Dr. Rodolfo Ondarza, one of Mexico’s most prominent neurosurgeons, issued an open letter Jan. 9 headlined “The Motives of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. Stop Genocide.” As part of his participation in the Jan. 10 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, Dr. Ondarza read the following selection from that letter, which is circulating widely in Mexico and other Ibero-American nations.
“What horrors Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya must have seen, felt and lived through to decide to walk from his hospital towards two Israeli tanks, wearing his surgical scrubs and white doctor’s coat.
“What could have been crossing Doctor Hossam Abu Safiya’s mind, as the rubble scattered on the street crunched under his feet during his lonely walk towards the guns that were pointed at him, threatening to snuff out his life? Time stood still for a few moments in Gaza, and in the world, under the astonished gaze of invaders and health workers alike, time marked by the beating of Hossam Abu Safiya’s brave heart.
“We are told that no one is obligated to do more than what is possible. Nor are we strangers to the idea that there is heroism when an action is performed beyond the call of duty.
“Seeing Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya walk directly towards two Israeli armored vehicles of war, Zionist tanks of war and death, over the rubble of a lost city, under which lie the corpses of children and women, in a superhuman effort to defend a hospital and its patients—this takes our breath away, and forces us to rethink and reflect on the actions and the future of the human species.
“The phrase that asserts that no one is obligated to do more than what is possible, in a certain sense, is a phrase that cloaks mediocrity and conformism, which are useful to cover up ineptitude and negligence, which in turn are the breeding ground of impunity. It is clearly not a phrase followed by people like Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya.
