I spoke to several colleagues when I was in Gaza, both in March and in July, who had been detained by Israel, abducted. These are people that were targeted because of their jobs. So, they were pulled out of a line out of a checkpoint because they were wearing scrubs and they were identified as healthcare workers, and they were beat and tortured because of their status as doctors and nurses. The nurses that I spoke to had been detained for over two months. They had been physically, sexually, psychologically tortured, deprived of food. Their only crime was the fact that they were healing people. Israel is making it impossible for anybody who wants to save lives to do that.
We did see patients in the ICU who had to have worms and maggots cleaned out of their mouths every single day because there is no soap. Israel is not allowing soap into Gaza. So, there is no way to prevent infections. The United States provides cover for Israel to be able to do all of this. The death of American citizens at the hand of Israel is really proof of this. It’s extremely hard for me to do my job as an American doctor if I know that at any moment Israel could shoot me, kill me, strike the hospital that I’m at, and the United States would do absolutely nothing about it.