“Every single person I encountered was malnourished. Everyone was at pains to say so. They would pull out their phone and show me old pictures of themselves and say, don't remember me like I am right now. This is what I used to look like. Everyone's belt was tight. Every time, it's a conservative society, so men don't touch women there. But every time I would pat a man on the back, my hand would just fall between two shoulder blades right under their spine. These people have been hungry for a year at this point now.”
Interviewer: When it comes to civilians, because if the rubble or the daily funerals or even the images of all the starving children waiting in line for food, don’t explain how horrific Gaza is right now, then just listen to this doctor. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is one of many compassionate Americans who are volunteering their time in the war-torn strip. Now he has given this bone-chilling glimpse at the two weeks that he spent on the ground in Khan Younis, writing in a New York Times op-ed. “Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest. Virtually all of whom went on to die, 13 in total”. His heart-wrenching account also features interviews with 65 volunteer American healthcare workers, and we hear their personal stories detailing the atrocities that they witnessed also. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa joins me now.
Dr. We’re so happy to have you not only with us now to talk about this, but even to take the time to go in to Gaza and to care for the people that Tom (Dr. Thomas Surgeon) just pointed out in his piece that it’s something we can’t continue to ignore. And you didn’t just go in country, you wrote this article, and you also wrote an open letter to President Biden. Why did you think that an article and an open letter to the President would make a difference or make people listen?
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa: Yeah, thanks for having me, Kira. Why I thought it would help? You know, I think the Biden administration should be made aware of what is being done with our weapons, if it makes a difference, if they want to listen and see that a war in which children are being shot in the head every single day, a war in which women and children are being starved, starved to death quite literally. This is not a war that the American government should be funding in my opinion, and I think it probably is the opinion of the majority of Americans.
Interviewer:Clearly, you’re not alone in what you’ve witnessed, because a lot of your colleagues have recounted multiple cases of children who had been shot in the head or the chest in Gaza. I’m just going to ask you point blank. Do you believe that Israel is purposely shooting children?
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa: So, it’s important to remember, I’m not a war crimes investigator and neither are any of the healthcare workers that signed our open letter or that I interviewed for the times piece, like you mentioned. What we can say is that in the catchment area of every hospital in Gaza for the past year on a regular daily basis, children have been shot in the head. Now are some percentage of them shot in a crossfire? Probably, but other than that, unless you think the Palestinians are shooting their own children in the head, that means Israelis are doing it. If it had gone on for a week after October 7th, you could say, well, they’re just in a rage, it’s understandable, but that would make sense. But it’s gone on for a year. These Israeli armies are very sophisticated. They have video monitoring equipment. There was never a time when I was in Gaza that there wasn’t a drone over it, literally never. So, they know exactly who they’re shooting. They know this has been going on for a year. My letter has been downloaded, not my letter – our letter, has been downloaded many, many times in Israel. I know that just from looking at the website. So, it’s not a secret. They know what’s going on. It’s continuing to happen. So, people can make their own conclusion about whether it’s deliberate or not.
Interviewer:Well, you know Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintains that his military takes every measure possible to protect civilians before conducting strikes. Do you believe him after what you’ve witnessed?
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa: I didn’t believe him before I went there to be honest, but it’s not that do I or do I not believe him? Every human rights organization in the world says the opposite. So, I know that what I saw on the ground doesn’t match with that either, but it’s important to realize that the people who actually can investigate these things and do, do not agree with his assessment.
Interviewer: Got it. And you mentioned the children that are starving. We know that there’s severe maltrition and that these kids are not only being shot and killed, but they’re starving to death. Tell us what you saw. You did mention it briefly, but if you could just describe a little bit more of what you witnessed, doctor.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa: Of course. You know, so I was there in March and April, and I was in Khan Younis before it had been destroyed. And when I was there, the European hospital where I was at, was the best resource city block in the entire Gaza Strip. And it was still an absolute and total disaster. Every single person I encountered was malnourished, not starving to death. That’s different, but every single person I encountered was malnourished. Everyone was at pains to say so. They would pull out their phone and show me old pictures of themselves and say, don’t remember me like I am right now. This is what I used to look like. Everyone’s belt was tight. Every time, it’s a conservative society, so men don’t touch women there. But every time I would pat a man on the back, my hand would just fall between two shoulder blades right under their spine. These people have been hungry for a year at this point now. The malnutrition is widespread. Every single surgical incision I made there, every single one got infected. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because people’s immune system is not working properly because they’re malnourished. This is having a huge widespread problem. This is causing a huge rate of death in Gaza. It’s completely unknown how many people have died, but it could easily be in the tens of thousands. And it’s literally just unknown. That’s how scary what’s going on in Gaza is. We don’t know if we’re starving tens of thousands of people, most of them small children to death. That’s terrifying to me.
Interviewer: Dr. Feroze Sidhwah, we’re just not grateful for you as a doctor, but just to have your voice. To come back and tell us exactly what you’re seeing. Sometimes it’s really hard to get to the truth. We appreciate you, Dr. Thank you.