“Genocidal Machine“: Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah on Israel’s Destruction of Gaza’s Hospitals

Support our work: Israeli forces withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City today after a two-week raid that has left most of the medical complex in ruins. Since October, Gaza’s health sector has been completely decimated, leaving only a dozen hospitals partially functional as the entire medical infrastructure is relentlessly shelled, besieged and raided. We speak to British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who spent over a month treating patients at Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals. He pays tribute to Dr. Ahmad Maqadmeh, a fellow surgeon that was found killed today alongside his mother at Al-Shifa. “I blame the Western journalists, who perpetuated the narrative that militarized the hospital as a justifiable and acceptable target,“ says Abu-Sittah about Maqadmeh’s death. “This was a war Israel declared on Palestinian children,“ he later concludes, “because Palestinian children represent the Palestinian tomorrow that is incompatible with the Zionist settler-colonial project.“ Plus, we hear from a trauma surgeon currently volunteering at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa describes the scene at the hospital as a squalid shelter for thousands of refugees. “There’s no privacy, no dignity for any of these people,“ he says. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: