't allowed to cover this, right? Unfortunately. Yeah, that's right.

Um, and so what did you see? What did you notice? We were hearing testimony

from everyone coming in that the GHF sites are is a death trap. And, you

know, I'll just get into some psychology of some of the people there. So you know in Islam suicide is is is forbidden

right but the situation there where almost everyone is depressed um is that

some people who have lost everything their their their families their kids almost want to die so they will they'll

go to GHF kind of hoping they'll die go going to these food lines and these these they're just hoping they get shot

because because the statistics are there like you know you're seeing a 100red um dead every day and like 300 injured

every day like it's almost consistent for the last a month or two, you know, and um and that's what we were seeing

when we were there. We were seeing 100 a day and 300 injured a day for pretty much the two weeks that we were there.

Yeah. This says right here um in Gaza, more Palestinians are killed while waiting for food aid. At least 325

people in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces while trying to reach food last week. According to Gaza's health

ministry, that figure included 24 people killed on Saturday. Um 14 on Sunday. The

deadly search for food is happening despite Israeli assurances of a humanitarian pause and attacks to let

more aid in as deaths from malnutrition soaring Gaza and starvation grips the territory. Um

what was the date on that? August 3rd that's recent. I think they've been exposed quite a little bit more since, you know, Anthony Agler came

out, but as of June, I mean, I don't know if you can go back, but we were seeing 100 in Gaza a day basically, you

know, but that's also between bombings um within Gaza, not necessarily the just during the time you were there, how many

how many were you guys seeing a day honestly? Patients. Yeah. From humanitarian aid sites. Oh, probably like 200.

Okay. So, Muslim people can't take their own life because of their religion. Yeah. So you were seeing some of them

who had gone to humanitarian aid sites and were purposely putting themselves in

situations to take their own life but without them having to do it. So I I didn't actually see that. I I am

in contact with a lot of the the medical students and nurses and physicians right now. And one of them literally just told

me this past week, you know, if my wife and kid die, I'm going to GHF site and I I hope I'm taken. essentially, you know,

almost like I I hope I die when I'm there. So, it's real, you know, the the psychology there is strange. Uh we were

we were at a table with our medical student, you know, a couple of us doing rounds, which means talking about cases, talking about patients, and uh one of

our medical students is like, "What happens to the body after death?" And so, we were like, "Woo!" You know, we kind of just like talked a little bit

spiritually. And then, uh she's like, "My uncle and 20 family members just got drone strike like an hour ago." and not

a single tear, not a single facial expression. And I was like, "Oh my god." Like, "How do I respond to that?" You

know, if that happened in America, you would tell your medical school, you know, take a week off, take a month off, do whatever you need to do. And then she

took three hours off to go to the funeral the next day and came back and that's that's it. One of your co-workers,

one of the medical students. Yeah. She's 22 in Gaza. In Gaza. And she was working there. Yeah. The medical students are

full-fledged medical students. They come every day. They're some of the hardest working people there. It's crazy. They have board exams. There's residency.

Where are they? H What what school are they at? Yeah, there's two medical schools in in um in Gaza. I mean, they've been

destroyed. Um and they're they all have to take a year office, but their homework still do, apparently.

Yeah. I mean, that's [ __ ] crazy. Yeah, you can't use the dog ate my

homework excuse there. I know. I don't know. You could eat the drone ate my homework, though. Maybe.

But is that true? The Islamic University of Gaza um and the Al Azhar University

of Gaza. Yeah, that's right. Right. Those are the schools. Yeah. A lot of their students were there in support, working in support.

Yeah. They're at mostly Nasser Hospital. Some of them are in the north in Alshifa Hospital, which is another hospital up

in in in the north area of Gaza. Okay. You know, you hear a lot of stories about the aid, right? The the

aid. That's been a big kickball that goes around like in the media of like it's their fault, it's the UN's fault,

it's the it's Hamas is stealing the food. Like what is the real truth over there? Is Hamas stealing it? Is the U is

it is there 600 pallets just sitting there? Like what what do you think's really going on? So So the GHF is basically taking over

aid delivery to Gaza and no one wants to work with them. That countries don't want to work with them. U the UN does

not want to work with them. So even though the UN does have food ready to go in warehouses on trucks waiting in Egypt

and Jordan, it's not allowed in because Israel has only given authority to GHF.

Okay. Now GHF is run by private military contractors. So it's militarized aid

which is against you know international rules. You know I'm not a expert. I'm not a lawyer to talk about international

rules but you can look up the Geneva con convention the Rome statutes and it's clear as day. Right. Let's pull that up

then just so we know it. Yeah. So no the UN doesn't want to work with them. They don't want to be implicated in their own rules against

their own rules. Right. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is run by a combination of American security contractors, ex-military officers and

humanitarian aid officials. The organization operates with the support of the US and Israeli governments, but it is primarily managed and overseen by

American individuals. The GHF lacks transparency, independence, and adherence to established humanitarian

norms. The organization's leadership and operational structure have faced significant significant criticism from

international aid groups and the United Nations who argue that the GHF lacks transparency, independence, and

adherence to established humanitarian norms. I mean, Jake Wood, he's a military veteran co-founder, right? He actually

resigned right as they got established cuz he's like, "Screw this. I'm out. This is not going to be good." He saw

the writing on the wall. H And he started it. And props to him. Yeah. You know.

Wow. He'd be interesting to talk to probably, huh? Yeah. Wow. I'd like to hear what he has to say.

Yeah. Me, too. Okay. But you asked me. But you asked me. I feel like I didn't really answer you yet. Um, I lost 15 pounds when I was

there. Every one of us six physicians lost a lot of weight. I I you know I have one of those smart scales at home

before Gaza, after Gaza. It's like this graph that just goes straight down, which is awesome for me cuz I came back

in two weeks and now I'm slimmer, but for them it's it's indefinite. They've been doing this for months. They have,

you know, hypitosis. They don't have enough energy. They have, you know, anemia from no iron, no protein. You

know, women can't breastfeed. They have deliver a baby and there's no milk. There's no formula coming in. That's

that's banned. You know, it got confiscated by some of the doctors who were trying to bring it in. And um I

mean every aspect of their health is being affected, right? So even though you're not seeing like skin and bones on

every single person, if you if you took their labs, they are sick, you know, and there's stages to to to starvation, you

don't just, you know, one day you're fat and then the next day you're skinny. It's doesn't work like that. And some people don't get become skin bones,

right? Some people actually their their their belly bloats up and because a loss of protein and the fluid instead of

being on the blood vessels goes into the belly and and they can die in different ways. And then we went to the the the neonatal ICU in the pediatric hospital

and we saw, you know, the the babies that are skin and bones, you know, and it's disgusting to see that knowing what

they need, which is formula. Um, but what were you did you hear that Hamas was taking the food or did you like what

like what's the truth? Like what is the were you hearing there? Right. Were you hearing anything different? Cuz here

it's just it's so hard to know, right? It's so hard to know what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I I went as a

doctor, but I think that's a great question. I did we did not see a combatant. We did not talk about

combatants. No, none of the patients talk about that. Honestly, everyone's just concerned about how they're going to eat, you know, like no one no one's

talking about Hamas. And um that said, I am very curious. So, I did ask many

people, you know, privately, not patients, but like co-workers and stuff like, "What's going on out there?" Like, you know, are they actually? And

everyone's like, "No, there's no way. It's it to go to the GHF site, you have to go in an active war zone. There's

tanks, there's um, you know, private military contracts from the US, which are all special forces. There's uh, IDF,

the Israeli military. I mean, you know, it doesn't even make sense that they would go out there. And even if they

did, the question is like, why is there why why can't we flood Gaza with aid?

Because then Hamas would have zero, you know, leverage over the food. So if you're saying, you know, Hamas is is

taking the food, stealing it, and selling it, and that's why the food's so difficult to obtain, well, then flood the markets with food, and then Hamas

has no leverage, right, over the food, right? It's just like common sense, supply and demand. So their argument doesn't even add up. But that said, I

have asked many um locals in the hospital um you know, obviously they don't really know, but I I don't I I

didn't see any evidence of that. Um the only evidence that we saw and actually by the way Anthony Agular said that they

they weren't even screening the patients I mean sorry the um the aid seekers for

being Hamas or not. So there I mean there's no screening process. How would they know? There's not going to be some guy with an AK-47 right you know going

into an active war zone. Um yeah he's like knock and they're like who's there and he's like yeah exactly

you know. Yeah. I mean that's Yeah I agree. If only war worked like that right. right now. But that's one thing I

haven't understand about a lot of this military effect uh from the IDF cuz they're always, you know, they speak

highly of their there's a lot of high reflection of their military and their abilities, but then you're like, well,

why not just send in Marines or your Navy Seal group to seek out Hamas

instead of blanketly bombing thousands of PE? Like, why would you know what I'm saying? If the your group is that great,

why wouldn't you send them to pick off the bad guys one at a time? That's the part that sometimes I don't understand.

Um, yeah. You know, they they they moto themselves as the most moral army in the the world, which I find kind of odd.

Well, I think it now I think anybody would find those days are over, I think. 100% 100%. But we we when we were there,

we were standing on the balcony looking out, you know, during our break time as as physicians and boom, you just see

this giant explosion, your your drums are rumbling, and it's just like, who just died there? Was it a Hamas guy or

was it like a family? Right. So then you go down to the ER and there's like 30 patients that show up and you ask them

like you know what happened. Oh the shrapnel injuries from an explosion. You know some lady has like a a high-speed

velocity you know piece of shrapnel that went through her belly or her leg has some have to have e surgery. Some people

goes right through their skull. And so um and then you realize every single explosion and it was happening about

every 30 minutes in Khan units at that time I would say. um from my experience

you realize every 30 minutes there's an explosion and people are dying right so even if every single one of those

explosions was Hamas why is there 30 50 patients coming in you know routinely so

that's what's interesting when I say mass casualty incident we're talking about influx of like 400 patients but it

doesn't stop between the hour right so even at night time there's patients chronically consistently coming in and

all night right So some of us had night shifts basically. We would help out the night team. Our job was just to help

out, right? Like I was in the ER, I was in the O, the operating room to to on the floors. I was sometimes being a nurse just helping out getting IV access

and and little kids. So we were just everywhere trying to help out anywhere. What type of injuries were you guys seeing come in? Like what like what was

it like kind of? Yeah, there were a couple pattern of injuries. So first one is bullets, you know, gunshot wounds and they were very

accurate almost exclusively in the head and neck or critical mass shots, right? Um, every now and then we would see an

abdominal wound. But, um, and then explosions were were the other one. So, burn injuries and then projectiles, you

know, um, from shrapnel. Uh, that was another big one. And then, um, every now and then you would see like, oh, you

know, something local happen like a trampling or, you know, some some internal fight. But those were extremely

rare. Like you're talking about, you know, when when people when groups of people are coming in, they're coming on a donkey. It's their ambulance

basically. And they do have some ambulances, but most people come in via donkey or by family and they just like

throw him in the ER and like take care of him and the guy's arm is exploded from, you know, explosion or a baby

basically has 85% burns and there's no way they're going to survive that to a guy with a gunshot wound to his head. I

I mean, I'm tell I'm like not even exaggerating this and I have pictures to to prove that, you know, some of them are too gory for perhaps a non-f

physician. But what is what's the process like when when they come in? Like is there security at the front of the hospital?

cuz I imagine that the hospital will just be almost being overrun by people looking for shelter aid constantly or

even water. Like what was that like? Yeah, it is overrun and there's there's no security. I mean there's like one guy

at the door saying like you know let the doctors go to the trauma bay and he's trying to hold like a whole sea of

people back but um is there a parking lot? Is there like a fence where that's keeping people in and out like

No, no, no. The hospital is run by people. Like there's kids looking for water while you're like talking to a

neurosurgeon about the next step for a patient's care. It's weird. Like we're shoeing, not me, but like the locals are just shoeing kids away because they're

looking for clean drinking water and it's in the hospital. And like in this room, for example, where we're podcasting, there would be like four or

five kids looking for water going in and out. I mean, the people patients family sleeping outside the ICU, the hallways

were full. I mean, like there was no single area on the wall that you could sit.

I mean, people feel safe in the hospital because, you know, it's not being bombed. Yeah. Oh, here's some photos right here.

Wow. That's wild. How do you guys decide right when somebody gets there what level of care that they need and if

you're going to be able to care for them? What's that like? Um, when a patient enters the ER, there's a green

zone, a yellow zone, and a red zone. So, depending on the severity of the injury, so they get triaged. Um, this is when

there's a nonMCI, a non-mass casualty incident. When it's a mass casualty

incident, the whole ER is a red zone. So, um, the green zone is light injuries, you know, yellow zone

intermediate injuries, and red zone is basically critical injuries. And then there was a black zone. Black zone is

basically anyone who's going to die. You just kind of move them from the red zone to the black zone. You tell the family

like there's no chance. And we were we were doing that often. And is that your responsibility, too?

Yeah, as a physician, of course. you know, it's our job to make that decision, but also tell the family like

there's there's nothing we can do. And those are hard conversations. You know, for example, resource management is something we haven't gone into. For

example, in America, we have ventilators, right? The breathing machine. If in the ER there was very

limited amount of breathing machines to the point, if there was like a 70-year-old and a 20-year-old who got

injured, Mhm. we would have to determine who gets that breathing machine. And there was an

instance where we actually had to say, well, the 20-year-old has a longer life expectancy, so you know, the

seven-year-old is going to have to go to that black unit and kind of die off. So, you tell the family they they don't like

that answer, but it is what it is. What What else can you do? So, it it was it was a you know,

sometimes we even got into arguments with the locals because we didn't understand how bad the resource management issue was, right? Like, we're

coming from America. We're like, dude, we could we can do it. We can save this patient. But no, there's nothing you can do. There's literally nothing you can do

without the resources, the medicines that are not coming in, you know, and and that's the reality. Like food is a is a huge problem. Obviously not coming

in, but medications, supplies, surgical equipment, um it's just not coming in.

And you know, we would try to bring it in our, you know, 50 pound carry-on bags and and whatnot, but what is that going

to do, right? You're talking about 2.2 million people. You're talking about six doctors trying to save the world. I mean, it doesn't make sense.

Do when people come in, are they are they coming in on stretchers? Is there like a nurse desk or anything like that?

Like what's kind of like the setup there? Does it feel like a regular hospital? It does, but the difference is there's an ambulance here and there. Um, but

majority of patients are coming in on donkey carts. Mhm. And uh private vehicle, which is like

they stuff like four or five bodies in that the back of the car and then families are just holding, you know,

their loved ones and just running inside through the double doors and plopping the patient down wherever they can find

them. you know, sometimes in the wrong area, then they have to pick them up and move them to the critical area versus the the green area I was talking about

before. And it's chaos like that, right? Um, but yeah, when when the when the

traumas come in, it's just it's it's it's people running all over the place. It's not as much organization as you

would imagine in American hospital. Is there enough blood like for blood donors and blood draw like that sort of

thing? Yeah. So sometimes it runs out. Sometimes there Israel allows um uh a

mass donation from uh the West Bank for example to come in. We physicians are um

encouraged to give our blood upon leaving so we don't get too, you know, fatigued um when we first get there

where it's at the end that they encourage us to give. If someone is dying, are they can they still take blood from them to save it

and give it to someone else? Yeah, I don't know if that's a standard protocol there. Um, I don't think that's

established protocol. Is that even possible? Like, or is that a Yeah, it's possible. That's kind of a

interesting concept. Like, hey, you're dying. Let me just take some of your blood. But, yeah, I guess in an emergency, that's that could be done.

Um, I think it's more like respecting the dead. Just, you know, you're going to die, and let them die in peace.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I just know if somebody had died, if you could like while their body, could you still take blood for them?

Yeah, definitely. How long is blood still able to be taken out of a body? Let me see. Taking blood from a dying person specifically for

donation is highly restricted and governed by strict ethical legal and medical standards worldwide.

The dead donor rule, a fundamental principle called the dead donor rule requires that a person must be declared legally and medically dead by recognized

criteria such as brain death or cardiac death before any organ or tissue can be removed for donation. Blood banks and

medical organizations do not take blood from dying patients for donations and this would violate ethical and legal norms. Okay. I mean that also applies to

any country that is not going through a genocide. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So that's what I'm saying. Like

the rules might be a little bit different there. Like I'll shift a hospital in the north. Like I said, yeah, they they are

sometimes using flashlights to do procedures and they are having power outages all the time and um yeah, they

are having to do amputations without sedatives. that that is an issue and and and that's because Nostra Hospital is is

like the last tertiary care as we call it the main hospital and it's just getting all the resources because there

just not enough you know you need to have this hospital. Yeah, that's all she hospital remember when this first started

uh um this was attacked and there was a huge argument. Oh, was it the IDF, the Israeli military? Was it Hamas? And um

oh my god, it was such a big deal. Do you remember that? And then since then, pretty much every hospital in Gaza has

been bombed. Yeah. Do you think that that's Hamas doing that? No. No. Absolutely not.

What did you guys do with uh the deceased? What's what's So when we declared someone dead, it

would be the family's responsibility to do all the transportation and all the, you know, administrative stuff. So we

would just pronounce them dead and then it would be the family's responsibility to take that body to the morg which is like maybe 100 meters away like a

football field away and um then the ministry of health would process the body document what what

happens and then they would pray on it and then bury it the same day. So a few maybe an hour or two all that happens

but it was a assembly line like you know patient coming in ER dead morg prayer

funeral and just constant like throughout the day you're just looking out the the window and that's all you see. Did you were you guys able to go to

the morg at all? I did. Yeah. Um one day and I have some pictures of that. Um there's like just it was a mass casualty. There was like

15 bodies just lined up. Some of them were kids. Pretty much all um head shot.

This was from the the GHF site actually. And I was so disgusted. I actually took like a like a video when I was there.

Yeah, that right one right there. It was disgusting. I mean I I have never experienced anything like

that. And I purposely went there during that time cuz I was like, I want to feel what the locals are feeling like. I'm in

the ER or I'm in the hospital, you know, I want to actually feel what these people. And so you hear the wailing of the the woman when they find out their

their loved one has has died. They actually have this gazebo right there in Nasser Hospital and that's where they

put the dead bodies that have not uh families have not identified the bodies yet. So every now and then you see the

family members going into gazebo looking at like these 10 bodies, opening up the zipper, looking at the face, if they can even like, you know, um put the face

together and um and then you just hear a shriek. It's like, man, that's freaky.

God. Yeah, that's crazy, man. That's or crazy the word. I don't even know what to say. It

was one thing to declare a patient dead, but it's another thing to feel the family's pain

and see them praying on it and kind of going through that grieving process. And

I I think we're humans, right? Like at the end of the day, yeah, I'm a doctor. I'm able to compartmentalize my emotions

probably more so than the average non-d doctor. Mhm. And so I almost had to go there and and

like give myself an excuse to cry. Yeah. you know, um cuz there's no space to cry

in in the hospital. None of the other doctors are cuz they just they're so focused on taking care of the next

patient. They don't get to, you know, they don't have the time to cry. So, so that's kind of why I wanted to go there.

I was like, I want to feel this, man. Yeah. Oh, I think it's it's part of like

um I mean there's times where I'm saying my prayers and stuff and I feel bad that

I'm able to, you know, say prayers in like a safe space and know that there, you know, that somebody's saying prayers

into something that feels like nothing is going to hear those, you know, and still it's like all that they have or

may be all that they have. Yeah. And I think it's like you feel bad that you can't be there to feel some of that

pain and not like maybe sometimes I think well there's only so much pain and so if everybody was there and took a

little bit of it then it would it be you know what I'm saying like it would be divid and I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's even quantifiable

but yeah I mean there's times you feel bad about you know there's times you feel bad about not being somewhere when

something's horrible because you're like because you know that somebody else has to be there. I don't know. I I think it

helps to grieve in in a in a group. Yes. If that's kind of what you're saying. You know, there were times like it was

it was insane. We declared a patient dead. The family members turn around and they say, "Are you guys from America?"

And uh we're like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Thank you so much for coming here." And dude, it's like your relative just died. And he's thanking us. And

he's like, "You know, you guys are taking your safety, your time, your families to come here and take care of

us. Like, you know, we're really honored." And it was just like the most heartwarming thing. And we didn't go there, you know, to to have feel good

stories like that. But I mean, just the gratitude we experienced when we were there was incredible. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think the people there feel like no one cares? Yeah. Absolutely. And to the point I asked many people before

I left, I was like, "What do you want me to do?" You know, and everyone basically says like, "Don't stop talking."

Mhm. Like just speak about us as much as you can. And then the other thing which I

found really humbling was tell people that we are humans. Like that's the little

demand that they expect of the world. Yeah. Like did you forget that we're

humans or something? Like it almost it must seem like that well something some bad piece of information must got out there that we're not even human. That's

[ __ ] g that's So I have been to Israel by the way um back in 2020

and um you see I've never been there. I've been late on my rent though. on. I [ __ ] I fielded a few emails,

you know. So, um, yeah. Well, you're paying their tax. We're paying our taxes to them. So, your

money's going there, but you haven't been there. That's the hard That's the I think that's the tough part for a lot of people is I don't is is understanding

why uh why we're finding this. I don't understand why Israel would do this. I

don't understand why that they would do it. I don't I feel bad even for my Jewish friends who are having they're

having to navigate this pain. One of my uh one of

my friends the other day was saying, "Man, it's it's wild because you know, he's like, "Most of my life I've known

and you learn that um you know, just through like Jewish teachings and stuff

and that you know, this horrible thing happened to us, this holocaust, this thing

happened to us in the past and like how we'll fight back and this kind of thing and then now you're uh you have

ancestors and stuff or your history is associated with the thing doing that." And it's like he's like it's just a it's

an odd time to navigate that like inside of myself. And I could understand with I could

understand him when he was sharing some of that like I don't know life's scary and it's scary for humans to be regular

people at the whim of what their governments choose and what like these

I just don't I don't even understand the ambition that someone would have that would end in mass murder, you know? I I

don't even I don't even think it makes sense. Um well they say the awkward part out loud. If you look listen to the government

speeches they were saying we want to acquire this land and you know look listen to um Marshimer

on Tucker Carlson he talks about this. He says they want that land and the way

to do it is kick out all the Palestinians and if they can't which they are not able to because you know the Rafa border is closed is kill them

all right and so they're just trying to figure out how to do this and I think it's it's probably not economically

feasible to just kill everyone you know um so now they're trying to create these humanitarian cities and Rafa have you

heard about this oh my god look this up humanitarian city in Rafa is basically a concentration camp where They're allowed

in, but they're not allowed out unless they want to voluntarily migrate out of Gaza. So, this came out like two weeks

ago. Um, and this was a Israeli uh the so-called humanitarian city in Rafa

refers to a controversial Israeli proposal to relocate large numbers of displaced Palestinians from across Gaza

into a designated area in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt. The plan promoted by IDF Israel cats envisioned

relocating initially around 600,000 people um into heavily controlled camps or encampments in Rafa. Israel

officially described as a humanitarian measure for civilian protection and possible future immigration. God, it

sounds I mean eerily familiar. Come on. Well, here's the thing, man. And people like I've I've had people say, "Man, why

do you talk about this stuff sometimes about God and that sort of thing?" I all

all you ever heard growing up from all these movies, all this stuff was like the I mean you couldn't even go to the

bookstore at the airport with there half the [ __ ] books are about the Holocaust, you know? It's like we get it, dude. You know,

but it was chiseled into your brain. And people are always like, "Well, I can't believe the pe the people right

outside of concentration camps never said anything, never sounded an alarm, never even whistled loudly."

So, I'm like, "Motherfuck, what do you what do you if you know what I'm saying? Like if you see a [ __ ]

genocide, you know what I'm saying? You got to say it. Got to say it. And if you're not saying it, that's [ __ ] crazy. That's crazy to not be

saying it. Especially when you've been taught all your life, you're supposed to say it. So, [ __ ] that, man. Anybody that has a

I'm sorry if there's a if and there's other genocides happening. And yeah, I

don't know about a lot of them, but I want to learn about them. you know, I just talked to a genocide professor the other day that lives in England and um

I'd like to go and interview him to learn more about it, you know, but I'm

sorry if I'm late to the genocide game, but also I don't want to be any later to it, you know, like

I don't know. Let's get let's just get back into what we're talking about. Um are there any particular moments that

really stood out to you during your tenure there as like providing care? like things where you're like, man, this

is like an intense side of conflict or of war or of violence.

Yeah. One story that really sticks out is this 30-year-old pregnant lady, 15week old baby in her

uterus comes in with trauma and um uh and her blood pressure is dropping. She

clearly has some internal bleeding going on. We put the fetal heart tones on the baby to see if their heart rate's going.

No fetal heart tones. So, we emerently take her up to the emergency operating room. We um we open up the the uterus

and extract the fetus and it's essentially a bullet shot through the uterus through the neck of the fetus.

And just to see that was I don't think a human is expected to see that, you know,

like there's fetal demise, you know, fetal death from various medical causes, but you don't see a exploded fetus with

blood coming out of the neck. It was probably the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. And so, so the fact that she

went from almost having a baby in a couple months to never being able to have a baby again because they had to

take the uterus out is is one of the most tragic things for a woman especially, right? Like especially in

Gaza where one of the the the the biggest honors is to have children and,

you know, bring up the next generation and and to know that female even though she survived will never have a child

again. uh you know really hit me hard especially because I just had a five-month-old waiting for me at home

and that was hard to I'm still I'm still thinking about that you know but to

paradox that I had a really amazing story which you know if you don't mind I'll share and and this is brother um

Amir and he's a 15 um 15year-old that shows up to the emergency

department you know I don't see his face I'm just focusing on his blood pressure which is

like almost nothing. And so we're putting uh an ultrasound on his heart and there's blood around his heart. So

his heart can't beat cuz there's just too much blood. So we um we put this tube emerently um into his heart and

relieve the pressure and his blood pressure spikes back up again. He's still unconscious. Mhm.

Two days later, the doctor who was taking care of him brings him to me and he's like, "Do you know who this is?" I

was like, "I have no idea. I never saw his face." And he's like, "I don't know. Is that your child?" And he's like, "No." like look at him. I was like, I

have no idea. And so he asked me to he asked the kid to like lift up his shirt and I see the scar where I put the tube

in and dude this guy is smiling like such a beautiful smile and he's literally going to be discharged in two

days and look at that smile. So he is just such a beautiful kid. Oh, he's geeked, huh?

Yeah, man. It was it was it was probably the like the happiest story. If I went to Gaza and I just had that story, I

would come back a happy man, you know, and that's what being able to provide medical care is all about. just that one

experience. Oh, that's great, dude. Wow. Yeah, that's cool.

But, you know, that's unfortunately this is too far too common, you know, right? I gave this example, but there's so many

kids, you know, um I'll tell you one more story if you don't mind. Yeah. Just pull it up here real quick.

This is a um one-year-old and there was an explosion. You know, this

baby had 85% um of the body burned, which is pretty

much guaranteed death. The team still tried to get some access into one of the

blood vessels to give fluids, but they were unable to. So, they had to declare the baby dead.

Why is it hard to get access into a blood vessel of a baby? Uh well, with 85% burns, you basically

have lost all your volume, your your water. There's like no fluid in you anymore to flow into.

Exactly. So there's just nothing to get access into. So then they have to tell the mom that, you know, the baby died.

Oneyear-old, the mom collapses. Now we have to take care of the mom, you know. Anyways, after um we finally got that

taken care of, this is the baby. And this is a one-year-old baby. And then this is what I see next, the father

taking this one-year-old to the morg. M. And it's just like to me, I see that man and I'm like, man, if would I be that

strong to be able to hold my one-year-old in this foil wrap and walk

to the morg minutes after pronounced dead by the doctor? I don't think I would, you know. And I look at these

gazins and they're just so used to death at this point that it's like, okay, what's next? You know, and they're like

machines. Um, and I think truly it's their faith that gets them through it, you know? they don't really don't have

anything else. We talked about it. There's no humanity left. They they feel like no one in the world's listening. Um

and uh it's really sad, you know, just to hear those stories from them that they just want to be noticed. And I

think it's changing. You know, I think in America especially, people are talking about it. Props to you, man. Like the fact that you're talking about

it on your podcast, I think that's amazing. I think I'm in fact, can I ask you a question?

Yeah. Like what what made you start talking about this? Well, kind of like what I

said before, it was like, well, this just seems to like be everything that I've ever learned that seemed like

wrong. And then at a certain point, it just seemed like this was just uh like

they were trying to like exterminate a people, you know? And I think my biggest thing in my life when I was a kid, I

never had a voice, right? I never had anybody to speak up for me. I never had anybody to speak on my behalf. I never I

was too scared to speak on my own behalf. like I just like I mean I just felt furious that I there was nobody

advocating for me, right? There was nobody advocating for me in the world or my siblings really. And um

and so yeah, I just like I think I did some of that kind of resonated with some of that same feeling that I had when I

was a kid and I was like I just the last thing I like all I just I just want to

have a voice, right? And I just Yeah. I don't know. I'm getting chatty about it. Well, you got you have a moral compass

is what I understand. Well, I just want to have a voice. It's like this is a [ __ ] voice. This these people don't have a voice

or it feels like they don't. And I don't understand why. And it's the same feelings when I didn't have a voice. And so, it's like I just know that it

couldn't be wrong. And if it is wrong, here's the thing. If it's wrong, what the [ __ ] do I lose?

Yeah. What do I I like what do anybody lose? If I'm wrong about a group of people

getting massacred or whatever, oh my bad. Yeah. So, that's the thing. I don't I just don't see any of the other side. I mean,

I was definitely scared a lot of times, you know, but I think where if somebody said to me, you can't talk about that or

I'm not going to be a sponsor on your show or I would say it. I feel like I would mention it. I feel like it would be, you know, that's part of me of of

having a voice as well. And then other people say stuff and and then people secretly will say like, "Thanks for

trying to say stuff." And I don't know. I don't know, man. I think it but it just [ __ ] made me so angry. I just

don't understand. And why are we still doing this [ __ ] You know, you know, there's a recent Gallup poll

that said onethird of Americans still um basically, you know, agree with what

Israel is doing to Gaza. So, what does that mean? Majority of Americans do not agree with what Israel is doing to Gaza at this point. So, I think humanity is

waking up. I think, you know, American we we have good moral values, man. And I don't know what the hell the politicians

are doing that, you know, doesn't represent the American people. I've talked to almost everyone I work with at work and everyone's so interested to

hear about what's going on in Gaza. Um, and and they're they're all normal people, dude. They just want kids to

survive, moms to survive, you know, brothers, fathers to survive, get some food, and call it a day. Like, let's get

this over with, man. Now, every day, is there trauma in these in the hospitals? Like is it always full of like these

MCIs or is it like are there times when it's a little bit quiet? Like what was that like? Um it's not always MCIs but there's

always trauma coming here and there. There are sometimes when it's quiet um but the hospital is always um jam-packed

with trauma patients. So for example, it's a 250 bed hospital officially which is a small community hospital that

probably has a thousand patients in there and they're almost all trauma patients. So, for example, chronic care

is completely forgotten about, right? People with cancer, you know, forget it. Um, yeah, take that [ __ ] down the road,

homie. Yeah. Yeah. Chemo, dude. Just hang your head out of a window here. Sadly, that's true.

Yeah. I mean, it's just ridiculous [ __ ] Um, so, so, so anything like that, but so, so no chronic care, like if you had

the measles or something. We don't have time for that. No, we don't have time for that. There's no resources either, right? Um, there there's diseases popping out that we

should see in textbooks that are popping up in Gaza because there's no clean water. There's no vaccines. There's, you

know, is is everything that you would expect in a third world country is being recognized in Gaza. But it's all

man-made. It's all engineered. It's every solution is like 30 minutes away

at the border just not being allowed in by Israel. You know, whether it's Egypt or Jordan, it's there. It's just not

able to come in. And that's where, you know, my push is let's get these UN organizations that have been doing it

for decades. Let's give them the responsibility. Why aren't we giving them responsibility? Are they have they been

compromised? Well, that's that's what Israel will say, right? Like that the UNR has some Hamas elements in it or something, but

that's been debunked by many um NOS's and you know, you can you can fact check

me on that. But um I don't think they've been compromised. I think they're just seeing the reality that majority of the

world is seeing. The GHF took over aid supporting Gaz after Israel and the United States responding to accusations

that Hamas was diverting humanitarian aid insisted on a new aid mechanism. Okay. The GHF was set up with backing

from both both governments. Um but the GHF was having problems now, right?

Aren't they saying now that the Hamas was commandeering some of their supplies? It's always an excuse, right? I'm specifically talking about

the UN RWA, which is historically has been providing aid in Gaza. Um, so they said that had Hamas elements in it and

that's why they shut that down. And there's again there's news articles that basically say that's not we fact checked

it. We fact checked it and it's not true. And this is on perplexity. UNRWA, why are they no longer providing aid in Gaza?

UNRWA is no longer providing aid in Gaza, primarily due to a combination of Israeli government bans on its operation

in the area and major donor suspensions following Israeli allegations that a small number of UNRWA employees

participated in the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks. Okay. When you did sleep, so if you said

you said it earlier that there some sometimes you can only work like four hours a day. Um the shifts uh in the ER they were

recommending up to four hours a day just because it's so intense. But, you know, the surgeons were doing as much as they can. There there's really no rules as to

what you can do there. You can work as much as you want. Um, obviously you wouldn't work as little as you want. You

went there to help patients. But, you know what I realized when you're there, you're not just a doctor. You're a journalist. We were having media reach

out to us and say, "Hey, can you get a video of this? Can you get a video of that?" Because there's no outside journalism allowed, right? So, we as

Americans got to see firsthand. So, you know, we got interviewed by many different organizations when we were there. NBC, uh, NPR, Democracy Now, um,

some media organization in Australia, they all reached out to us and like props to them because at the end of the day, we wanted our voices heard. So

again, thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk. I think it's super important and like we were talking about

before the show, I think I'm the first person in America that has actually been to Gaza talking about it on on a, you

know, in a show like this. Um, and so I I just want to tell you what I objectively saw. And I actually gave a,

you know, in medicine we have this big conference called grand rounds. I actually just on Wednesday, this past Wednesday, I gave a grand rounds at my

hospital and it got pretty good reception because I was just objective. No politics. You make your own decision.

I'm going to show you pictures. I'm going to show you data and you can make your own decision, right? I can't tell

you how much positive feedback I received after that. And it had all the gory stuff in it, too, because it was doctors. It's all medical related.

Yeah. I mean, I think I just got inspired by Miss Rachel, to be honest with you, man. But, um, dude, props to you, man. That's amazing.

She's Well, I shouldn't be watching children's program. Do you have kids? I'm going to say that. No, I don't. And

so that's even making it worse. That is kind of weird, man. Well, thanks, Doc. You know.

Well, but okay, moving on. Um, I will say this. Uh, yeah, Miss Rachel's been

she's been like a champion, you know. And then how I met you was I saw a woman on

TikTok. Her name was Heba HBA, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah. and she said, "Oh, I have I know two doctors that I just

heard from or something." And then she connected me with you. So, it was just kind of crazy. I mean, I just saw a TikTok and I was like, "I just want to

learn more, you know? I'm just kind of shocked sometimes that like the major news networks aren't talking about it." I'm like, "What the [ __ ] are we what are

you, you know?" And then it's like all about the Epstein [ __ ] Like, yeah. Anyway, I don't It's [ __ ] crazy that

that's what we're choosing. That's that that's even part of the discussion. Um, what were situations like with children

there and providing care to children? Like, what was the realities of that? like uh was were you able to like save

any like keep them from the gore? Like was there you know cuz usually you know a lot of times with in there's like

children's hospitals and you know those hospitals and then there's places for kids right it's a little bit different and less severe. Um what was that like

there? So there was a kids hospital but it wasn't the trauma hospital. So all the kids trauma still came to Nasra

Hospital. They're right next to each other and so we were seeing all the kid trauma as well and the kid trauma was

was different man. um just so you know difficult to see and experience it. It

was difficult to process, difficult to treat um difficult to talk to the family

members with these children. I mean you're seeing you're seeing kids as young as one you know sometimes you know infants but um majority of them are like

you know young boys young girls and just why like you know we asked I I love to hear people's stories right so I asked

this one girl like what were you doing through the family because I don't speak Arabic so we were using translators and

um and she's like oh I was just sitting in my tent reading the Quran which is like the holy book like reading the Bible right and uh this quadcopter just

shot through the tent and here I am you know and you know there's some weirdness going on when a bullet goes from up to

down, you know, like people usually get shot from forward to back, right? From up to down and sitting in a tent is

very strange. So, you know, there's some people who are suspicious about quadcopter shooting middle of tents,

which is in the green zone, the safe zone where civilians live. But it's almost every day we are hearing of

civilians, girls, boys being shot by quadcopters. I haven't seen one myself, but I wasn't out there, right? I was in

the hospital. When you say quadcopter, what do you mean by that? Well, this is kind of interesting. So,

they're basically these drones that have been engineered to um shoot has like an

assault rifle on them, remotely activated. Um it's like a kind of a

drone, so to speak. Mhm. Does it look like that kind of? I haven't seen one. Oh, you haven't? If I They say if you see one, you're

probably going to get shot. Granted, we're American, but we weren't allowed to go there anyways. But could you hear drones ever?

Oh, yeah. Oh, 24/7 there's drone buzzing over you. Really? Yeah. They say they know where everyone

is. They're watching everyone's face. It's probably some crazy AI stuff. I mean, honestly, I think they probably

act like have everyone's phone, you know, attract we connecting to the Israeli towers, too. So, it's like they

they know where we are. Yeah. There's um there's a company called Palunteer I know that I believe

see if you can bring that up that I believe had um which I believe is helping with some of the drone AI work

over in Gaza. Palunteer allegedly enables Israel AI targeting in Gaza raising concerns over war crimes. Um,

earlier this month, and this says allegedly, earlier this month, uh, saw a

continuation of that effort with the targeting of three well-marked or fully approved aid vehicles belonging to World Central Kitchen, killing their seven

occupants and ensuring that the food would never reach those dying of starvation. The targeting was precise,

placing missiles dead center in the aid agency's rooftop logos. Israel, however,

said it was simply a mistake, similar to the mistaken killings of nearly 200 other aid workers in just a matter of

months. Such horrendous mistakes are hard to understand considering the enormous amount of advanced targeting AI

hardware and software provided to the Israeli military and spy agencies, some

of it by one American company in particular, Palanteer Technologies. We stand with Israel, the Denverbased

company said in post on X and LinkedIn. The board of directors of Palunteer will

be gathering in Tel Aviv next week for its first meeting of the new year. So

when was this? April 2024. Oh, so this I remember that. So there was a

this a while back. Yeah. Well, there was an Israeli uh website 972 Mag

called this out. So it's Israeli information. I think it's project lavender and um there's a mission where

the AI basically gets permission to kill a Hamas commander if there's like 300 collateral damage and then if that's

like if it's going to go over 300 civilians then there's an operation that gets activated called like Daddy's Home

where it waits for that Hamas guy to go home and just shoots the entire family. It's just crazy like the fact that this

is completely normalized now and I think this is I think this is experimental. I think this is what's gonna, you know,

the future is gonna have everything to do with what we're seeing here. I I I agree with you. Go back to that

first article. Just uh the project involves selling the ministry an artificial intelligence platform that

uses reams of classified intelligent intelligence reports to make life or death determinations about which target

to attack. In an understatement several years ago, Karp admitted, "Our product is used on occasion to kill people, the

morality of which he himself occasionally questions. I have asked myself, if I were younger at college, would I be protesting me?

Um, yeah. And this is allegedly. This is just stuff that I'm reading from an article here. What website is this?

This is Business and Human Rights Resource Center. What's wild is uh that this is the same

company that's now has a contract to operate in America.

Palanteer lands $10 billion army software and data contract. So Palanteer has linked a contract with

US Army worth up to 10 billion to meet growing warfare demands over the next decade. As part of the deal, Palanteer

will help the military streamline efficiencies while preparing for threats, consolidating 75 total

contracts into one enterprise deal. Um the agreement creates a comprehensive

framework for the Army's future software and data needs. So I think my fear is that uh in the future this is what it'll

be like. We'll be living in a surveillance state and this is what it'll be like. And I hate to say that, but I don't know if it's my fear. It

just seems like um like that's kind of where we're headed, you know? Did it ever seem over

there? Yeah. Like like it was a experimental grounds over there like it it must seem so dystopian that you're

like what even cuz it feel like a war where do you see like Hamas troops like

do you see any of that military? No. It seemed overkill for what we were

visualizing. Like you see F-35 or F-16, I'm not sure which one, but some fast jet flying overhead at night and then

you hear the drone buzzing, then you hear the tank, the the marava tanks in the distance. You can see them with your own eyes, right? And then you hear them

shooting and then you can hear the shell landing and then you hear the Apache helicopter shooting and then you hear the rockets landing and it's like, how

is this all happening against some people underground? Like it it something's not adding up. And then like

I said from a doctor's perspective, you're seeing the casualties which are civilians. I I mean you can make

whatever conclusion you want about what's going on from the military aspect. And I I am also suspicious like

what what is going on? Is it just like a big show of different equipment? We actually had a situation where there was

a some sort of a gas being used and um patients were asphixxiating um but we

didn't know what it was. There was no testing, right? But um um you know the X-ray was normal, the chest X-ray was

normal, but the patients were fixating. It was really weird and we had no idea what what we were treating. So we would

just watch them in the ICU, make sure there were, you know, oxygen was okay. Um so there's some weird stuff going on.

And it's not um just me saying that. If you look at some of the locals, they say there's bombs which we've never heard

before. Um there's um explosions that we've never seen before. Uh, one time we

saw this bomb that's like a shotgun bomb that explodes into thousands of pellets and just disfigures the body. It doesn't

penetrate as deeply, but it just completely disfigures the body. And it's just like, man, like what is going on?

There's so many such a variety of different things from a military point of view going on. And I'm just seeing

the results of it in the ER from again kids, women, children, elderly, handicapped people. And something

doesn't add up. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the feeling it gets even it's like what what what's

happening? And then the weird thing too is like we're seeing this, right? Like just on

TikTok, social, you're seeing videos. It's like well does that not does nobody even care anymore if that's happening?

Like are we becoming like immune to it? Is that happening just to put videos out

to make people immune to to a massacre? Like I I don't understand. like it starts to make because then I start

wondering am I part of some experiment you know and I just I don't know it I I

just don't even understand it and but then it does start to make you believe in pure evil because you're like well

what what else would do something like this? Yeah. There's actually this interview with uh Peter Theal with some uh I think

some pastor who's asking him like you know when the antichrist comes um what kind of technology think you think he's

going to be using and then he's like oh I think Greta you know I think that she's going to develop the technology

for the antichrist and then the the the pastor is like well you're developing this like defense company that has all

this technology don't you think maybe the antichrist would be using your company he's like no I don't see that

you got to watch it let me see That's awesome. Pull it up. This is my my my very specific question

for you, right, is that you are you you're an investor in AI. You're you

know you're deeply invested in Palunteer, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance, in

technologies of warfare and so on, right? And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story

about the antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change

to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like that antichrist would be maybe

be using the tools that you that you were that you were building, right? Like wouldn't the

antichrist be like, great, you know, we're not going to have any more technological progress, but I really like what Palanteer has done so far,

right? I mean, isn't that a isn't that a concern? Wouldn't that be the, you know, the irony of history would be that the

man publicly worrying about the antichrist accidentally hastens his or

her arrival. Uh there all look there there are all

these different scenario. I obviously don't think that that's what I'm doing. I uh

I mean to be clear, I don't think that's I don't think that's what you're doing either. I'm just interested in how you

get to a world willing to submit to permanent authoritarian rule.

Well, but doesn't have an answer. But again, uh there there are these

different gradations of of this we can describe. But

is is this so preposterous what I've just told you as a broad account of the

stagnation that the entire world has submitted for 50 years to peace and

safety. This is a first Thessalonians 5:3. The slogan of the antichrist is peace and safety. and and we've

submitted I mean it's a and you know what it's scary to be alive but at the same time

it's like this is where you are this is where we

are and most people just want to take care of their families you know they just want to get home and get their kids safe and get them fed you know and um

yeah what's the relationship to Hamas do you feel any relationship to Hamas and the people did you see like did you

perform any surgeries on any uh Hamas military. What was that like there? I mean, I I did not see any combatants.

We don't know who's a combatant or not. We But no, I did not treat any Hamas. I I did ask the local people like, you

know, what are your thoughts about Hamas? And, you know, at the end of the day, I would say some of them um support

them, some of them don't. At the end of the day, they're a political entity in Gaza. Um they were democratically

elected, I think, back in the 2000s. You're going to have every type of uh opinion on that. Just like in America,

you know, you have different political factions and so over there it's a political faction. Obviously in America

they're considered a terrorist organization, but locally they're not. Right. So, um, but yeah, just to answer

your question, no, I do not see any or treat any obvious combatants. Yeah, I was just curious if you see any

of their military guys over there. Um, yeah, I don't I don't you know, I thought about that when I was there. I

don't think they're stupid enough to come to the hospital because they know that drone is watching. Oh,

you know, and um I don't think they would risk the hospital being bombed, but granted,

Israel has done that to other hospitals already. Yeah. I I think it's intentional systemic

collapse of the health care system, and it's perfect. You know, right now we're talking about famine, but this famine is

not random. Like, it was engineered. It starts months ago, right? It takes it your body doesn't starve overnight. It

takes 3 or 4 months for your all your calories to to go away, your your car, you know, your glycogen storage in your

liver. Then your your body starts eating the muscles. Then your body starts eating, you know, your your bones. It

takes months for that to happen. And now we're seeing the last stage of starvation for the first set of people.

Mhm. It's just going to get logarithmically exponentially worse until we reverse

this. And even when we reverse it, it's not like you just feed some starving person some chicken or a steak and they

they suddenly become good or yeah or some nuggets or something. Um well, it's a refeeding syndrome. So

it's a problem of electrolytes. You need to have some pretty specialized nutritionists there in Gaza alongside

with the doctors, alongside with the aid. And we're at a point of no return. Unless things change immediately, I'm

very scared what's going to happen next. Is that true? You really believe that? I I'm very unfortunately pessimistic

the way we're seeing our government respond to what's happening there. Oh, for sure. I'm surprised because America is supposed to be the one to

help, right? And it's like usually you see something bad and you think, "Oh, America will help." And the people want to help.

That's right. The people want to help. That's why it's like I hope that those people know that we don't we don't support that kind of

stuff. We don't support uh or I feel like we've always been taught not to support that sort of cruel, you know,

cruelty. Yeah. And that's um you know I think that's one thing is just but then

also throughout time governments have you know people have always had to sit in the shadow of their government and uh

and wish it wasn't as dark you know I think um but I wish I could speak to Trump I mean as a physician maybe a

group of physicians can go talk to him personally 10 minutes just tell him what we saw and hey man can you just flood

Gaza with aid I mean is that really too much to ask for but how does he not know that I wonder he knows that he admitted it. I I don't

know why he doesn't. He's like, "Why are you working with Israel? You're more powerful than Israel. Just go there and

decide, wait, we're flooding aid. That's it." He He has the right to do that. I mean, America is the most powerful

nation in the world, right? We all know that militarily, economically. I mean, Trump basically says what he wants and

he gets it, right? I don't know why why there's something about Israel that is

holding him back. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I you know I don't know. I don't know. I think that's like

some stuff out of our grade of understanding sometimes. And I think it's like that at

different levels. I I just think we don't know. And then it's like are we all like I don't know. It starts to feel like you're on a damn game show or

something. It starts to feel you know and I can't even imagine what it feels like if you're in the game like if you

you know trapped you feel like you're trapped in an experimental land. Why do you think the world is uh

seemingly apprehensive to like to stop these atrocities from continuing there?

Well, I think it depends which country you're talking about. I think the people want to stop this genocide, but every

country has its own kind of problem that they're having to deal with. uh whether

you're talking about Egypt or Jordan, whether you're talking about the Arab states, whether you're talking about Europe, you know, um I don't really know

what Russia and China are doing, but um yeah, America and Israel are kind of like the ones leading this genocide. And

I hate to say it because it's my country, but um I don't know what what's

going on with American politicians that they just want to continue this thing. Let's talk about Egypt and Jordan, too. What are some because you see like um

that Jordan doesn't allow Gazins in. Is that true? I'm sorry. I know it's not your

responsibility, but you may know more that than I do. Yeah, I'll talk I mean I'll talk briefly on this and again that's why it's nice

to have a Palestinian on your show and who can speak on this, but I will just say um Gaza does not share a border with

Jordan, right? So um Israel would have to allow that exodus to Jordan. Um so

normally people historically have left through the Rafa border into Egypt. Um but Egypt basically said

they closed the Rafa border and and now Rafa has been completely taken over by Israel. So no human soul can actually go

into Rafa to even evacuate to Egypt. I think initially they tried to um

forcefully evac you know displace everyone into the Sinai Peninsula but Egypt basically put a hard stop on that.

But in my opinion, they should have at least allowed women and children in in the sick to to leave. Let's let's see

what Perplexity has to say here. Egypt did not allow people to leave Gaza primarily because the Rafa border

crossing, the only exit from Gaza, not controlled by Israel, was closed on the Palestinian side after Israel seized it

during the 2024 Rafa offensive. Egypt also cited concerns about the

security and the need for proper procedures before allowing crossings, stating that any movements, including

those of foreign delegations or activists need prior approval due to the

volatile situation. So maybe they didn't want Hamas in their country. Yeah, that's essentially it. Got it.

I think at the end of the day, um the conversation has to be about how we can

get aid back into Gaza, right? and um you know push our politicians and

President Trump to you know kind of use his power and leverage over Netanyahu

and say you are allowing aid in no matter what. Um because what we're seeing on on Twitter, what we're seeing

on TV is it's unacceptable, man. It's 2025 and we're seeing kids really rot

away, it's pathetic. And and the fact that people are now trying to deny it, I mean, come on, man. I think this most

recent picture that this New York Times article, have you heard about this? This this mom and this baby um it shows a

baby starving and the mom apparently does not look like she's starving. And

so Oh, yes. Israel's media basically saying, "Well, there's no there's no starvation going on there."

Yeah. Like wait, what are you telling me? The baby's starving, but not the mom. Well, they're saying the mom is selfish

and not feeding the baby, apparently. And and now they're saying, "Well, now the baby had a pre-existing condition."

Of course, every everyone in the hospital has pre-existing conditions, right? Yeah. Well, it's hard to sleep next to

[ __ ] missiles going off. That's right. I could imagine that. That's a pre-existing curse, you know? I I mean,

I wet the bed is cuz I would get an ass whooping every now and then, dude. I cannot even imagine trying to wet the

bed when you haven't had a cup of water in a [ __ ] month. That's right. So, I don't I just I don't understand. I

just do not understand. It's like you're taught your whole life this is how to do things. This is when you, you know, G.I.

Joe type [ __ ] This is when your country helps out. And then you're watching this almost like you're being forced to watch

it. Like the algorithm is it's all this stuff and then it's like but don't you

can't feel this way about it or that's not right or this has been it just like it's bizarre, man.

Well, you know, I I think you deserve a lot of credit for talking about this. I think a lot of people are scared to talk

about it. You know, I was initially scared to talk about it at work, but then I was like, you know what? This is this is a medically related genocide. I

mean, I have the right to say it's a genocide as a healthcare worker. It's not legally binding. Only the International Court of Justice can

actually label it officially a genocide, which is going to take like 15 years. And at that point, there will be no Gaza, you know. So, like we can't wait

for that. I'm I'm going to label it a genocide as a healthcare worker and many other people are. And even Israel in

Israel like Betselum has labeled it a genocide. genocides. Holocaust survivors have basically said it's a genocide. So

Mandy Patinkin came out and said it, dude. Boom. From freaking crim criminal minds. Well, he has a moral compass.

How could you not, dude? You know how many [ __ ] criminals he's busted? I'm going to trust that guy. That's easy.

That is easy, man. And I thought that that was brave of him to say something. Um, but I don't know. People shouldn't

feel good because they [ __ ] just said something that seems like it makes s I don't know, dude. I I I can't.

You'd be surprised if you went to Gaza and you told people, "Hey, I spoke up. You are better than the rest of humanity

to them." That's all they want. They just want you to speak up. They're not expecting you and I to save the day.

They're not expecting you and I to to get rid of the bombs and the and the drones and the tanks. They just want us

to to be a voice, like you said before, and try to convince who we can, whether

it be our family, our friends, that these people are human. They're not all Hamas, okay? And um and they deserve to

live, you know, they deserve to be educated. They deserve to have fun, smile, to see their kids grow up. At the

end of the day, it's about just humanism, you know? And and it sounds kind of cliche. Why am I a doctor, right? Because I I I love taking care of

people. That's the interview question that that got me into medical school. But when I went to Gaza, I truly I can

say with true conviction that I was so honored to be a physician. There was no financial payments. There was no um

insurance, you know, there was no there was no conflicts of interest. It was literally pure patient care. And it was

the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. And I felt so honored and blessed that there's two, you know,

there's however many billion people on the earth and only maybe 500 doctors in

the last two years have actually been there and I was one of them. I felt really blessed, you know, and I I will say if you talked to maybe all these 500

doctors, they'll say the same thing that children are being blown up, that women are being shot, that fathers are being

killed, they're going to tell you the same thing. And you, especially these last three months, talk to all the doctors who have been there in the last

3 months, and they're going to say the same thing. There's famine, there's starvation, there's um, you know,

anemia, there's mothers who can't breastfeed anymore, there's no formula, there's no food. What food are they getting?

Okay, that's a great question. They're getting flour. Mhm. They're getting um Well, they have zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers, which

they grow domestically. And so from outside, peppers. Okay. Okay. So, from outside, they're getting

flour. Um sugar comes in, but it's extremely expensive. Um and they used to

have rice, but it's basically flour and chickpeas now. Okay. Beans, flour, and chickpeas. Okay. And where do they buy it from? Is

there a shop or something? Yeah. So they have markets which is this tent with like you know food and

unfortunately the inflation there is serious. So for example I think tomatoes have gone up like 3,000%

in the last few months um or or before before this conflict to now it's like

3,000%. I have a chart which I'll share with you. Um and it was in my grand rounds that I was talking about

and it's a cash economy there. So when people take it out of their bank accounts, it's like 50% of their value

is lost in this transaction. So uh like a bag of cucumbers and tomatoes um with

in America might cost 10 bucks cost like $50 there. But that's after the um the 50% cut. So

it's a hundred US dollars to buy a bag of tomatoes and cucumbers. I just the

inflation is crazy. a a bag of flour which uh maybe 20 kilograms which would

last like a normal average family maybe two to three weeks costs $500 US

it's not possible right so people are going to the GHF sites because they can't afford that right so they have to go there to get

food the poor in Gaza cannot afford that who is selling food at those prices like

is it Hamas or no no it's not Hamas it's gangs inside of Gaza so that's a whole different

conversation if you want to get into we can talk yeah I'd love to talk about So, so the gangs are a whole different problem in

Gaza. So, I think what the the Israeli military realized is they just can't do the job that they were intending to do.

They can't destroy Hamas. So, they have employed a new methodology where they have basically taken people in Gaza who

hate Hamas, so ex prisoners that were probably in Gaza before, and employed

them. So they basically drop these little bombs that shoot out little eims that say, "Hey, call us if you want to

work with us." Sim cards, you mean? Yeah, sim cards. That's what I meant. Okay. And it says, "Call us." So, you know, this person who wants to sell out,

basically calls them. Hey, we'll protect your family. We're we're going to give give make sure your family's happy. We're going to give you some money.

We'll make sure we'll never bomb you, etc. Right. Is that true? I mean, I'm telling you what I was told.

Okay. Abu Shabbab is this main gang leader. Okay. He actually there's news articles about him. Yeah. Abu Yaser Abu Shab. He

works with the IDF and so his gang basically gets first dibs on the aid

coming in. So he and his gang steal the aid and then they go to the market and

sell at super high prices. And you might think, oh, this is like an internal Gazin problem, but it's not. It's all

engineered by the Israeli army. Okay, here's what it says here. Organized gangs, often tied to large

families or clans, and sometimes involved in pre-war smuggling or petty crime, have become the principal forces

controlling the trade and distribution of food. Notably, an armed group called the Popular Forces, led by Yaser Abu

Shabab, is active in southern Gaza. This group described as a criminal gang by

aid workers and analysts, is wildly accused of looting aid trucks and charging protection bribes to traders.

Abu Shabbab's group has been linked to the theft and resale of aid. And some reports allege it operates openly under

Israeli military control. So that's just alleged. But yeah, it's alleged. But you know, I will say if you go to Gaza with a gun, guess

what's going to happen? What? You get drone strike, right? These guys are walking on the streets with their guns drone strike.

Yeah. We were in the hospital looking outside and there's like you just hear this AK-47. And I asked the locals, I was like, I thought you can't have a gun

in Gaza. And they're like, you can't. And I was like, "So, how is that guy shooting a gun openly in the air trying

to get everyone away from the aid?" And I and they're like, "They're they're IDF associated gangs."

It's like contractors. Yeah, it's contractors. But like it's it's logic, right? If you are walking around with a gun in Gaza, that drone is

watching you. You are going to die. But what is also the rumors of Hamas controlling food there?

I have no evidence for that. And I don't even see how that's feasible. I mean,

how are they going to loot the trucks when that drone is watching? That drone is that surveillance drone is watching

every single move of everyone in Gaza. So, tell me that you walk outside, you can hear the drone. Oh, yeah. It's just buzzing over you

24/7. How many are there, do you think? I mean, I'm sure there's a couple in Gaza. I'm sure it was one dedicated just

for Khan Ununice. You know, I'm sure one's dedicated for Gaza City up north. I don't know. You're going to have to

ask some. Can you watch a live feed or anything or no? Like of the or you know what I'm saying? Like a um No, you can't you can't really see them.

They're They're pretty high up. You can't really see. You can hear them. Yeah. It's just this buzz. You can kind of get

used to it. Yeah. It was freaky when we first got there. You just hear explosions and you hear

this drone over here and you just don't know what's going to happen next. You just get used to it. I remember one time we went to some uh

shows in um uh I can't remember the name. It was some base where during um

like Afghanistan times and they would have the alarm on the base would go off and that meant that like something had

come into the base like come like a projectile would come into the base. So people were just standing around like waiting for something to happen. It was

so creepy but I can't even imagine that being under that stress 24 hours. What do you think are some of the long-term effects

of like this sort of trauma and stress there um in Gaza and the people there?

Man, that's that's a great question. That's going to be generational, man. um the the stuff that kids are seeing

like their father's brains being splattered. We're seeing in the ER and it's hard for me as a physician to see

that. Imagine being a kid and having to see your family member dying in front of you. I mean, I don't I don't know. What

do you think? I think it's common sense. Every child's going to just have trauma that they can't get over. I don't think

there's any psychiatrist in the world that can treat these people in Gaza, you know? I don't think it's normal. It's

just like the Holocaust, right? What happened there was so tragic that we still talk about it, right?

Yeah. And it's going to be, in my opinion, a very similar concept. Yeah.

Do you think they're going to let the people out of there? Did it feel like there's a solution coming? What did you feel like? Did you feel like the people

there felt like they still had hope? What was that like? I think a lot of people want to leave Gaza, especially

those people who have kids and families and just want to give the best for their, you know, best opportunity for

their kids. There was some a lot of um students who want to study abroad like the UK or or Qatar and uh you could see

that this that's their way out, but there was also a large segment of the population that basically said, "We're

not leaving our our homeland and there's nothing you can do about it." And it's like, "Dang, dude, you got some faith."

And you got to give props to those people. Oh, those are like Alabama fans, dude. You know what I'm saying, bro?

That's true. They're [ __ ] Yeah, those are next level, right? I mean, they are locked in, dude.

Were you an Alabama fan or LSU? I'm an LSU fan. I like uh UT, too, and Vanderbilt since I live in Tennessee

now. But, um, yeah, I mean, that's just that's an intensity, you know. Yeah. So, you know what I'm talking

about if you want to compare it to that, but I mean, kind of. But I mean, yeah, it's like some people that's, you know, you

stay locked into your home. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes if you lose your home, do people feel like they have anything? Especially some people,

they've already lost their their family. What, you know? Yeah. I I will say goins are probably the most stubborn people you'll ever

meet in a good way, right? They don't give up. You know, you go there and they're smiling at you and and you

wouldn't even know they're going through a genocide until you actually start talking to them. And I went there like,

you know, as a proceduralist, like I said, as a doctor. But once I one thing I realized is like I was just a brother.

I was just another brother who put my hand on someone's shoulder and I said,

"Man, just talk to me, you know, tell me what's going on." And it took me a few days to get to this level with people

cuz they, you know, they it the trust thing is real, the mistrust. So once I got to really trust people and they got

to trust me, people opened up to me, man. like there was this um and I don't want to say it's specialty cuz I don't

want to compromise him. You know, people are very scared to talk um openly on camera, especially because I actually

asked some of them, hey, I was like, can I get your testimony on camera, you know, I'll show people back home to tell your story and they're like, "No,

absolutely not." But there was this guy in the hospital working, he he was jailed for two months, no charges. He

told me about his jailing experience, and I'll get I'll get to that. There was another doctor who was a surgeon. He was jailed for a year, no charges. And

again, we're talking about doctors being arrested and put in maximum security prisons or jails with no charges and

then being let go and say like, "Oh, you can go back to your normal life." You know how much psychological toll that happens there. And he didn't really tell

me the entire story cuz you could just tell so much crap happened to him. He was talking about the skin diseases he

got. He was talking about how they're not allowed to talk to their neighbor. Um, and there's like 200 people in just

a space and they're basically zip tied and blindfolded. And imagine doing that

for two months uh or a year and uh the guards would beat them if they talked to

their, you know, co-jail co-prisoners. I I mean it just I I I just don't

understand how we can be normalizing that in the healthc care field. Like

doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, I just don't get it. Like what do you mean by that?

Like you know if a pedophile or a serial killer goes to jail, have at it, man.

Put him in jail. Put him in maximum security. You're talking about an innocent physician, an innocent surgeon, an innocent nurse. It's like how can we

accept that as human beings, right? Number of detained medical

workers right here. According to the head of information for the Hamasled Gaza Health Ministry, over 365

healthcare workers are being held in Israeli prisons as of early 2025. Yeah. So, I met two of them, right? They

were they were let go without charges. I mean, they were Yeah. And where do they live at? They live in a tent, man. In the

Kunistice, there's a tent city. one-third of Gaza all live in in this place called Moasi Camp. I'll show you a

picture of this. And it's just tents. Like you literally just find a plot of land, you put your tent down, and you have like 20 family

members living in there. Yeah. So like each one of those is a tent, right? Crazy looking. Yeah. It's not like just you and your wife. It's like you and your wife and

your family and and kids and in-laws. Um so this is kind of the new Gaza here.

Yeah. It's one third of Gaza right here. Wow. What's the vibes here, man? And I know that's a crazy thing to say like it's a damn nightclub or something, but

uh I mean [ __ ] but it's like they got a bouncer up front.

Um you know, you see kids playing on trampolines. You see kids being kids. Yeah. Uh you see fathers kind of s you know,

sulking trying to figure out like what to do. You see mothers kind of just hiding in their tents trying to take

care of their little ones. You see grandpas kind of like hanging out with other grandpas. You see what

you would expect a normal life to be and that's what it is. These people are normal civilians just living their life,

man. Right? You see donkey carts moving around. You know, everyone cooks here with firewood,

right? There's no electricity. So, um they get the wood through old furniture

and so they're burning old furniture as their firewood. Dude, the toxic fumes here are unreal. These people are going

to have chronic diseases for the rest of their life. Cancers are going to develop in like 15 years from stuff that you know they're burning. I mean, it's every

kind of, you know, we we actually smell the thermite after these bombs. I don't know what health effects that has on

people. I I just I fear what's going to happen in the next generation. Like, we're going to see some not only

psychological diseases, psychiatric diseases, but also literally physical diseases that's going to come about. So,

this is right there, one of the larger tents, and they kind of use it as a school. And so, all the children are here, and

uh they're singing. They're just trying to live a normal life, man. These are the kids there. And so I went here and I

asked the principal, "Hey, do you mind if I record? I'm from the US." Dude, when I told him I'm from the US, he's like, "Please record it and share it

with people, you know, and that's what they want. They want people to see they're human, right? And um yeah, so I

I uh started recording this and I you'll notice I abruptly cut it off because I just couldn't handle it.

[Applause] [Music]

[Music] Oh, that's cute.

Dude, I broke. This kid's having a good time, huh? Yeah. I broke down like a baby, dude. Really? I just couldn't handle that.

Why? Cuz it's just such a contra dare. Like, what was what were some of the feelings you were having, dude? You see all the kids being

destroyed in the trauma bay and you realize that's the people that are being bombed. Like that's the people that

60,000 dead and 50% are women and children. Like that doesn't make sense, man. Yeah.

I have kids at home that age. Yeah. And to see them trying to enjoy life in the setting

of bombs going off in the background and quadcopters and drones and tanks, it's

like they're just singing. They're just kids, man. They're just normal human beings that look different, that talk

different, and somehow they're the the targets.

Yeah, it hurts. Yeah. I mean, the fact that like I I I

don't know. I just feel like nothing is making sense some days. But yeah, kids should not have to feel that way.

I mean, I'll say for the third time because I I can't thank you enough. Just keep talking, man. And I'm not saying

make this your the the the reason for your podcast, but you know, just here and there if you know someone that's

willing to talk about what's going on over there. Yeah. Come for the humor, stay for the genocide. You know, I think that's

just joking. But it's like you got Look, I learned from police officers in moments of trauma, you sometimes you

have to step outside and laugh, you know? That's right. You have to step outside and laugh. And and and to your point, the Gazins

laugh. They smile. They have a good time. They know their situation is hell.

It's just terrible, right? But they somehow find humanity within themselves

and around them enough to enjoy whatever life they have left. So, props to you

for laughing because you need to. We're human at the end of the day. We can only handle so much stress and trauma, right? And I do want to say that is like I mean

right now I'm in a space where I do work for myself pretty much or for our listeners, you know, and so yeah, I

think I don't think there's any real like kudos to me. I mean, some of those thoughts are nice, but I'm in a I'm in a

position where I can kind of speak up and you're in a position where you can say just what you saw or what you heard. And it's really just what I feel. It's

like I don't [ __ ] know. I know these a lot of these countries have been at war forever. I know that like the Middle East has always been, you know, this

like behind the veil like shaking this hand and a knife behind the back and,

you know, it's always had this mysterious like knives and Casablanca type of vibes, you know. But um but I I

don't know. I just you see a bunch of kids like [ __ ] you know, playing hideand go seek

forever and it's [ __ ] scary. You're like, what is this? You know, wow. So you're like, "Well,

I'm going to speak up to about this a little because I don't want it on my doorstep. I you know, and who know

[ __ ] who knows? You don't know what the devil has planned, brother." You know, and they say the devil will

come and he'll you you'll think he's a nice guy. That's the thing.

You know, he doesn't show up in a shirt that's like, "Hey, I'm the devil." You know, that's right. He shows up in something pretty decent

and you're like, "All right, this seems this guy seems pretty decent." you know, his wife makes a nice casserole or

whatever. Um, do you think you had a positive effect there?

Um, and would you do something different if you could go again? Absolutely had a positive effect. The

amount of friends, the amount of doctors that just were so happy to see us there, to see the camaraderie, the medical

friendship that we have made there is endless. And I keep in touch with them every day. Every day I wake up and I'm say, "Hey, how you doing?" And you know,

it's negative, but um I say just just keep praying to God. You know, there's going to come a day where you're you're

going to be smiling and um being happy with what's what's theirs, if it's in this life or the next. So, you know, I'm

going to keep trying to do everything I can. Uh I'm going to try to go back. I want to meet them again. I want to meet

that kid again. Uh I don't know where he is, but I hope I I see him again. Yeah. Amen, man. Yeah. Yeah, it is. That

Yeah. Even just thinking about his smile, that is exciting, you know. um you got to witness this firsthand.

Did it um did it alter your kind of view of humanity? What was that like? What

has that kind of been like after a little time has passed here? Cuz you've been home for a month. Yeah. So, I came home and uh you know,

seeing all these stories of these children and women and my kids come up to me and they're like, "Baba, can we

play video games? Can we play Mario Kart?" I was like, "Man, like how do I how do I go back to reality?" you know,

cuz it really was a different world out there, man. It really was. And just like going back to work and just having to

deal with a patient that's complaining that maybe I'm a little bit late or Yeah, I'm fat or whatever.

Yeah. Like, dude, who isn't fat? You know, I don't know 78 people that aren't fat.

Yeah, there you go. Or just like not not being comfortable enough on the table because we didn't provide enough pain medications, you know? legitimate

legitimate concerns that any human should be able to convey. But just coming back to that, man, I just felt so

grateful for everything that we had. And I think that's the sensation that the feeling I have right now. Just so much

gratitude for the life that we live, you know, and at the same time a little bit of guilt, too. Like when I eat meat now,

I'm like, "Dang, dude, I wish I can give this to my friends back I made in Gaza." The the doctors I worked with, the nurses that I worked with, the medical

students I worked with. like I wish I could give this to them, you know, and um that's how I feel now. And I eat

less, you know. Yeah, I do. I I just can't get myself to eat three meals a day. I mean, I find myself

to eat like one meal a day now. That's what I was doing in Gaza. I mean, you've talked about like talking to world leaders and stuff like that.

What What message would you communicate to world leaders um having been there and having offered aid there?

I think some of the world leaders are actually waking up. Canada, uh, France, Spain, they're all willing to recognize

a Palestinian state, which, you know, should be obvious. I mean, I don't know

why Trump can't recognize that humans require dignity and honor and food and

water. Um, so I I really wish I I feel like Trump has it in him. He just he

needs to be convinced by the right group of people. And I I feel like doctors are decent people. Um that's why I wish I

could communicate this with them. That said, um I think you know the the UN is

the perfect organization to do something. The security council has convened about five times about a

permanent ceasefire and they have the military capability of doing something

imposing that ceasefire and all five times the US has basically said no.

Every other country has said yes. So, it's really the US. I mean, it really is the US that's preventing the UN from

doing their job. Prior to this, in early June 2025, the UN Security Council attempted to pass a similar resolution for a permanent

ceasefire in Gaza, but it was vetoed by the United States despite 14 out of 15 council members voting in favor. So,

we're the ones holding it up. Oh, yeah. Man, that's unreal.

And that's that's uh binding. So that's binding on every country that's part of

the UN has to abide by that. So if America approved that, it would be a

gamecher. The US opposition to this resolution should come as no surprise. It is

unacceptable for what it does say. It is unacceptable for what it does not say.

And it is unacceptable for the manner in which it has been advanced.

The United States has been clear. We would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for

Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza. This resolution would undermine

diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground and emboldens Hamas.

This resolution also draws false equivalence between Israel and Hamas,

which is both wrong and dangerous. There you go.

Well, and I don't know what the specifics of that resolution were either, but the fact that 14 countries,

we're talking about the 14 biggest countries, by the way. We're not talking about like Martinia. Yeah. Or Myanmar or whatever. And shout

out to the May or to the to the my to my out there.

uh or Mayan Muzz. I don't want to freaking go hard R on him. Uh Dr. Raman,

thank you so much for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you bringing me here and giving me an opportunity to talk and uh

yeah, man. I I I really have to shout out to you for being brave about this and talking about this. This is

obviously difficult to hear these stories and it's not normal to hear that brains are coming out of people's heads

and being shot in the head so routinely, but it is what it is. we saw it and I would like to share it and I apologize

to the audience if this was too gruesome or grotesque but it is what it is. Yeah, I think that's the truth man. This

is where we are you know. Um well thank you so much again brother and uh travel safe back to Milwaukee and uh yeah just

keep praying man. Absolutely. Never stop. Never will stop. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and

I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be corner stone.

Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found. I can

feel it in my bones. But it's going to take

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