On July 19, the Connecticut branch of the Palestine Museum hosted a U.S. showing of the documentary, “Gaza Doctors Under Attack.” The 90-minute film is “a forensic investigation into Israeli military attacks on hospitals in Gaza…. [It] also examines allegations of the targeting and abuse of doctors and healthcare workers in Gaza,” according to U.K. Channel 4 TV. Team Zeteo had made the film available once “the BBC refused to air” it with concerns that it wasn’t “impartial.” Zeteo has now released it globally.
The documentary followed the lives, and a few confirmed deaths, of a few Palestinian physicians, who, true to their Hippocratic Oath, refused to leave their patients. IDF soldiers raided the bombed-out hospitals to “evacuate” them, often taking healthcare staff, especially doctors, hostage. Dr. Khaled Hamouda describes the missile attack on his home killing 10 family members, followed by the drone attack on the house where the survivors sought shelter, only to be killed there. He survived and took shelter at his hospital, where he was detained along with 70 other doctors; he was badly beaten and finally released. Another physician, Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, shown to have travelled from one bombed hospital to another in order to keep saving lives, was ultimately detained, stripped, interrogated, disappeared and tortured. Dr. al-Bursh’s testimony of his incarceration is not on film, as he died in prison.
Film footage of these “evacuations,” along with a few interviews, provides evidence for the claim that “Israel has systematically targeted doctors and healthcare workers,” and destroyed the health system infrastructure of Gaza. Under the 1946 Geneva Convention, it is a war crime to target health facilities, medical personnel and patients.
In the Q&A session at the end of the showing, Doctors Against Genocide co-founders Dr. Nidal Jboor and Dr. Maysa Hawash answered questions and took the opportunity to describe DAG’s project to rebuild Al-Shifa Hospital. Dr. Jboor reported that Palestinians have already cleared one portion of the ruins of Al-Shifa to begin building the new hospital.
