“I find myself wanting to cry constantly, but I just don't have the time moving from one person to another.”
Hello, my name is Mark Brauner. I’m a board-certified emergency physician practicing the United States in Oregon, and I came to Gaza with Rahma Worldwide to provide some respite care to the physicians and surgeons here at Nasser Hospital. I came with an open mind and what I’ve seen has just been absolutely catastrophic, abnormal, out of this world pain and suffering and injury to women and children. I don’t see any evidence of warriors. I see malnourished fathers and daughters. I see pregnant women with their, you know, babies ripped from their womb by shrapnel. I see small children comfortable in their red sweater having to have it ripped off them and expose their body with their arms just completely annihilated, and it’s just relentless. It’s, you know, day after day. We’ve been here for three days and every time we know that there’s a so-called food distribution, we know that there’s going to be annihilation. And you know, the first couple of days we were seeing a lot of isolated injuries, head or chest or abdomen, but today it’s reported that tanks have been used at the food distribution centers, which makes sense because we’re seeing multi trauma, we’re seeing head, neck, chest, abdomen, extremities, many many deaths. And it just doesn’t have to be this way, you know. This is something that’s just got to stop. And I am absolutely impressed by the staff in Nasser Hospital, the nurses and the physicians and surgeons and techs and allied health people and the foreign visitors, coming together and working, you know, relentlessly to try to save lives. And it’s just an amazing experience, one that I’m so happy that I had the chance to come here and make, but I it’s something I’ll never forget. And I’ve been trying to think of another example in modern history of a you know a medium-sized community hospital, that is having to provide mass casualty support to millions of people, and I just don’t, you know, I just don’t know of any other example. This is a really unique phenomenon, and anyway I’m, you know, I’m so happy to be here. It is so intense, you know, I find myself wanting to cry constantly, but I just don’t have the time moving from one person to another. And I’m very happy to bear witness to this and, you know, I speak to you earnestly from the heart, and I really hope the world listens and takes some type of action. I want you to do it now, not tomorrow or the next day, but this very second, when you see this, I want you to reach out to your sphere of influence – your family, your friends, your politicians – and demand justice, this is just abhorrent. And, you know, we’re complicit if we don’t do anything. Each one of us sitting on the couch, listening in our car, we’re complicit unless we take some action and I encourage you to do that. Thank you.