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An injured Palestinian child receives medical treatment after being taken to Al-Emirati Hospital following Israeli attacks in Rafah, Gaza on March 02, 2024. It was reported that there were dead and injured people as a result of the attacks carried out by the Israeli army in the city of Rafah.
As I think about my colleagues who put their lives at stake to save Palestinians wounded in Gaza, the question I must ask is: when will President Biden force the Israeli government to stop this slaughter?
When your time to die comes, it will come regardless of whether you're in a war zone or your comfort zone.
That's what I told myself and my family when I decided to travel from the safety of our home in Virginia to a besieged hospital in Gaza for a medical relief mission organized by the Palestinian American Medical Association. Because God has power over all things, Muslims believe, we should do what is right even if it's risky and then put our trust in God.
For me, I had no doubt that traveling to Gaza was the right thing to do. As an anesthesiologist who has spent over 45 years serving patients in Virginia and other States, I had a unique skill set that hospitals in Gaza desperately needed: the ability to put patients to sleep before surgery. I learned of a doctor in Gaza who had to amputate his own little daughter’s shredded leg without anesthesia after an Israeli missile destroyed his house and killed other members of his family. I could not imagine a surgeon cutting the leg off of his wide-awake patient, much less his own child. Yet that has been the reality of life in Gaza, where the Israeli government's limits on aid trucks, attacks on hospitals, and killing of medical professionals have forced doctors to operate without basic medical tools that the rest of us take for granted.
Before my journey to Gaza, I gathered with other volunteering doctors in Cairo, where officials from the World Health Organization warned us of the risks to our safety.
"You're going to a war zone. We don't guarantee anything, and anything can happen to you."
Undeterred, we traveled to Gaza in vans. The journey from Cairo to Gaza should have taken less than 6 hours, but it lasted 15 hours because of the constant stops at Egyptian checkpoints.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die.
Over the last 15 to 20 miles before entering Rafah, we drove by seemingly thousands of backed-up aid trucks—eighteen-wheeler after eighteen-wheeler on both sides of the highway full of food and other supplies that the Israeli government was barring from entry into Gaza as the population starved.
When we finally reached the European Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Gaza, we realized that the hospital was essentially a refugee camp. Patients, their families and refugees packed the halls and stairways, many sleeping on the floors and even in small tents made of plastic sheets and blankets.
We spent our entire days treating a stream of mangled patient after mangled patient, the overwhelming majority of them women and children. Many of them had shrapnel wounds caused by the pellets thrown in every direction by exploding Israeli missiles. Limbs blown off. Blinded eyes. Scarred faces.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die. As we fought to heal our patients, we could hear and feel the shuddering impact of bombs exploding in the city around us, sometimes nearby and sometimes far away.
During brief breaks, we slept on side-by-side cots in a cramped room and shared a single bathroom. That was luxury compared to what most Palestinians in Gaza experience. The local doctors and technicians sleep on the floor in the hallways, working around the clock without pay.
By the time my two-week mission in Khan Younis ended, I had seen more horror than I had in forty-five years of my medical practice.
For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage.
Now that horror has spread to Rafah. The Israeli military has entered the city, shutting down aid deliveries, and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee under threat of death. Israeli soldiers even filmed themselves using a tank to bulldoze both the popular "I heart Gaza" sign and the Gaza entry sign where many other visiting doctors, including me, took photographs upon arriving and departing.
The Israeli invasion has also trapped at least twenty foreign doctors, including Americans participating in the same medical mission as me, in Khan Younis, where some are already suffering from dehydration.
As I think about those doctors risking their lives to save patients, the question I must ask is: when will President Biden force the Israeli government to stop this slaughter?
That's what most Americans want him to do. A recent Gallup poll showed that a majority oppose the Israeli government's actions in Gaza, including most Democrats and independents. More Americans also support sending aid to Gaza than those who support sending more military aid to the Israeli government, according to Pew Research Center. President Biden's decision to delay one shipment of weapons hasn't stopped Benjamin Netanyahu from attacking Rafah. As a medical professional who saw the impact of Israeli attacks on another city firsthand, I hope President Biden will admit that Netanyahu has crossed all of his red lines, freeze the flow of weapons, demand full humanitarian access, and secure a permanent ceasefire deal.
Otherwise, I expect more injured patients will stream into ever-more cramped hospitals with fewer supplies and fewer surviving doctors in Khan Younis, Rafah and elsewhere. For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage. People like me can only treat the victims of violence. President Biden is the one who must stop the violence.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
When your time to die comes, it will come regardless of whether you're in a war zone or your comfort zone.
That's what I told myself and my family when I decided to travel from the safety of our home in Virginia to a besieged hospital in Gaza for a medical relief mission organized by the Palestinian American Medical Association. Because God has power over all things, Muslims believe, we should do what is right even if it's risky and then put our trust in God.
For me, I had no doubt that traveling to Gaza was the right thing to do. As an anesthesiologist who has spent over 45 years serving patients in Virginia and other States, I had a unique skill set that hospitals in Gaza desperately needed: the ability to put patients to sleep before surgery. I learned of a doctor in Gaza who had to amputate his own little daughter’s shredded leg without anesthesia after an Israeli missile destroyed his house and killed other members of his family. I could not imagine a surgeon cutting the leg off of his wide-awake patient, much less his own child. Yet that has been the reality of life in Gaza, where the Israeli government's limits on aid trucks, attacks on hospitals, and killing of medical professionals have forced doctors to operate without basic medical tools that the rest of us take for granted.
Before my journey to Gaza, I gathered with other volunteering doctors in Cairo, where officials from the World Health Organization warned us of the risks to our safety.
"You're going to a war zone. We don't guarantee anything, and anything can happen to you."
Undeterred, we traveled to Gaza in vans. The journey from Cairo to Gaza should have taken less than 6 hours, but it lasted 15 hours because of the constant stops at Egyptian checkpoints.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die.
Over the last 15 to 20 miles before entering Rafah, we drove by seemingly thousands of backed-up aid trucks—eighteen-wheeler after eighteen-wheeler on both sides of the highway full of food and other supplies that the Israeli government was barring from entry into Gaza as the population starved.
When we finally reached the European Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Gaza, we realized that the hospital was essentially a refugee camp. Patients, their families and refugees packed the halls and stairways, many sleeping on the floors and even in small tents made of plastic sheets and blankets.
We spent our entire days treating a stream of mangled patient after mangled patient, the overwhelming majority of them women and children. Many of them had shrapnel wounds caused by the pellets thrown in every direction by exploding Israeli missiles. Limbs blown off. Blinded eyes. Scarred faces.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die. As we fought to heal our patients, we could hear and feel the shuddering impact of bombs exploding in the city around us, sometimes nearby and sometimes far away.
During brief breaks, we slept on side-by-side cots in a cramped room and shared a single bathroom. That was luxury compared to what most Palestinians in Gaza experience. The local doctors and technicians sleep on the floor in the hallways, working around the clock without pay.
By the time my two-week mission in Khan Younis ended, I had seen more horror than I had in forty-five years of my medical practice.
For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage.
Now that horror has spread to Rafah. The Israeli military has entered the city, shutting down aid deliveries, and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee under threat of death. Israeli soldiers even filmed themselves using a tank to bulldoze both the popular "I heart Gaza" sign and the Gaza entry sign where many other visiting doctors, including me, took photographs upon arriving and departing.
The Israeli invasion has also trapped at least twenty foreign doctors, including Americans participating in the same medical mission as me, in Khan Younis, where some are already suffering from dehydration.
As I think about those doctors risking their lives to save patients, the question I must ask is: when will President Biden force the Israeli government to stop this slaughter?
That's what most Americans want him to do. A recent Gallup poll showed that a majority oppose the Israeli government's actions in Gaza, including most Democrats and independents. More Americans also support sending aid to Gaza than those who support sending more military aid to the Israeli government, according to Pew Research Center. President Biden's decision to delay one shipment of weapons hasn't stopped Benjamin Netanyahu from attacking Rafah. As a medical professional who saw the impact of Israeli attacks on another city firsthand, I hope President Biden will admit that Netanyahu has crossed all of his red lines, freeze the flow of weapons, demand full humanitarian access, and secure a permanent ceasefire deal.
Otherwise, I expect more injured patients will stream into ever-more cramped hospitals with fewer supplies and fewer surviving doctors in Khan Younis, Rafah and elsewhere. For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage. People like me can only treat the victims of violence. President Biden is the one who must stop the violence.
When your time to die comes, it will come regardless of whether you're in a war zone or your comfort zone.
That's what I told myself and my family when I decided to travel from the safety of our home in Virginia to a besieged hospital in Gaza for a medical relief mission organized by the Palestinian American Medical Association. Because God has power over all things, Muslims believe, we should do what is right even if it's risky and then put our trust in God.
For me, I had no doubt that traveling to Gaza was the right thing to do. As an anesthesiologist who has spent over 45 years serving patients in Virginia and other States, I had a unique skill set that hospitals in Gaza desperately needed: the ability to put patients to sleep before surgery. I learned of a doctor in Gaza who had to amputate his own little daughter’s shredded leg without anesthesia after an Israeli missile destroyed his house and killed other members of his family. I could not imagine a surgeon cutting the leg off of his wide-awake patient, much less his own child. Yet that has been the reality of life in Gaza, where the Israeli government's limits on aid trucks, attacks on hospitals, and killing of medical professionals have forced doctors to operate without basic medical tools that the rest of us take for granted.
Before my journey to Gaza, I gathered with other volunteering doctors in Cairo, where officials from the World Health Organization warned us of the risks to our safety.
"You're going to a war zone. We don't guarantee anything, and anything can happen to you."
Undeterred, we traveled to Gaza in vans. The journey from Cairo to Gaza should have taken less than 6 hours, but it lasted 15 hours because of the constant stops at Egyptian checkpoints.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die.
Over the last 15 to 20 miles before entering Rafah, we drove by seemingly thousands of backed-up aid trucks—eighteen-wheeler after eighteen-wheeler on both sides of the highway full of food and other supplies that the Israeli government was barring from entry into Gaza as the population starved.
When we finally reached the European Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Gaza, we realized that the hospital was essentially a refugee camp. Patients, their families and refugees packed the halls and stairways, many sleeping on the floors and even in small tents made of plastic sheets and blankets.
We spent our entire days treating a stream of mangled patient after mangled patient, the overwhelming majority of them women and children. Many of them had shrapnel wounds caused by the pellets thrown in every direction by exploding Israeli missiles. Limbs blown off. Blinded eyes. Scarred faces.
We saved many of our patients in Gaza and we watched many of them die. As we fought to heal our patients, we could hear and feel the shuddering impact of bombs exploding in the city around us, sometimes nearby and sometimes far away.
During brief breaks, we slept on side-by-side cots in a cramped room and shared a single bathroom. That was luxury compared to what most Palestinians in Gaza experience. The local doctors and technicians sleep on the floor in the hallways, working around the clock without pay.
By the time my two-week mission in Khan Younis ended, I had seen more horror than I had in forty-five years of my medical practice.
For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage.
Now that horror has spread to Rafah. The Israeli military has entered the city, shutting down aid deliveries, and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee under threat of death. Israeli soldiers even filmed themselves using a tank to bulldoze both the popular "I heart Gaza" sign and the Gaza entry sign where many other visiting doctors, including me, took photographs upon arriving and departing.
The Israeli invasion has also trapped at least twenty foreign doctors, including Americans participating in the same medical mission as me, in Khan Younis, where some are already suffering from dehydration.
As I think about those doctors risking their lives to save patients, the question I must ask is: when will President Biden force the Israeli government to stop this slaughter?
That's what most Americans want him to do. A recent Gallup poll showed that a majority oppose the Israeli government's actions in Gaza, including most Democrats and independents. More Americans also support sending aid to Gaza than those who support sending more military aid to the Israeli government, according to Pew Research Center. President Biden's decision to delay one shipment of weapons hasn't stopped Benjamin Netanyahu from attacking Rafah. As a medical professional who saw the impact of Israeli attacks on another city firsthand, I hope President Biden will admit that Netanyahu has crossed all of his red lines, freeze the flow of weapons, demand full humanitarian access, and secure a permanent ceasefire deal.
Otherwise, I expect more injured patients will stream into ever-more cramped hospitals with fewer supplies and fewer surviving doctors in Khan Younis, Rafah and elsewhere. For months, doctors and aid workers have been courageously risking—and sometimes losing—their lives to treat patients in Gaza. It's time for President Biden to show just a small amount of their courage. People like me can only treat the victims of violence. President Biden is the one who must stop the violence.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare."
In communities large and small across the United States on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people collectively took to the streets to make their opposition to President Donald Trump heard.
The people who took part in the organized protests ranged from very young children to the elderly and their message was scrawled on signs of all sizes and colors—many of them angry, some of them funny, but all in line with the "Hands Off" message that brought them together.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare," said the group Stand Up America as word of the turnout poured in from across the country.
A relatively small, but representative sample of photographs from various demonstrations that took place follows.
Demonstrators gather on Boston Common, cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against US President Donald Trump and his advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
More than 1,000 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in European, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and were set to continue throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events—or schedule one in your community.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters on Saturday just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," the group explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."