VIDEO
Palestine Talks | Dr. Mads Gilbert on Israel’s “systematic strategy” to destroy Palestinians - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fzBf7Omllk&t=808s
hi Dr Gilbert thank you so much for sitting here with trt today I'd like to
cover a few things with you today uh regarding your experience your long-standing experience in Gaza um your
views as you've already articulated to some extent in the um Independent Media
about Western media and its preoccupation as I believe you call it uh with uh covering certain aspects of
gaza's medical facilities and finally uh your view on the role of Palestinian civilians
in uh sustaining human life so um you've been going to the
occupi territories since at least the late 80s and I'm wondering if you can shed light on how the current situation
in Gaza is particularly different from perhaps anything you've seen asalam
alikum Paul thank you for having me uh yeah where should we start um I think
for anyone who knows the Palestinian struggle and the brutality of the Israeli occupation of
Palestine um there is not much new to the way they
are exercising their power and their oppression and their brutality but the
magnitude of the attacks and the extent of the destruction of Gaza and the
killing of course has never been seen before and then we're not talking about
only Palestine and the occupation Army of the Israeli state but in in world
history for the last century I don't think there has been any military attack
on another people with such a brutal
systematic viciousness and brutality the number of civilians killed
is is shocking the number of children killed is beyond shocking it's probably around
12,000 Palestinian children and children by definition are young people from zero
up to 18 years uh this number of killed children is surmounting
anything that the occupation forces have done before so there is a a shift
towards much more killing of civilians although they have always been targeting
civilians when they attack Gaza and also the West Bank the extent of destruction
of the society is beyond anything we have seen before they are completely
shattering the whole civilian Palestinian Society in Northern Gaza in particular I mean schools universities
water pipelines sewage systems homes not to forget hospitals
primary healthcare clinics ambulances we've seen all these things being TG T it before but never to the extent now
now Northern Gaza looks like a desert or like Hiroshima and uh also racism the overt
racism in the arguments for the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank I don't think
we have heard that before just two days ago uh the keset all the Jewish members
of the ceset voted against a State solution basically they voted against
any Solution on how to solve this occupation because this is not a
difficult conflict everybody used to say oh such a difficult conflict I I can't
make a stand this is a difficult occupation and occupations are illegal
doctor you've talked about how before October 7 the medical system within Gaza
was already severely compromised by Israel I'm wondering if you can uh speak to when you notice that was that uh
before or after the blockade for example and whether you think governments
internationally um when you first noticed that were doing enough to address you that that situation you know
the Palestinian people as I know them and I I had my first uh medical travel
to work with the Palestinian people in 1981 when I went as a young resident of
anesthesiology which is my specialty and emergency medicine I went to Beirut because this Reales were bombing Beirut
because at that time in 1981 the PLO and fata which was the armed wing of the PLO
the Palestinian Liberation Organization they were the ones who were waging the armed struggle against the occupation of
Palestine and uh just as a footnote uh your viewers should not forget that any
any occupied people have the legal right to fight occupation with arms the armed
struggle against occupation is not terrorism it is Liberation and
Liberation is legal that's how we got rid of a colonization of the global
south of course that armed struggle has to take place within the framework of
international law protecting hospitals protecting children and women and civilians not attacking schools all of
these laws that we have in the Geneva Convention the hog convention and so on but within that framework Every Nation
who is occupied by another nation has the right to fight occupation and the
last one to say this was the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the UN which was quite a big
thing it was two days ago and he really put the you know the right thing on the
right place he said what's going on in Gaza it's not terrorism and between the lines he
actually said that terrorism is what the Israeli occupation Army is
perpetrating so what the Palestinians have been struggling with through all
these years since 48 is to find a strategy and and and a way out of this
unwanted unwelcomed division of their land in 48 and then the unwanted and
unwelcomed expansion brutal expansion of the settler Colonial Israeli project
which is embedded in the Zionist political movement that they want to occupy and take all Palestine from The
River To The Sea that's the Israeli flag the two blue lines it's from the river to the Mediterranean you know and
between there you have the the the a Israel the state of Israel so what I saw saw in beut in 1981 and 82 were two
things number one the Israeli Army tried to kill the leadership of PLO and F
because at that time that was Hamas that was the armed resistance against the
occupation and the colonization so they bombed fakan in 81 we went down with the team it didn't take so long with the
bombing so we worked there for for a short while in a refugee camp but then in 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon went all
the way up to West beut besieged West bayut as they have been doing with gasa
for the last 16 years they cut the water they cut the fuel they cut the medical supplies they cut the Food Supplies as
they are doing with Gaza and they bombed West beut relentlessly night and day for
the whole summer of 1982 in order to achieve two things to kill the
leadership of the Armed resist as they are doing in Gaza now they called them terrorists Abu Amar yasat
was a terrorist abush shahad was a terrorist by definition of the US and
the Israelis and they wanted to to reduce or to quell or to strangulate the will of
resistance of the Palestinian people because remember in Lebanon there are
hundreds of thousands if not millions of Palestinian refugees from 48 who have
the right to return they are living in a very very difficult situation in the camps in Rashid in Sabra and shatila and
B rash and so on all over Lebanon and they resist so in 82 I saw two important
things and I felt it and I smelt it and I I touched it the brutality of the
Israeli attacks on civilians we were waiting in blood I was for the first time in my life lifting away amputated
arms and legs from Young Palestinians and Lebanese and they showed no mercy
they bombed ambulances they bombed hospitals they bombed apartment buildings they bombed the water pipeline
the sewage system everything in the civilian society that upholds life and I
was shocked I came from Norway I was pretty naive I'm politically very active but at the same time I thought there
were Rules of Engagement not at all not for the Israelis supported by the US and
Pentagon and then I saw the Palestinian Healthcare System and the doctors and the nurses and Dr fat Arafat who at that
time the brother of yaser who was then the leader of the Palestine red crescent
Society Halal who was an informal minister of health and I was extremely
impressed by the way they improvised found Solutions we made a makeshift
field Hospital in an underground Garage in the ne East School of Theology a
Catholic school and we worked there together night and day to SA lives so going from 82 and my experience then
with the Palestinians and the healthcare to Gaza and to the West Bank it's important to remember that the
Palestinian people has always been the most educated people in the Middle East a very thirsty for knowledge very
hardworking young students uh each family takes great pride in their kids
having the best marks and they have National tests you know and 100 point if you score 98 95 97 M family is very
proud you know in Gaza it's actually prohibited to have weddings parties
celebrations I think it is the week before National tests isn't that
beautiful because the students should have quiet should not be noise and you know shooting in the air because they
concentrate for their National exams so the Palestinian people has always been very academic very well educated
knowledgeable about philosophy Rel medicine whatever technology and they've
built their universities and often when I lecture about Gaza in the United States I I I
always ask do you know are there universities in Gaza and everybody goes no no no they don't have universities do
they you know they have 10 so while you've seen so much in your time in the
occupied Palestinian territories when do you feel that a doctor at what moment do you feel that a
doctor knows that they have to reach out to the International Community and say we need
people we need governments we need people of conscience to intervene here
notwithstanding all their training and all their capability would you say there's a moment when a doctor
recognizes that we can't do it you mean a Palestinian doctor or any doctor any
Doctor Who is in the territory it's a good question I think I think the the the Palestinians would would actually
answer you by saying we want to manage ourselves you know we're we're proud
people we're building a good health care system for for our Palestinian fellow
women and men and children we don't want to be dependent we're not a beggar a
begging Society we're independent and proud and we know our medical stuff and we know how to run it but when you have
an occupier who systematically kills your doctors nurses and paramedics and
who systematically bomb your hospital of course there is a time when you have to say hello world hello world can you
please stop these people from killing our medical staff and destroying our hospitals which should be protest
protected according to your laws of course there is a moment for that and they do it in two in
1981 fat arat issued an appeal to uh European and Western doctors to come to
beay rout to assist them that appeal made us in Norway construct the first
emergency surgical team that I was on so that appeal has been coming again and
again and again from Palestinian healthc care uh authorities so I think the
moment is is uh you know overripe and
has been so for many years and the Palestinians are indeed appealing again
and again and again to the International Community lift The Siege stop the
attacks on Healthcare improve the living conditions because at the end of the day
your health and my health is not first and foremost depending on a fancy
ambulance helicopter like I work in or a big university hospital with flashing operating rooms and open heart surgery
and all that public health depends on what we have here clean water food
enough to eat safety that we are not attacked somebody comes there and shoot
us a place to live work paid and safe work education and then comes healthc
care and the occupation of Palestine and the living conditions for
the people in the diaspora the refugees is first and foremost not characterized
by the lack of fancy ambulance helicopters they know the rule of conduct they know international law if
the hospitals had been military command centers I don't think they would have allowed it full stop so I haven't seen
it show me the evidence and finally the Israeli occupation Army invaded shifa
after having strangulated bombed shelled killed people inside and what did they
find nothing they made fools of themselves now everybody says oh we cannot uh you know the Palestinian
Society ask for BDS boycot I investment sanctions and then all the Western Society said no no no we can't do that
with Israel well they did with Russia immediately after the invasion of of ukina but what people forget is that
Israel the occupier had been imposing economical sanctions on Palestine for
many many years and in 2006 after the election you know they immediately
closed off the economical ties and the transfer of money and taxes and tolls
and everything to to the West Bank and they besieged Gaza can you think of any
more brutal BDS than the siege of Gaza so so actually these fundamental things
water food uh income work housing education is denied the people of
Palestine by the occupiers so we cannot solve that only by making more
Healthcare you know so so I'd just like to make that point first because I'm sort of a a hospital specialist but then
on the other hand of course what we have seen uh over the years this systematic
very systematic strategy from the Israeli occupation forces to uh demolish Palestinian proper Healthcare
and that has been at a level unseen before during this four months and uh
and this uh last uh uh who report shows from each of the municipalities you know
there are five municipalities in Gaza it's arafa canun deala Gaza City and
North Gaza and here you see the number of hospitals that have been attacked and destroyed and out of 34 hospitals I
believe now it's six or eight that are partially operating imagine imagine a
state demolishing uh 75% of the hospitals in a
neighboring country without any repercussions or reactions from the
International Community why is Israel having this sacred position that they
cannot be blocked or punished like they are you know eagerly punishing Russia
very quickly with sanctions and political uh you know punishment yes
that's a very good point that there's so many hospitals that Israel's already destroyed but as I believe you've
remarked before there's this I think you use the word preoccupation with alifa and um how it's a distraction and
I wonder if you can elaborate on that whether you see it as an example of something bigger that the Western media
is is trying to do deliberately you know in a way the
Western power elite I'm not talking about the people of the West because the people of the West in Canada and United
States in Europe in Norway they have been ananymous ly the majority standing
up and saying we support Palestine but the governments have been very slow to recognize that they are pretty scared
now because the street is so powerful and and the shout from the streets of all the capitals of all the cities all
over the Western world is shouting you know impose sanctions uh Stop The
Killing support Palestine but the the Western Powers have always been looking for scapegoats finding excuses to uh
support the Israeli attacks on Palestinians you know one thing is to label them terrorists and that's like
the thief crying shouting stop the thief because the real terrorist in this
scenario is the state of Israel Israel is perpetrating State terrorism by
definition using arms military powers to intimidate and scare the civilian
population that's the definition of terrorism who's doing that Israel over and over and over again
so the Western uh Powers the governments Tred to find excuses you know labeling
people and then oh maybe this hospital this shifa hospital is a military
command center so then it's okay to bomb it number one it's not okay to bomb a
mixed civilian and Military Target Geneva Convention number four there are
uh three important uh principles it's
proportionality you should use the same level of weaponry and power against your enemy as the enem is using against you I
mean that's that's every day if you're going to punish your child and you're an adult you can't take a bat and start
beating the child you have to you maybe hold him by the arm and say you can't do this so that's
proportionality then it is uh distinction which means that the armed uh parties have to make a clear
distinction between civilian and Military targets like you can you can't bomb a school you can bomb a military
Air Force Base distinction and then the important principle of
precaution which means that if you have a Target which you think is military but
it is also possibly a civilian Target like a church or a mosque and there are
500 refugees in the church or in the mosque and there are may be two armed Fighters you cannot bomb that mosque
just because you want to kill those to Fighters because the civilian protection
takes priority over the military gain so even if there should be some fighters in
shifa which I've never seen they still don't have legal arguments to buom shifa
that's one thing and number two we have heard these allegations for years and
years and years and years I heard it first time in 2006 we heard it in 2009
and 12 this Israelis said we're going to bomb shifa because it's a military command center we were even asked to
leave by our Minister of Foreign Affairs because the Israeli authorities had
contacted the norian Minister of Foreign Affairs and said you have to get your two doctors out of chifa why did they
want to get us out of shifa because they didn't want us to report because we reported we were
treating patience together with our Palestinian colleagues and leaders but
we were also reporting we gave interviews to anyone who wanted to listen and we could give the numbers I
remember I had this as my notepad so I had the numbers of killed and injured and children and women and everything
from hour to hour so we were important sources of information about what is it
that's really going on in shifa and in Gaza they wanted us out for that reason they made the excuse that we're going to
bomb it because it's a military command center we refused we stayed they didn't bom and now it comes up again the same
allegations 16 years after they first claimed that chifa was a military
command center where is the proof where is the evidence they've had 16 years
with all their sophisticated intelligence and x-raying and everything they never showed any proof they made a
tunnel when they were in Gaza during the intifada and another practical thing is
that there is almost no modern hospital in this world that doesn't have a syst
of tunnels underneath because it's for Logistics it's all for for the technical support it's for the you know the
generators maybe or the batteries for the unbreakable power supply it's for the laundry and the kitchen and so on
and so forth and to transport patients between the different departments and blocks so that's nothing new that there
are tunnels under hospitals and the third Point I've never seen it I've been there uh for the better part of of 20
years I've been working there uh during times of bumping and in between remember there are no borders around
Gaza Israel which is not very known Israel has no internationally recognized
borders if you discuss with somebody who's Pro Israeli give them give them a piece of paper and a pencil and ask them
to draw the borders of Israel and Gaza they don't exist because they're pushing them all the time so when these 2.2
million people are incarcerated they tried the civilian you know protest to go to the fence
every Friday for one and a half year what happened they killed uh hundreds by
shooting them and they wounded tens of thousands mainly by shooting in the
extremities to make them you know handicapped so why would not these
people at one point break out of the ghetto I don't call it a prison because in prison you have convicted people and
you cannot convict 2.2 million Palestinians of being Palestinians and one thing I before we wrap up I want
to ask you without of course romanticizing it because of um what we're seeing is so horrific um there
seems to be among the civilian population in Gaza uh this kind of like
exceptional selfishness to help the medical staff and the rescue team that I personally
have never seen before and I'm not sure if that's the right word selfishness but it's a kind of remarkable compassion
that I've not seen and courage and strength and I'm wondering in your experience what do you think accounts
for that and I feel that it um as a western person it forces me to
interrogate myself you know because coming from a culture the west where um
there's so much of a championing of individualism uh whereas you see that which is a total
opposite so I'm just wondering what do you feel accounts for that kind of um selflessness and encourage that's so
remarkable I'm so happy for that question Paul and and I've I've been asking myself the same having having
state so much together with the Palestinians and in particular in Gaza over the last uh uh 20 years and I don't
only go there when it's bombing I I go two three times a year uh I teach uh at
the University I do research together with my fellow Palestinians I work with development of healthcare under the
leadership of the Palestinian Healthcare leaders like Dr yusf abish the brilliant minist of health and and every time we
Face a problem there is always a solution around the corner in
Gaza every time there is some sort of hardship there is always some helping
hands as you say I am a hopeless romantic so I like to think that this is
part of our Universal human quality it is to come to the assistance of the
other when the other is for some reason helpless incapacitated have a problem is
poor lacks food uh or or needs to be lifted up and cared
for but again the political forces that wants to divide us through racism and
say that oh you're Brown and I'm white I'm not going to touch you or you're yellow and I'm white and you can be poor
and I can be rich these political forces are trying to divide us and trying to
explore uh uh to exploit to exploit this uh quality of human being of the
existence into some sort of profit but at the core I think all of us have this
this internal uh spine of dignity and
solidarity with others I want to think that I want to believe that and I want
to promote that and I want to be a person like that myself with a spine of
dignity and solid ity and love for others racism apartheid occupation are
exactly the opposite it is to disregard the value of human life now for the Palestinian people I
think it is a virtue to be selfless to be supportive of the other and they have
a name for it in Arabic it's called sumud and sumud actually is an Arab word
meaning steadfastness and this steadfastness is part of
Palestinian culture there is no doubt and there is no doubt that both in the West Bank and in Gaza and in the the
camps around the world when you meet Palestinian people they're all in a way
filled with a sense of being in this world also not just for yourself but for
the other and you see it during times of hardship and bombing and I I totally
agree when you look at the the the video clips from Gaza when you see a bombing
take place of course people try to to to find
cover but immediately when the bombing is is over you don't see people run away
you see them run into the smoke and they start digging with their hands immediately why do they dig with their
hands because Israel does not allow any fuel to come in so they can't use the cranes and the you know the machinery
but you see them digging anyway with and without their vests you see them lifting carefully the injured the dying the Dead
the martyrs into an ambulance or running them into a hospital
endless actions of compassion solidarity and sumud and this is also I think a lesson
to the world a message to the world a cry to the world we are maintaining our
dignity we we are not allowing ourselves to degenerate to the animals that they
are treating us like and not only are they treating like the animals like animals but they're even naming them as
animals the Palestinians resist and they stand tall in their
dignity and their Humanity with their sumud and it is as you say extraordinary
and we all should take a lesson from Gaza and from the West Bank we should
take a lesson from Dr Muhammad Al Ram from Dr Naf Karim from Dr Khal and from
all the other healthcare workers and the people and the volunteers and the ambulance paramedics because they are
actually telling us what it means to be human in times of the utter hardship
confronted with death confronted with starvation losing your child they stand
tall and they ask themselves when it's bombing how can I be of help for the other
so the Israeli occupation the Israeli attack has completely failed in trying to discourage or
demoralize the Palestinian people in Gaza and in the West Bank the more they're bombed the taller they stand the
more they are starved the more they show compassion for each other and even if
they're dropping leaflets and and and made up Arab newspapers or or news
leaflets saying that oh you have to attack Kamas they are responsible they cut through it because they are all part
of the resistance even if they're fata or their Hamas or their shihad or their socialists or Muslims or Christians this
is not a Muslim cause this is not a political cause this is a cause for
Humanity and the Israeli attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank these attacks are
attacks on all of us on a platform of dignity Humanity and Justice in this
world if we don't react now how is it going to look tomorrow who's next is it
turkey is it Lebanon is it Jordan is it Norway because if we let this lose now
might will Define right and right will not Define right and when we let might
Define right without stopping it we are going back to the law of the Jungle and I don't want to live in that world so we
should thank the Palestinian people people for their steadfastness their smood and their enormous courage and
bravery in standing up we all have a lot to learn from the Palestinian people in
Gaza and in the West Bank and my deepest respect and my thank goes out to
them I wish I could do more I wish I could be there I am refused I'm denied
access by the Israeli occupiers because I'm too dangerous I wish I could be there and do
more but I will promise like we all should promise ourselves we will do more
here we have to do more solidarity work we have to do do more to push our governments to St take a stand we have
to do more to have Financial economical blockade of of Israel and political
sanctions against Israel we have to have weapon embargo on Israel and you and me
and all of us who are only one we can stand together and be an army of solidarity for the Palestinian people
and at the end of the day that is a struggle for you and for me and for everyone and thank you so much thank
