This Past Weekend - Theo Von - #602 - Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD)

Aug. 12, 2025 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

01:41:01

#602 - Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD)

Dr. Aziz Rahman, MD is a physician and board-certified radiologist who recently returned from Gaza after working in Nasser Hospital. Dr. Aziz joins Theo to talk about the day-to-day conditions of the hospital, what he gathered is going on at GHF food distribution sites, and how families are holding on to hope after living through so much pain. ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo and download their new web browser Comet at https://comet.perplexity.ai/ ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time	Text
	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, the hope.
	I am very grateful for his time.
	This episode can get a bit intense 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 Rahman.
	I'm on this.
	I'm on this.
	Dr. Rahman, thanks for joining me today, man.
	Thanks for having me.
	Special short notice.
	Yeah, I appreciate it, man.
	You, we'll just get right into you.
	You did a service in, you're a doctor?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And you just got it, you just did a service in Gaza.
	And how did they say it there?
	They say Gaza.
	But you can say Gaza.
	Okay.
	I was saying Gaza when I was there.
	Yeah?
	It worked out.
	Cool.
	I came back.
	What hospital were you stationed at over there?
	So Nasser Hospital.
	Okay.
	You know, you probably heard on the news that it's the last functioning hospital in Gaza, and it truly is.
	There's other smaller hospitals, but they're really not functioning at a scale of a hospital.
	And how do you get chosen to go there?
	You live in Milwaukee and you doctor out of Milwaukee currently.
	That's right.
	So you go through your own hospital to do it?
	No, this has nothing to do with my hospital.
	In fact, I didn't even tell my hospital I was going.
	You didn't?
	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 they told me, hey, we got this spot available in two months.
	Are you willing to go?
	And when I got that invitation from them, I was on a plane back to my family.
	And 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 yeah, landed.
	The kids were put to sleep.
	Went to my wife and I was like, hey, let's go have a cup of coffee.
	And 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 friend what I would call and many would call a genocide, even though it hasn't legally been defined.
	I mean, it hurts, man.
	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 cirrhosis.
	You know, they made these decisions to their liver, for example.
	Yeah.
	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 just like, 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 the war zone.
	And it is 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 medicine.
	So I like to do things with my hand, right?
	What does proceduralist mean?
	Yeah.
	So I'm an interventional radiologist.
	I actually was the first interventional radiologist to go to Gaza in the world.
	And it's one of the newest specialties in medicine where we use image guidance to do basically like minimally invasive procedures.
	So like, for example, historically, if you have a big, you know, infection in your stomach, they would incise 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 one-hour procedure, it's five minutes.
	Okay.
	You know, and you don't have to stay in the hospital.
	You don't have to get sutures.
	And there's, you know, you can basically take clots out of the arteries of the legs for diabetics.
	And 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.
	So you have to tell your wife, she signs off.
	How long after that are you on a plane to go to Gaza?
	Two months later, I'm on a plane to Amman, 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 two-week 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 physicians across the world for this two weeks were intending to come.
	And the organization I went with was Rehmah Worldwide.
	They're based in Michigan.
	And they basically over-accept people knowing that there's about a 75% rejection rate.
	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 because you find out if you're in or out 12 hours before we go in.
	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 p.m.
	And that's when we get the Excel document that shows us for inner-out, you know?
	And so some of you staff don't know until right there in Jordan if you're getting approved or not.
	Like if you made the team.
	Yeah, that's every physician.
	Got it.
	So you have to go all the way there, all that, and then you still might not make it.
	Yeah, 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 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 does Palestine have a say on who it lets in?
	Like, is there a Palestinian authority also that you go through?
	There's no border crossing that you have to go through through Palestinian governance 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 authorities basically, you know, check your bags and 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 first day arriving at the hospital.
	So we left at 7 a.m.
	Amman and we got to a safe house like 11 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.
	So we didn't actually get to the hospital until the following morning, so Friday morning.
	Okay.
	So about 24 hours after we left Amman, Jordan.
	And is there like, are like hopes high?
	Is there like excitement?
	Like, what is some of the energy going on at that point?
	Are you guys just exhausted?
	Yeah.
	So the six of us, this was our first time going to Gaza.
	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 it was a fun group.
	We were all there for the same mission, for the same intentions.
	I had a five-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.
	I'm like, dude, what's wrong with you, man?
	Dude, you got to see it.
	It's a little soon to be leaving.
	It is, right?
	But somehow our wives all let us go, right?
	So it kind of bonded over that too.
	Got it.
	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 tough to answer.
	Hundreds.
	Okay.
	The reason for that is because there's another hospital, major hospital in Khan Union, it's called European General Hospital.
	Okay.
	And that just got blown to smithereens kind of in before June, before we went.
	And, you know, they were saying there's a Hamas operative in the tunnel.
	So they basically dropped a bunker buster in front of 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.
	And so there are some specialties that are lacking.
	And what do you mean a systemic targeting?
	So if you look at UN data, about 500 physicians and nurses have been killed.
	A thousand have been injured.
	I think 300 are still in custody.
	Wow.
	There's one of the hospital directors.
	He's a pediatrician, Abu Safiya Hussam Abu Safiya.
	He's been in jail since December.
	No charges against him.
	In America?
	No, no, in Gaza.
	In Gaza.
	Yeah, yeah.
	He's an 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 because 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 debris-filled Gaza picture, and there's two tanks there.
	And he gets arrested.
	He's never seen since then.
	It's pretty wild, man.
	The United Nations Human Rights Office issued a statement on July 16th, 2025, providing data and details regarding the killing of medical professionals in Gaza.
	Look, look at since 2023.
	Gaza's Ministry of Health reports had at least 15,581 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, if my primary care doctor is taking care of me, I'm going to respect that guy, you know?
	So, this was a risky choice for you to make to go.
	It was.
	And, you know, I actually wrote some letters to my kids before I left.
	I was like, I don't know if I'm coming back.
	I had the hope I would come back.
	Yeah.
	You know, anything could have happened.
	Yeah.
	I mean, look at those numbers.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's.
	I mean, realistically, they're targeting Gazan 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 an American kid from Florida on vacation there.
	Another was the Al Jazeera reporter.
	They, you know, they sniped 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.
	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 NGOs kind of sleep in this one area.
	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 females have their own call room.
	But then there's this joint space where the local Gazans make us food, kind of just hang out.
	The news is going.
	There's a little balcony we can look out the window.
	So it's a nice place to kind of just breathe without any patients 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's your shift there like?
	Yeah.
	So it depends on your specialty.
	I was, again, I was the only interventional radiologist in the area.
	I mean, there were two interventional radiology doctors in all of Gaza.
	Just for comparison, there's probably like 600 in Chicago.
	Wow.
	So when I got there, basically those other two told everyone at Nasser, hey, there's this guy.
	He's an interventional radiologist.
	Give him 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 seven days for essentially.
	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, a 12-hour shift.
	And then the locals just laughed.
	They're like, no, you're not.
	You're going to do a four-hour shift because you're not going to 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 most experienced trauma surgeon, you know, in Baltimore, which is like one of the biggest trauma centers in America, and put him 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 headshots 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 that was every day, man.
	So 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 was actually pretty chill to 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.
	It's just like brain matter coming out of people.
	There's guts coming out of people's abdomens.
	There's people's legs blown off and someone's carrying it in next to the, you know, one of the family members 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 hospital is trying to push out the family members so the doctors and nurses can take care of The patients, it's absolute chaos.
	And then us American physicians are just like looking at each other, like, what is going on here?
	And, 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.
	Essentially, basically, we can, we, we found the pattern related to when the GHF sites were opening up.
	GHF.
	Sorry, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
	It's this American and Israeli initiative to bring in aid to Gaza, which basically takes over, has taken over all of the UN aid agencies, which the UN has been doing this for 75, whatever, since World War II, right?
	And then I think in March, officially, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is the only one allowed to bring aid into 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 famine being created, being used as a genocide tool.
	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, international journalists aren't allowed to cover this, right?
	Unfortunately, yeah, that's right.
	And so what did you see?
	What did you notice?
	We were hearing testimony from everyone coming in that the GHF sites 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 forbidden, right?
	But the situation there where almost everyone is depressed is that some people who have lost everything, their families, their kids almost want to die.
	So they'll go to GHF kind of hoping they'll die.
	Going to these food lines and these.
	They're just hoping they get shot.
	Because the statistics are there.
	Like, you know, you're seeing 100 dead every day and like 300 injured every day.
	Like it's almost consistent for the last month or two, you know?
	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, 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, 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.
	What was the date on that?
	August 3rd.
	That's recent.
	I think they've been exposed quite a little bit more since Anthony Aguilar came up.
	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.
	But that's also between bombings within Gaza, not necessarily the just.
	During the time you were there, 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 didn't actually see that.
	I am in contact with a lot of 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 hope I'm taken.
	That's essentially, you know, almost like I hope I die when I'm there.
	So it's real.
	You know, the psychology there is strange.
	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 one of our medical students is like, what happens to the body after death?
	So we were like, ooh, you know, we kind of just like talked a little bit spiritually.
	And then she's like, my uncle and 20 family members just got drone striked 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 and go, 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 it.
	One of your coworkers?
	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 hot?
	What school are they at?
	Yeah, there's two medical schools in Gaza.
	I mean, they've been destroyed and they all have to take a year off at some point.
	But their homework still do, apparently.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's fucking 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 there, maybe.
	But is that true?
	The Islamic University of Gaza and the Al-Azhar University of Gaza?
	Yeah, that's 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 Al-Shifa Hospital, which is another hospital up in the north area of Gaza.
	Okay.
	You know, you hear a lot of stories about the aid, right?
	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.
	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 do you think is really going on?
	So, so the GHF is basically taking over aid delivery to Gaza, and no one wants to work with them.
	Countries don't want to work with them.
	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 international rules.
	I'm not an expert.
	I'm not a lawyer to talk about international rules, but you can look up the Geneva Convention, the Rome statutes, and it's clear as day, right?
	Let's pull that up then, just so we know it.
	Yeah.
	So 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 U.S. 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 because he's like, screw this, I'm out.
	This is not going to be good.
	He saw the writing on the wall.
	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.
	I lost 15 pounds when I was there.
	Every one of us six physicians lost a lot of weight.
	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 because I came back in two weeks and now I'm slimmer.
	But for them, it's indefinite.
	They've been doing this for months.
	They have hypovitaminosis.
	They don't have enough energy.
	They have anemia from no iron, no protein.
	Women can't breastfeed.
	They deliver a baby and there's no milk.
	There's no formula coming in.
	That's banned.
	It got confiscated by some of the doctors who were trying to bring it in.
	And 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 took their labs, they are sick, you know, and there's stages to starvation.
	You don't just, you know, one day you're fat and then the next day you're skinny.
	It doesn't work like that.
	And some people don't get, become skin and bones, right?
	Some people actually, their belly bloats up because of loss of protein and the fluid instead of being on the blood vessels, goes into the belly and they can die in different ways.
	And then we went to the neonatal ICU in the pediatric hospital and we saw the babies that are skin and bones, you know, and it's disgusting to see that knowing what they need, which is formula.
	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 it, were you hearing there, right?
	Were you hearing anything different?
	Because here it's just, it's so hard to know, right?
	It's so hard to know what's going on.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, I went as a doctor, but I think that's a great question.
	I didn't, 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 that said, I am very curious.
	So I did ask many people, you know, privately, not patients, but like co-working and stuff, like, what's going on out there?
	Like, you know, are they actually, and everyone's like, no, there's no way.
	To go to the GHF site, you have to go in an active war zone.
	There's tanks.
	There's, you know, private military contractors from the U.S., which are all special forces.
	There's 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 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 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 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 locals in the hospital.
	Obviously, they don't really know, but I didn't see any evidence of that.
	The only evidence that we saw, and actually, by the way, Anthony Aguilar said that they weren't even screening the patients.
	I mean, sorry, the aid seekers for being Hamas or not.
	So I mean, there's no screening process.
	How would they know?
	There's not going to be some guy with an AK-47 going into an active war zone.
	Yeah, he's like, knock, knock, and they're like, who's there?
	And he's like, Hamas.
	You know, yeah.
	I mean, that's, yeah, I agree.
	If only war worked like that, right?
	But that's one thing I haven't understand about a lot of this military effect from the IDF because 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 people?
	Like, why would you know what I'm saying?
	If 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.
	Yeah, you know, they moto themselves as the most moral army in 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 when we were there, we were staying on the balcony looking out during our break time as physicians, and boom, you just see this giant explosion, your eardrums 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 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 high-speed velocity, you know, piece of shrapnel that went through the belly or her leg.
	Some of them have to have emergent surgery.
	Some people go right through their skull.
	And so, and then you realize every single explosion, and it was happening about every 30 minutes in Khan Unis at that time, I would say, 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 an influx of like 400 patients, but it doesn't stop between the hour, right?
	So even at nighttime, 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 OR, the operating room to on the floors.
	I was sometimes being a nurse, just helping out getting IV access and the little kids.
	So we were just everywhere trying to help out anywhere.
	What type of injuries were you guys seeing come in?
	What was it like kind of?
	Yeah, there were a couple patterns 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?
	Every now and then we see an abdominal wound.
	And then explosions were the other one.
	So burn injuries and then projectiles, you know, from shrapnel.
	That was another big one.
	And then every now and then you would see like, oh, you know, something local happen, like a trampling or, you know, some internal fight.
	But those were extremely rare.
	Like you're talking about, you know, 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 them in the ER and like take care of them.
	And the guy's arm has 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 mean, I'm not even exaggerating this, and I have pictures to prove that, you know, some of them are too gory for perhaps a non-physician.
	What's the process like when they come in?
	Like, is there security at the front of the hospital?
	Because I imagine that the hospital would just be almost being overrun by people looking for shelter or aid constantly or even water.
	Like, what was that like?
	Yeah, it is overrun.
	And there's no security.
	I mean, it's like one guy at the door saying, you know, let the doctors go to the trauma bay.
	And he's trying to hold like a whole sea of people back.
	But no, is there a parking lot?
	Is there like a fence where that's keeping people in and out?
	No, no, no.
	The hospital is run by people.
	Like, there's kids looking for water while you're talking to a neurosurgeon about the next step for a patient scare.
	It's weird.
	Like, we're shooing, not me, but like the locals are just shooing 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, people, patients, families 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 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?
	When a patient enters the ER, there is a green zone, a yellow zone, and a red zone.
	It's depending on the severity of the injury.
	So they get triaged.
	This is when there's a non-MCI, so non-mass casualty incident.
	When it's a mass casualty incident, the whole ER is a red zone.
	So the green zone is light injuries, you know, yellow zones, 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 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 nothing we can do.
	Those are hard conversations.
	You know, for example, resource management is something we haven't gotten into.
	For example, in America, we have ventilators, right?
	The breathing machine.
	If in the ER, there was a 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, 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 70-year-old is going to have to go to that black unit and kind of die off.
	So you tell the family.
	They don't like that answer, but it is what it is.
	What else can you do?
	So 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 that's the reality.
	Like, food is a huge problem, obviously, not coming in, but medications, supplies, surgical equipment, it's just not coming in.
	And, you know, we would try to bring it in our 50-pound carry-on bags 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.
	When people come in, 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.
	But majority of patients are coming in on donkey carts and 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 green area I was talking about before.
	And it's chaos like that, right?
	But yeah, when the traumas come in, it's just, it's people running all over the place.
	It's not as much organization as you would imagine in an American hospital.
	Is there enough blood, like for blood donors and blood drought, like that sort of thing?
	Yeah, so sometimes it runs out.
	Sometimes Israel allows a mass donation from the West Bank, for example, to come in.
	We physicians are encouraged to give our blood upon leaving so we don't get too fatigued when we first get there.
	It's at the end that they encourage us to give.
	If someone is dying, 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.
	I don't think that's an established protocol.
	Is that even possible?
	Like, is that a.
	Yeah, it's possible.
	That's kind of an interesting concept.
	Like, hey, you're dying.
	Let me just take some of your blood.
	But, you know, I guess in an emergency, that's that could be done.
	I think it's more like respecting the dead.
	Just, you know, you're going to die.
	Let them die in peace.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, for sure.
	I just didn't 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.
	The rules might be a little bit different there.
	Like I'll shift a hospital in the north.
	Like I said, yeah, they are sometimes using flashlights to do procedures and they are having power outages all the time.
	And yeah, they are having to do amputations without sedatives.
	That is an issue.
	And that's because Nasser Hospital is like the last tertiary care, as we call it, the main hospital.
	And it's just getting all the resources because there's just not enough.
	You need to have this hospital.
	Yeah, that's Al-Shifa Hospital.
	Remember when this first started, this was attacked and there was a huge argument.
	Oh, was it the IDF, the Israeli military?
	Was it Hamas?
	And 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 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 administrative stuff.
	So we would just pronounce them dead.
	And then it would be the family's responsibility to take that body to the morgue, which is like maybe 100 meters away, like a football field away.
	And then the Ministry of Health would process the body, document 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.
	It was an assembly line, like, you know, patient coming to ER, dead, morgue, prayer, funeral, and just constant.
	Like throughout the day, you're just looking at the window, and it's all you see.
	Did you, were you guys able to go to the morgue at all?
	I did, yeah.
	One day, I have some pictures of that.
	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 headshots.
	This was from the GHF site, actually.
	And I was so disgusted.
	I actually took a video when I was there.
	Yeah, that right one right there.
	It was disgusting.
	I mean, I have never experienced anything like that.
	And I purposely went there during that time because 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 are.
	And so you hear the wailing of the woman when they find out their loved one has died.
	They actually have this gazebo right there in Nashville Hospital.
	And that's where they put the dead bodies that have not, 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, put the face together.
	And then you just hear a shriek.
	It's like, man, that's freaky.
	God.
	Yeah.
	That's crazy, man.
	That's crazy in 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 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-doctor.
	And so I almost had to go there and like give myself an excuse to cry.
	Yeah.
	You know, because there's no space to cry in the hospital.
	None of the other doctors are because they just, they're so focused on taking care of the next patient.
	They don't get to, you know, they don't even have the time to cry.
	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, 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 they're, 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 maybe all that they have.
	That is all they have.
	And I think it's like, yeah, you feel bad that you can't be there to feel some of that pain and not like, like, maybe sometimes I think like, 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 divided.
	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, it'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 think it helps to grieve 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 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 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.
	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 fucking gross.
	So I have been to Israel, by the way, back in 2020.
	And you see.
	I've never been there.
	I've been late on my rent, though.
	I've fielded a few emails, you know?
	Yeah, well, you're paying their taxes.
	We're paying our taxes to them.
	So your money's going there.
	But you haven't been there.
	That's a hard.
	That's the, I think that's a tough part for a lot of people is understanding why we're funding 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, 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, 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 can understand with, I can 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 understand.
	I don't even understand the ambition that someone would have that would end in mass murder.
	You know, I don't even, I don't even think it makes sense.
	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 Marsha Mersheimer 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 Rafah 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 probably not economically feasible to just kill everyone, you know?
	So now they're trying to create these humanitarian cities in Rafa.
	Have you heard about this?
	Oh my God, look this up.
	Humanitarian city in Rafah.
	It's 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.
	And this was a Israeli so-called humanitarian city in Rafah 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 into heavily controlled camps or encampments in Rafah.
	Israel officially described it as a humanitarian measure for civilian protection and possible future immigration.
	God, it sounds eerily familiar.
	Come on.
	Here's the thing, man.
	And people like, I've had people say, man, well, why do you talk about this stuff sometimes about Gaza and that sort of thing?
	All you ever heard growing up from all these movies, all this stuff was like, I mean, you couldn't even go to the bookstore at the airport with their half the fucking 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 people right outside of concentration camps never said anything, never sounded an alarm, never even whistled loudly.
	So I'm like, motherfucker, what do you, what do you, if, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, if you see a fucking genocide, you know what I'm saying?
	You got to say it.
	And if you're not saying it, that's fucking 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 fuck that, man.
	Anybody that has to, 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 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.
	Are there any particular moments that really stood out to you during your tenure there as like providing care?
	Like things are 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, 15-week old baby in her uterus comes in with trauma 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 rates going.
	No fetal heart tones.
	So we emergently take her up to the emergency operating room.
	We open up 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.
	And that's 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 one of the most tragic things for a woman, especially, right?
	Like, especially in Gaza, where one of the biggest honors is to have children and, you know, bring up the next generation.
	And to know that female, even though she survived, will never have a child again, 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 this is brother, I'm here.
	And he's a 15-year-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 an ultrasound on his heart and there's blood around his heart.
	So his heart can't beat because there's just too much blood.
	So we put this tube emergently into his heart and relieve the pressure and his blood pressure spikes back up again.
	He's still unconscious.
	Two days later, the doctor who was taking care of him brings him to me.
	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, I'm like, look at him.
	And I was like, I have no idea.
	And so he asked me, 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.
	Yeah, man.
	It was, it was, it was probably 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, it'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, I'll tell you one more story if you don't mind.
	Yeah.
	Just pull it up here real quick.
	This is a one-year-old, and there was an explosion.
	You know, this baby had 85% 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?
	Well, with 85% burns, you basically have lost all your volume, 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, one-year-old.
	The mom collapses.
	Now we have to take care of the mom, you know.
	Anyways, after 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 morgue.
	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 morgue minutes after pronounced dead by the doctor?
	I don't think I would, you know?
	And I look at these Gazans 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.
	And I think truly it's their faith that gets them through it.
	You know, they really don't have anything else.
	We talked about it.
	There's no humanity left.
	They feel like no one in the world's listening.
	And 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 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 like they were trying to 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 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 can, 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 fucking voice.
	These people don't have a voice.
	Right.
	Or it feels like they don't.
	And I don't understand why.
	And it's the same feeling as when I didn't have a voice.
	And so I was 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 fuck do I lose?
	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.
	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 having a voice as well.
	And then other people say stuff, 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 fucking made me so angry.
	I just don't understand.
	And why are we still doing this shit?
	You know, you know, there's a recent Gallipol poll that said one-third of Americans still 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 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.
	And they're all normal people, dude.
	They just want kids to survive, moms to survive, 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 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?
	It's not always MCIs, but there's always trauma coming here and there.
	There are some times when it's quiet.
	But the hospital is always 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.
	Yeah, take that shit down the road.
	I mean, yeah, chemo, dude.
	Just hang your head out of a window here.
	Sadly, that's true.
	Yeah, I mean, it's just ridiculous shit.
	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, no, no, we don't have time for that.
	There's no resources either, right?
	Um, 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, 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?
	Have they been compromised yet?
	Well, that's what Israel will say, right?
	Like that UN WRA has some Hamas elements in it or something, but that's been debunked by many NGOs.
	And, you know, you can, you can fact-check me on that.
	But I don't think they've been compromised.
	I think they're just seeing the reality that the majority of the world is seeing.
	The GHF took over aid supporting Gaza after Israel and the United States responding to accusations that Hamas was averting humanitarian aid insisted on a new aid mechanism.
	Okay, the GHF was set up with backing from both governments.
	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.
	But I'm specifically talking about the UN RWA, which historically has been providing aid in Gaza.
	So they said that had Hamas elements in it, and that's why they shut that down.
	And again, there's news articles that basically say that's not, we fact-check 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 sometimes you can only work like four hours a day?
	The shifts 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's really no rules as to what you can do there.
	You can work as much as you want.
	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 we got interviewed by many different organizations when we were there.
	NBC, NPR, Democracy Now, some media organizations 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 a show like this.
	And so 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.
	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 dude, props to you, man.
	That's amazing.
	She's.
	Well, I shouldn't be watching children's programs.
	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, okay.
	Moving on.
	I will say this.
	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 Hebba H-E-B-A, I think.
	Oh, 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 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 fuck are we?
	What are you, you know, and then it's like all about the Epstein shit.
	Like, yeah.
	Anyway, I don't, it's fucking 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 it, were you able to like save any, like keep them from the gore?
	Like, was there, you know, because usually, you know, a lot of times with, in, there's like children's hospitals and you know, there's 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 Nostra Hospital.
	They're right next to each other.
	And so we were seeing all the kid trauma as well.
	And the kid trauma was different, man.
	Just so, you know, difficult to see and experience.
	It was difficult to process, difficult to treat, 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 majority of them are like, you know, young boys, young girls.
	It just, why?
	Like, you know, we asked, 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 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 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?
	Yeah.
	From up to down and sitting in a tent is very strange.
	So, you know, there's some people who are suspicious about quadcopters 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 said quadcopter, what do you mean by that?
	Well, this is kind of interesting.
	So they're basically these drones that have been engineered to shoot.
	It has like an assault rifle on them, remotely activated.
	It's like a kind of a drone, so to speak.
	Does it look like that kind of?
	I haven't seen one.
	Oh, you haven't?
	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 everywhere?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, 24-7.
	There's a 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 have everyone's phone, you know, attract.
	We were connecting to the Israeli towers too.
	So it's like they, they know where we are.
	Yeah, there's a company called Palantir I know that I believe, see if you can bring that up, that I believe had which I believe is helping in some of the drone AI work over in Gaza.
	Palantir allegedly enables Israel AI targeting in Gaza, raising concerns over war crimes.
	Earlier this month, and this says allegedly, earlier this month, 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, Palantir Technologies.
	We stand with Israel, the Denver-based company said in posts on X and LinkedIn.
	The board of directors of Palantir 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 is a while back.
	Yeah, well, there was an Israeli website, 972MAG, that actually called this out.
	So it's Israeli information.
	I think it's Project Lavender.
	And 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 going to, you know, the future is going to have everything to do with what we're seeing here.
	I agree with you.
	Go back to that first article.
	The project involves selling the ministry an artificial intelligence platform that uses reams of classified intelligence reports to make life or death determinations about which target to attack.
	In an understatement several years ago, Carp 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?
	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 that this is the same company that now has a contract to operate in America.
	Palantir lands $10 billion Army software and data contract.
	So Palantir has linked a contract with the U.S. Army worth up to $10 billion to meet growing warfare demands over the next decade.
	As part of the deal, Palantir will help the military streamline efficiencies while preparing for threats, consolidating 75 total contracts into one enterprise deal.
	The agreement creates a comprehensive framework for the Army's future software and data needs.
	So I think my fear is that 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 that's kind of where we're headed.
	You know, did it ever seem over there?
	Yeah, like it was an experimental grounds over there.
	Like it must seem so dystopian that you're like, what even, because does it feel like a war?
	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 know, 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 Merkava 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 something's not adding up.
	And then, like I said, from a doctor's perspective, you're seeing the casualties, which are civilians.
	I mean, you can make whatever conclusion you want about what's going on from the military aspect.
	And I am also suspicious.
	Like, what is going on?
	Is it just like a big show of different equipment?
	We actually had a situation where there was some sort of a gas being used and patients were asphyxiating.
	We didn't know what it was.
	There was no testing, right?
	But, you know, the x-ray was normal.
	The chest x-ray was normal, but the patients were asphyxiating.
	It was really weird.
	And we had no idea what we were treating.
	So we would just watch them in the ICU, make sure they were, you know, oxygen was okay.
	So there's some weird stuff going on.
	And it's not just me saying that.
	If you look at some of the locals, they're saying there's bombs which we've never heard before.
	There's explosions that we've never seen before.
	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 like, what's happening?
	And then the weird thing too is like, we're seeing this, right?
	Like just on TikTok, social media, you're seeing video.
	It's like, well, does that not 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 a massacre?
	Like, 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.
	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 else would do something like this?
	Yeah, there's actually this interview with Peter Thiel with some, I think, some pastor who's asking him, like, you know, when the Antichrist comes, what kind of technology thing do you think he's going to be using?
	And then he's like, oh, I think Greta Thienberg, you know, I think that she's going to develop the technology for the Antichrist.
	And then the pastor's 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're going to watch it.
	It's awesome.
	I see it.
	Pull it up.
	This is my very specific question for you, right?
	Is that you're an investor in AI.
	You're deeply invested in Palantir, 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 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 Palantir has done so far, right?
	I mean, 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?
	They're all look, there are all these different scenarios.
	I obviously don't think that that's what I'm doing.
	I uh 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, there are these different gradations of this we can describe, but 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 safetyism?
	This is a 1 Thessalonians 5:3.
	The slogan of the Antichrist is peace and safety.
	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 yeah.
	What's their relationship to Hamas?
	Do you feel any relationship to Hamas and the people?
	Did you see?
	Like, did you perform any Surgeries on any Hamas military.
	What was that like there?
	I mean, I did not see any combatants.
	We don't know who's a combatant or not.
	But no, I did not treat any Hamas.
	I did ask the local people, like, what are your thoughts about Hamas?
	And, you know, at the end of the day, I would say some of them support them.
	Some of them don't.
	At the end of the day, they're a political entity in Gaza.
	They were democratically elected, I think, back in the 2000s.
	You're going to have every type of 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, but yeah, just to answer your question, no, I did not see any or treat any obvious combatants.
	Yeah, I'm just curious if you see any of their military guys over there.
	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 I don't think they would risk the hospital being bombed.
	But granted, Israel has done that to other hospitals already.
	Yeah.
	I think it's intentional systemic collapse of the healthcare 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?
	Your body doesn't starve overnight.
	It takes three or four months for all your calories to go away, your glycogen storage in your liver, then your body starts eating the muscles, then your body starts eating 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.
	It's just going to get logarithmic and 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 suddenly become good.
	Or yeah, or some nuggets or something.
	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'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 support that kind of stuff.
	We don't support, or I feel like we've always been taught not to support that sort of cruel, you know, cruelty.
	Yeah.
	And that's, you know, I think that's one thing.
	It's just, but then also throughout time, governments have, you know, people have always had to sit in the shadow of their government and wish it wasn't as dark, you know, I think.
	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 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.
	Hey, we're flooding aid.
	That's it.
	He has a 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 there's something about Israel that is holding him back.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	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 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're, you know, trapped, you feel like you're trapped in an experimental land.
	Why do you think the world is 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, whether you're talking about Egypt or Jordan, whether you're talking about the Arab states, whether you're talking about Europe.
	I don't really know what Russia and China are doing, but 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 I don't know what's going on with American politicians that they just want to continue this thing.
	Let's talk about Egypt and Jordan, too.
	Like, what are some, because you see, like, that Jordan doesn't allow Gazans in.
	Is that true?
	I know it's not your responsibility, but you may know more of 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, Gaza does not share a border with Jordan, right?
	So Israel would have to allow that exodus to Jordan.
	So normally people historically have left through the Rafah border into Egypt, but Egypt basically said they closed the Rafah border.
	And now Rafah has been completely taken over by Israel.
	So no human soul can actually go into Rafah to even evacuate to Egypt.
	I think initially they tried to forcefully 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 and the sick to leave.
	Let's see what perplexity has to say here.
	Egypt did not allow people to leave Gaza primarily because the Rafah border crossing, the only exit from Gaza not controlled by Israel, was closed on the Palestinian side after Israel seized it during the 2024 Rafah 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, the conversation has to be about how we can get aid back into Gaza, right?
	And, you know, push our politicians and President Trump to, you know, kind of use his power and leverage over Netanyahu and say, well, you are allowing aid in no matter what.
	Because what we're seeing 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 the fact that people are now trying to deny it, I mean, come on, man.
	I think this most recent picture that the New York Times article, have you heard about this?
	This mom and this baby, it shows a baby starving and the mom apparently does not look like she's starving.
	And so Israel's media basically saying, well, there's no starvation going on there.
	Yeah.
	Like, wait, 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 now they're saying, well, now the baby had a pre-existing condition.
	Of course, everyone in the hospital has pre-existing conditions, right?
	Yeah, well, it's hard to sleep next to fucking missiles going off.
	That's right.
	I could imagine that that's a pre-existing curve, you know?
	I, I mean, I wet the bed is because 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 fucking 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, GI Joe type shit.
	This is when your country helps out.
	And then you're watching this.
	It's 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 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.
	So like, we can't wait for that.
	I'm going to label it a genocide as a healthcare worker.
	And many other people are.
	And even Israel in Israel, like Beth Salem has labeled it a genocide.
	Genocides, Holocaust survivors have basically said it's a genocide.
	So Mandy Patinkin came out and said, dude, boom.
	From freaking Criminal minds.
	Well, he has a moral compass.
	How could you not, dude?
	You know how many fucking 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.
	But I don't know.
	People shouldn't feel good because they fucking just said something that seems like it makes sense.
	I don't know, dude.
	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 get rid of the bombs and the drones and the tanks.
	They just want us 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 they deserve to live.
	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.
	And it sounds kind of cliche.
	Why am I a doctor, right?
	Because I love taking care of people.
	That's the interview question 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 insurance.
	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 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 especially these last three months, talk to all the doctors who have been there in the last three months, and they're going to say the same thing.
	There's famine, there's starvation, there's, 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.
	They're getting, well, they have zucchini tomatoes and peppers, which they grow domestically.
	And so from outside.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So from outside, they're getting flour.
	Sugar comes in, but it's extremely expensive.
	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.
	Or before this conflict to now, it's like 3,000%.
	I have a chart which I'll share with you.
	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 like a bag of cucumbers and tomatoes in America might cost 10 bucks, costs like $50 there.
	But that's after the 50% cut.
	So it's $100 US dollars to buy a bag of tomatoes and cucumbers.
	I mean, just the inflation is crazy.
	A bag of flour, which maybe 20 kilograms, which would last like a normal average family, maybe two to three weeks, costs 500 US dollars.
	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 it, we can talk about that.
	Yeah, I'd love to talk about that.
	So the gangs are a whole different problem in Gaza.
	So I think what 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 dropped these little bombs that shoot out little e-Sims.
	They say, hey, call us if you want to work with us.
	SIM cards, you mean?
	Yeah, SIM cards.
	That's what I meant.
	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 going to make sure your family's happy.
	We're going to give you some money.
	We'll make sure we'll never bomb you, et cetera.
	Is that true?
	I mean, I'm telling you what I was told.
	Abu Shabaab is this main gang leader.
	Okay.
	He actually, there's news articles about him.
	Yeah, Yasser Abu Shabaab.
	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 it at super high prices.
	And you might think, oh, this is like an internal Gazan 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 Yasser Abu Shabaab is active in southern Gaza.
	This group described as a criminal gang by aid workers and analysts is widely accused of looting aid trucks and charging protection bribes to traders.
	Abu Shabaab'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.
	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 striked, right?
	These guys are walking on the streets with their guns.
	And not getting drone strikes.
	Yeah, we were in the hospital looking outside, and there's like, you just hear this AK-40s.
	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 they're like, they're IDF-associated gangs.
	It's like contractors.
	Yeah, it's contractors.
	But like, 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 surveillance drone is watching every single move of everyone in Gaza.
	So tell me, 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 was one dedicated just for Khan Yunis.
	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.
	No, you can't, you can't really see them.
	They're pretty high up.
	You can't really see them.
	But you can hear them.
	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.
	And you just get used to it.
	I remember one time we went into some shows and I can't remember the name.
	It was some base where during like Afghanistan times and they would have the alarm on the base would go off and that meant that like something he'd 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 in Gaza and the people there?
	That's a great question.
	That's going to be generational, man.
	The stuff that kids are seeing, like their father's brains being splattered.
	We're seeing it 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 know.
	What do you think?
	I think it's common sense.
	Every child is 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.
	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 to 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 were some, a lot of students who want to study abroad, like the UK or Qatar.
	And you can see that that's their way out.
	But there was also a large segment of the population that basically said, we're not leaving 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?
	That's true.
	They're fucking, yeah.
	Next low, right?
	I mean, they are locked in.
	Were you an Alabama fan or LSU?
	I'm an LSU fan.
	I like UT too and Vanderbilt since I live in Tennessee now.
	But 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 family.
	What, you know?
	I will say, Gazans 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 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 because, you know, 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, I want to say it's a specialty because I don't want to compromise him.
	You know, people are very scared to talk openly on camera, especially.
	Because I actually asked some of them, hey, I was like, can I get your testimony on camera?
	And I'll show my people back home to tell your story.
	And they're like, no, absolutely not.
	But there was this guy in the hospital working.
	He was jailed for two months.
	No charges.
	He told me about his jailing experience.
	And I'll get to that.
	That 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 so, 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 because 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.
	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 or a year.
	And the guards would beat them if they talked to their, you know, co-jail co-prisoners.
	I mean, it just, I just don't understand how we can be normalizing that in the healthcare 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 had it, man.
	Put him in jail, put him in maximum security.
	You're talking about an innocent physician, an innocent surgeon, an innocent nurse.
	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 Hamas-led 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 let go without charges.
	I mean, they were?
	Yeah.
	And where do they live at?
	They live in a tent, man.
	In the Khan Unis, there's a tent city.
	One third of Gaza all live in this place called Mawasi camp.
	I'll send you a picture of this.
	And it's just tense.
	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 kids and in-laws.
	So this is kind of the new Gaza here.
	It's one third of Gazas right here.
	Wow.
	What's the vibes here, man?
	I know that's a crazy thing to say.
	Like it's a damn nightclub or something, but I mean shit.
	They got a bouncer up front.
	You know, you see kids playing on trampolines.
	You see kids being kids.
	Yeah.
	You see fathers kind of, 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 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 actually smell the thermite after these bombs.
	I don't know what health effects that has on people.
	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 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 U.S. Dude, when I told him I'm from the U.S., he's like, please record it and share it with people.
	And that's what they want.
	They want people to see they're human, right?
	And yeah.
	So I started recording this and you'll notice I abruptly cut it off because I just couldn't handle it.
	Oh, it's cute.
	I think it's what this is.
	Dude, I broke.
	Kids having a good time, huh?
	Yeah.
	I broke down like a baby.
	Really?
	I just couldn't handle that.
	Why?
	Because it's just such a contradiction.
	Like, what was it?
	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 targets.
	Yeah.
	It hurts.
	Yeah.
	I mean, the fact that, like, 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 can't thank you enough.
	Just keep talking, man.
	And I'm not saying make this 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 joking, but it's like, you got, look, I learned from police officers in moments of trauma, sometimes you have to step outside and laugh.
	You know, that's right.
	You have to step outside and laugh.
	And to your point, the Gazans 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 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 fucking 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 in Casablanca type of vibes, you know?
	But, but I don't know.
	I just, you see a bunch of kids like fucking, you know, playing hide and go seek forever.
	And it's fucking scary.
	You're like, what is this?
	You know, so you're like, well, I'm going to speak up about this a little because I don't want it on my doorstep.
	I, you know, and who knows, fucking, 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, you'll think he's a nice guy.
	That's a 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.
	Do you think you had a positive effect there?
	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 saying, hey, how you doing?
	And, you know, it's negative, but I say, just keep praying to God.
	You know, there's going to come a day where you're going to be smiling and being happy with 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.
	I'm going to try to go back.
	I want to meet them again.
	I want to meet that kid Amir again.
	I don't know where he is, but I hope I see him again.
	Yeah.
	Amen, man.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It is that.
	Yeah.
	Even a singing about his smile, that is exciting, you know.
	You got to witness this firsthand.
	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?
	Because you've been home for a month.
	Yeah, so I came home and, you know, seeing all these stories of these children and women and my kids come up to me and they're like, Bubba, can we play video games?
	Can we play Mario Kart?
	I was like, man, how do I go back to reality?
	Because 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 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 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 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 that's how I feel now.
	And I eat less, you know?
	Yeah.
	I do.
	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 message would you communicate to world leaders having been there and having offered aid there?
	I think some of the world leaders are actually waking up.
	Canada, 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.
	So I really wish, I feel like Trump has it in him.
	He just, he needs to be convinced by the right group of people.
	And I feel like doctors are decent people.
	That's why I wish I could communicate this with them.
	That said, I think, you know, 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 U.S. has basically said no.
	Every other country has said yes.
	So it's really the U.S. I mean, it really is the U.S. 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 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 game changer.
	U.S. 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.
	It 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, but we're not talking about like Mauritio or Myanmar or whatever.
	And shout out to the Mayan to Myanmar out there or Myanmars.
	I don't want to freaking go hard R on them.
	Dr. Rahman, 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 yeah, man, 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.
	Well, thank you so much again, brother, and travel safe back to Milwaukee.
	And 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 cornerstone.

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