Dr Mo. Will Never Forget What He Saw In Gaza

Content warning: This podcast contains graphic details of violence and assault.

On this episode of No Filter, guest host Jessie Stephens speaks to Dr Mohammed Mustafa, known as Dr Mo, is a Perth-based emergency doctor, about his firsthand experiences providing emergency care in Gaza, the practical and emotional challenges of working in such extreme conditions, and the human stories behind the headlines. He also discusses the impact on children and families, and his ongoing efforts to establish a children’s hospital in Gaza.

The son of Palestinian refugees, Dr Mo has travelled to Gaza twice in the past two years to volunteer as an emergency doctor, working alongside local medical teams in hospitals under extreme conditions. Through video and social media, he has drawn global attention to the experiences of patients and medical staff working under intense pressure.

If you wish to help the children of Gaza, you can donate to Save The Children here. 

If you or anyone you know have experienced targeted violence, please contact Lifeline (13 11 14), Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800), both of which provide trained counsellors you can talk with 24/7. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

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CREDITS:

Guest: Dr Mohammed Mustafa

Host: Jessie Stephens

Executive Producer: Naima Brown

Senior Producer: Bree Player

Audio Producer: Jacob Round

Video Producer: Josh Green

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Nothing can prepare you for Gaza. Gaza is just different.
You have no idea whether you're going to be alive,
whether you're going to be bombed, the level of injuries
that you're seeing, and the lack of medical equipment, the
lack of food. I mean, it is a scary place
to go and work. You know, I really didn't want
to leave. I wanted to stay and I wanted to
continue working, but you know, I was told that I

(00:40):
needed to leave for my own safety.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm Jesse Stevens and welcome to No Filter. The conversation
I'm about to share with you, which we recorded last week,
was the most impactful of my career. I have not
stopped thinking about it. Our guest today is doctor Mohammed
Mustafa known as doctor Moe, a Perth based emergency doctor

(01:07):
born to Palestinian parents and raised in the United Kingdom.
In the last eighteen months, he has embarked on two
medical missions to Gaza. While there, he did something he
wasn't meant to. He pulled out his phone. He filmed,
and then he published those videos to social media. Doctor

(01:29):
Moe brought global attention to the suffering of Palestinian civilians,
especially children. Alongside him, we saw the aftermath of a bombing,
children with no access to pain relief or surgeons, hospitals
with barely any resources running on the desperation of doctors

(01:49):
whose lives were also at risk. Conversations about children suffering
in any context are the hardest and the most necessary
stories to listen to. That is what this story is.
It includes graphic descriptions of the injury, suffering, and death
that doctor Moe witnessed firsthand. It's confronting, and it speaks

(02:13):
to the human toll of an ongoing, heartbreaking conflict that
has claimed tens of thousands of lives. No one tells
doctor Moe's story better than he does, so I will
leave that to him. Here's my interview with doctor Moe.
Hello doctor Mo, and welcome to No Filter.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
I wanted to begin today by asking you know, I
know you've been on the ground in Gaza. You have
seen things that most of us could never imagine. For
most of us, this is headlines, this is Instagram, this
is images that maybe we can put our phones down
if we want, But for you, I wouldn't want to

(02:55):
put words in your mouth. But it's a live trauma.
How are you today? How are you going emotionally psychologically?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So I don't want to make here about me, you know,
and you know, I don't want to talk about how
I'm coping and how I'm dealing with this because I
feel like, you know, the most important thing is to
center those people that are actively dying in Gaza, not
me who's had breakfast this morning and had a cup
of coffee. That's not who needs to be centered. Who
needs to be centered as those one million children or

(03:25):
however many of them are left in Gaza that are
currently being staffed to death. That's what we need to
talk about. And I understand, you know, people always say,
how are you coping? How you doing? Listen, I'm not coping.
You know. I'm tired. I've barely slept. I live out
of a suitcase. Ever since I got back from Gaza,
I've traveled around the world trying to make a tangible
difference to what's going on. I've been pleading with the

(03:48):
Prime Minister to meet with me. I've been working with
different NGOs to bring the plans for a hospital to
get it into Gaza. I'm trying to come up with
solutions for what to do. I want the government to
step in and do what they have to do, but
unfortunately somebody like me has to step up and has
to talk about what's going on, has to come up
with solutions of what we can do because I don't

(04:09):
see people doing it. I don't see people in the
government doing it. And it's a very very scary thing
to be and it's a very scary thing and to
be where you know, you've got the whole weight of
this on your shoulders, and I just sometimes it's a
lonely road. It's a very very lonely road. Sometimes, you know,
you get criticized. I get death threats, so you know,

(04:29):
like how am I doing. I'm just I just put
one foot in front of the other. Like that's it.
I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Turn up every single day, you know, and see what
I can do. And you know, if I've just got
to keep going, that's essentially it.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
I think that point that it's like you're asking ordinary,
I would argue you're not that ordinary by the way,
and we'll get to that, but people to do pretty
extraordinary things. I want to go back to you. Are
you grew up in the UK as the son of
Palestinian refugees? Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah? Yeah, my dad was born in Gaza. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
What was that experience like growing up as someone with
a Palestinian background in the UK.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
You know, look, I remember when we were first when
I was first born, I was born in Mecca. You know.
I moved over to the UK when I was four
years old, But I remember when we were in Mecca,
Like our house didn't have running water, you know, my
dad used to there used to be a truck that
used to arrive once a week and it used to
have like barrels of water and that was our drinking water.
So my dad used to go downstairs and like there

(05:29):
was no elevator in this like apartment complex, as it
was like a essentially like you know it like kind
of like a ghettoized apartment complex. But he would walk
down the stairs, it'd be like twenty flights of stairs,
and he would carry this barrel of water, put it
on his shoulders and he would carry it and that
would be our drinking water. We had essentially a one
bedroom apartment for five of us, Me and my two
sisters and my mum and dad had a blanket between us.

(05:50):
You know, that was our life when we grew up
in Mecca and then we moved over to the UK.
You know, my dad's a doctor, so when we moved
over to the UK and he was working as a doctor, essentially,
like he had to provide for everybody, you know, so
we you know, I remember when we would when we
were growing up, knowing that we had so many miles
that we had to feedback home. Like the sacrifices that

(06:12):
we would make as a family, you know, buying secondhand
clothes all the time, and going to like grocery stores
late at night when they would reduce items of food
so we can buy that to eat. I mean, that's
what it was like. But you know, look, my parents
gave me an amazing life. I never once went hungry
or anything like that. And you know my dad now
is like the leading fertility specialist in the whole UK.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So you know we're okay now. But you know, from
where we've come from and where we are now is
night and day. But that's what it's like growing up
as a refugee, and not just like as a as
a Palestinian, but anywhere in the world, Like when you
get you know, stripped and taken out of your home
and have to start with nothing. You know, my dad
didn't known a pair of shoes to do was fifteen

(06:57):
years old. He used to be barefoot up until the
age of fifteen. His trousers or his pants that are
used to wear were you know those USA aid flower bags.
They used to cut a hole in it for his
legs and then they used to just tie it up
with some string and that would be his trousers. This
is the level of poverty that my father had to
deal with because his village was taken over and he

(07:18):
was displaced and kicked out from his home and his village,
and you know, he had to move into the refugee
camps of Gaza because seventy percent of the Gaza population
are refugees from what is today Israel.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Were you aware growing up in the UK or did
you have contact with extended family who still lived in
Palestine at all?

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, I've got family in Gaza right now. I've got
my uncle, my auntie, my cousin's my Mum's aunties and cousins,
like all of them are in Gaza.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Prior to October seven, What did you know about what
their quality of life was, Like, I.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Mean a lot, because we support them, you know, we
used to support them. I would speak to them, you know,
and then it's like every year, you know, like we
we used to try and like you know, and things
like Ramadan or ed we would try and bring food
for the whole area, you know, through my uncle. We
would try and get everyone fed. And when I was
there in June last year, we were seeing kids like

(08:11):
what we're seeing now emanciated skin and bones dying from
starvation then in June, so you know, and look, this
is not controversial thing to say. The Israelis said, I
think it was the Defense Minister at the time of
ag Golong. He says, we're going to put a total
seage on Gaza. There'll be no food, water, in electricity
going into Gaza. And he said that on October the ninth,

(08:34):
two days into this and Netnya, who's saying there's no
starvation going on in Gaza. This is this is how
absurd it is, and this is how nut it is,
and this is why, Like, you know, words of condemnation
mean nothing. The tone and these governments have just shifted now.
But we've watched the same images on our screens for

(08:54):
almost two years.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
So yeah, and those images, a lot of those images
have been shared by you, and I want to I
want to get to that experience. You were in a
very specific position when this war broke out because you
had training as a doctor. What made you decide to
go into medicine and what to specialize in? What was

(09:18):
behind that decision?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Well, you know growing up and watching my father, when
you grow up as a refugee, right, you're not very
well liked. You know, you're not treated very well. And
the one specialty and the one area, one profession that
you know would always treat as like humans would be doctors.
You know, whether it was a doctor's giving ye vaccines

(09:40):
or whatever, it.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Was treated with respect.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, and you know, I saw what medicine did for
my father. You know, he went from being this kid
with no shoes and wearing flower bags as his trousers
to now, you know, flying around the world doing conferences
and being one of the leading fertility specialists in the world.
And that's what medicine did for him, and it's empowering
and it allows me to help people without me being political,

(10:07):
because medicine isn't political. Medical medicine is and discriminate that
same virus that you have, or that same bug. It
will do the exact same thing to you as it
would do to somebody who's gay, somebody who's Jewish, someone
who's Muslim, someone who's black, white, whatever. It's the same thing,
and the treatment is the same. For the most part.
We do have some physiological you know, that's what medicine is,
and that's why I always wanted to do medicine, and

(10:29):
you know that's why I chose it as a career
path for me.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
I want to take you back to October seventh, twenty
twenty three, because for a lot of people, perhaps shamefully,
they didn't have the context of what had been happening
between Israel and Palestine. Maybe they'd seen a few headlines,
but to them, you see the greatest loss of Jewish life,
the Holocaust horror. Remember the opera house, the Israeli flag

(10:57):
was there. What was your response, as someone who had
family who was in Ghaza, who had a very particular
vantage point, what was your response on that day.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I remember because I was on night shift that night
when news came out. I remember opening up my phone
and thinking, oh my god. Like, so you've seen some
of these images that are coming out of Israel and
you think, oh my god, what is happening. There's this
like level of like you don't know how to feel
as a Palestinian because in one hand, you feel pain

(11:28):
for these people and what's happened to them, and then
being taken ostagen and you can't you can't feel anything
but feel sorry when you see people screaming as they're
being carded away, right. And then on the other hand,
I'm thinking to myself, these images are so powerful because
everybody knows what was going to come next, and what
was going to come next was a massive bombing campaign.
Put it in a context in the first like you know,

(11:49):
before the first seas fire in November. So the first
I think about thirty days, twenty four days, these really
skilled one thy nine hundred children, one nine hundred children
in about twenty five days. This is just children. Forget
the women and the men in Gaza. This is just children,
one nine hundred kild And you know, look, I don't

(12:10):
ever want it to be about a competition if you've
killed more than hers, any of it. But what I
want people to see is, is it if your heart
breaks and bleeds for what happened on October the seventh,
to people that how can your heart not break for
what's happened to these children in Gaza? How can your
heart not break for the largest cohort of children amputees
in the world.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
And your heart has space to break for both?

Speaker 1 (12:32):
I think it does, It does, it does. And I'm
a Palestinian gas and refugee, and my heart breaks for
Jewish people who have suffered. Yeah, my heart's always broken
for Jews people stuff, not just that have suffered, you
know in Israel, say necessarily on October the seventh, but
like you know, just reading history and reading the atrocities
of what happened to Jewish people in Western Europe. But

(12:53):
you know what happened to Jewish people in Western Europe.
It wasn't the crime of Palestinians. But yet we are
the ones that have to pay the price. We are
the ones that had to leave our villages.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
And I think that that creating space for the grief
of both of those, I think is really important. And
your perspective. I think that the horrors of October seven
and the grief of that and what that did to
the Jewish community all over the world was you know,
it's just just awful, unimaginable. But your perspective, I think

(13:27):
was bracing for what was about to happen.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and you decided that you were going to go
to Gaza. How did you come to that decision? I mean,
we were hearing so early on that Gaza was one
of the most dangerous places on earth. How did you
come to that decision that you would go?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Do? You know, when you grow up as a refugee
and you're never allowed to go to your home, you're
never allowed to see your people, you're never allowed to
see your land, and when you start seeing what was
unfolding in Gaza, you know, part of me was like,
I tell you that now or never?

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Were you scared?

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Was very scared, and my mum was scared because she
knew what I was willing to do. You know, when
I was there, I was getting in the back of
ambulances transporting patients from hospital hospitals. You're not allowed to
do that because it has to be done under un
coordination and I was just getting in the back of
ambulance and transporting you know, children were missing limbs and
children on ventilators but we didn't have ventilators, but bagging

(14:30):
and masking children, trying to take them from one place
to another. Cause I knew what I was willing to sacrifice,
you know, when I went over there to try and help.
And you know, I was in a lot of danger
a lot when I was there. But I've been scared
my whole life, my identity, and you know, I've been bullied,

(14:51):
I've been being at schools. I've you can't let fear
be the thing that drives you in life. And that's
one thing that I just learned, like going into Guds, like, yes,
I'm scared, but you know, I've been scared my whole life,
and I still had to live my life despite being
you know. And that's just the thing, like even on
the campaign trail of this of like going around and

(15:12):
trying to humanize Palestinian people. I mean, the threat that
I get, the vitriol in which I've dealt with, the
racism that I get online and all that kind of stuff,
and I'm just like it is, it's scary. You know,
all of it is scary, like to see this kind
of level of violence like thrown at you. But I

(15:32):
just say to myself, like, it's just one foot in
front of the other. You just have to keep going
one foot in front of the other and until you
eventually get something done and you know, I've made peace
with whatever fate comes my way.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
You're an emergency doctor. You walked in to the hospital
in Gaza. Yeah, can you paint a picture of what
the resources are like, what the supplies are like, what
the infrastructure is like, as you know, someone who's had
your training in Australia, so you know the comparison. What

(16:05):
was it like walking in there?

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Do you know like there was we basically had no painkillers,
right so you did? Yeah? Yeah, I mean you know,
there's like a very very small amount of morphine, but
like I'd never use I didn't use morphine the whole
time that I was there. That's just how little there
was of it there. And we didn't have a single
ventilator in the emergency department that I was in, not
one ventilator and the ringoscope that we used to intubate people.

(16:31):
That when you you know, when you have a look
down people's throats. There was one of them, and in
a mass casualty event, that l ringoscope was just covered
in blood because we were trying to tube so many people.
And you know, all you do is you just you
pick up this thing. It's covered in blood by like
you know, this person's blooding this retubed and you just
have to like you know, grab mask, rubs, wipe it

(16:52):
down and then just onto the next one and it
and then you know, we we were talking about no
beds there. There's like seven beds in the department and
like five of them don't have wheels that fully function
and work. So you know, during these masks events, I
was like carrying people and taking them to the CT scanner.

(17:13):
People were dying as they were waiting because there was
only one CT scanner in the whole north of Gars.
And you know, when you have a mass casualty event
and you have like you know, one hundred dead, three
hundred injured or whatever, and you have one CT scanner
to scan them, all, people die waiting for CT scanners.
And there when we're dealing with burns, you know, after
these burn injuries from these these blasts, you know, we

(17:36):
just have nothing but normal bandages. So when you dress
these wounds with these inappropriate dressings and then you have
to change them two days later to stop them getting
infected because they're not the appropriate dressings. As you're pulling
the dressings off, you're pulling whatever formed of tissue or
skin is formed, and you're doing this without any painkillers.
And these are children and you're literally pulling their skin

(17:56):
off every two days, and.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Their screams and no pain relief.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
No pain relief, nothing. And then you know, you know,
because with the hospitals are so overcrowded, people are staying
intent around the hospital and these are sick patients and
you're going into these tents and you're seeing that muggots
have begun to grow out of their wounds. We just
don't have enough time to take them all to theater.

(18:21):
And you know, if you've got one hundred people that
need surgery today, tomorrow, there's another hundred and another hundred
and another hundred.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
A lot of people will have had a lot of
arguments with either family or friends over the last few years,
and one of the arguments that comes up, you know,
and there are more than two narratives. There are a
lot of competing narratives would be I have heard this,
I've seen it published. Her mass is hiding under the hospitals.

(18:49):
So maybe that is why there's a disproportionate amount of
health workers who are hurt because her mass wants their
own people to die. They talk about human shields. We've
heard these stories, you've been on the ground, I haven't.
What did you see?

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Well, look, i mean just the framing of that. You know,
I want our own people to die, and you know
that we as Palestinians were just okay with death. And
you know, oh, well, because you know, there was a
Israeli prime minister, she was the first ever female prime
minister as well, and she said there will be peace

(19:25):
when they love their children more than they hate us.
So this idea right of human shields, and the Palestinians
are just willing to sacrifice their children.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
That's not what you saw.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
It's not just what It's just that this is the
dehumanizing language. It's been used for decades to justify killing children.
I mean, look, I'm a Palestinian, right, I'm a human being.
I don't want my children to die. I don't want
kids to die. I value them I love them. I
treasure them. To say that I hate somebody more than
I love my own children, right, think about what that

(19:58):
does in the psyche of people when that is what's
been perpetuated for decades, that these uncivilized Arabs, you know,
for them, you know, they're just savages. Death means nothing
to them. You know, they hate us so much. Look
at them, and I'm sat there and I'm like, I'm actually,
life means a lot. We want to live, We want
to be free, that's all we want. We just want

(20:19):
our freedom. We just want to be able to have
the right to self determination. And that's why indigenous people
here feel so much for what's going on to Palestinian
people because they see their own history and what's happened
to Palatin, the dehumanization. So you know, when we look
at like what happened on October the seventh, it's horrific
what happened. And I'm saying that as a Palestinian. You know,

(20:40):
the killing of women and children, the taking of vostages
of women and children is horrific. But it's just like
everybody says, there's no justification for October the seventh, but
everything is justified because of October the seventh, and again
people still use to say, well, you know, if they
release the hostages, it would stop. It won't stop. If
they release the hostages.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Well said, it won't stop.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
It won't stop. He said, it won't stop. But we've
been saying that from day one, and who's broken the
ceasefire agreements multiple times. I think people now will begin
to see what you're dealing with.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
So what did you see then in twenty twenty four
you arrive? What sort of injuries are you are you seeing?
What sort of patients are you trading? What does that
look like?

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Well, so when I when I was there in June,
I was there for one of the worst mass casualty
offens of the war. I was there when they rescued
the four Israeli hostages. We had people coming in with
missing limbs, missing heads, eighty percent body burns, ninety percent
body burns. We were seeing children who had been shot
in the head and neck. We were seeing people that

(21:45):
had been pulled out from under the rubble and they'd
been under there for three four days and they were
coming in completely emanciated. Just doa'nt figures, zombie like figures.
We were you know. I remember there was this one
guy who'd come in from you know, from a blast injury,
and he had half of his you know, his jaw
was completely missing and his face was like half open,

(22:07):
and again, no painkillers. We're in this emergency er department
and it's just overcrowded and full, and this guy's right
there in the middle with half his face missing, and
you know, what do you say to someone like that
and you've got no pain killers? And I remember going
up to him and I did a dental block on him,

(22:31):
believe it or not, because there was a part of
his jaw that was there. So did this thing called
an inferior alveola nerve block, and I did a superior
alveola nerve block. But I was like, literally I pulled up,
like literally a piece of meat that was dangling off.
The skin had come off, and it was like a
piece of his cheek muscle, and I'd pulled it up
and I got my needle and I just tried to

(22:52):
position it because you don't have any anatomical landmarks. His
face is all mangled. And I injected him with a
local anesthetic and I just paused for like, you know,
thirty seconds and then he looked at me and he
went he slimm me, theacred doctor just means like bless
your hands. And I said, are you? I said, how
does it feel? It's gone numb? I was like going,

(23:14):
thank God, because I don't know if I could have
coped gone back to my room, knowing as a guy
with half his face missing and like just in agony.
But that's what we were dealing with.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
There's those, you know, attacks and the catastrophic injuries. There
are the people who who don't even have the catastrophic
injuries and are living alongside it. How would you describe
the trauma that you witnessed, the trauma that you witnessed
from fellow doctors, from communities, from children who have lost parents,
from parents who have lost children, Like, how do you

(23:46):
even begin trying to describe the horror that he's living
in Gaza right now?

Speaker 1 (23:51):
I remember there was one mass casualty event and there
was this like nine year old girl who'd come in
and she was injured, and she was barefoot, and she
was carrying her three year old brother who was also injured,
and she'd walked kilometers with a three year old brother.
Whole family had been killed. She's sat there walking with
her three year old brother in the middle of the night,

(24:13):
bombs going off everywhere, drones shooting people as they're coming
to the hospital. And I remember just thinking to myself, like,
this girl has had to watch her entire family be killed.
She's had to pluck up the courage to pick up
her injured brother who's crying and is almost lifeless. And

(24:35):
she's walked in the middle of the night, in the
dark because there's no electricity, while she's seeing these explosions.
And you've seen the images of what these explosions are like,
and just the shaking that it does. And she's walking
in amongst these explosions to get to the hospital to
save her brother's life. Do you know I just felt

(25:03):
I just said to herself, like I wonder how alone
she feels in this world. And I remember thinking to myself,
like how alone I feel here? Just you know, we
are these people are coming in. We have no equipment,
we have little to no staff to deal with the
amount that are coming in dead and injured. And this

(25:25):
little girl is just carrying a little brother, wanting somebody
to help her. She probably hasn't eaten, She probably hasn't drank.
I don't know even know if we can save her brother.
And she is scared, and I'm scared. I'm scared, and
I'm the grown man and I'm scared, and I'm just
like I have to be brave, but I'm just you know,
I'm just sat there. I'm just like, somebody needs to

(25:47):
help us. We can't have this is a slaughter It
is a slaughter house here, these children and men are
being slaughtered, and you know, I'm just sat there. I'm
just like going, is this the best that we have
is me? Why can't there be somebody better than me
here that can be here, can save them? Why can't
someone stop this carnage? But do you know I just

(26:11):
had to keep going And.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
You know, sometimes I think I'm better. I think I
can I think I can talk about it and not
not break down. But you know, it's just hard.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
With what you're describing, I'm going to inject some absolute
naivety into it, which is I'm sitting here in my
comfortable Sydney studio wondering why can't we have resources, Why
can't we have enough baby formula for the babies, Why
can't We like, why can we not just load your

(26:51):
suitcase right when you entered those hospitals? What could you bring?
Can can you bring aid? Can you bring supplies? Can
you bring the paintings?

Speaker 1 (27:01):
You can't? You know, we've had doctors just recently who
were stopped and because they've tried to bring in baby
formula and the baby formula was taken out of their bags.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Was there a reason? Was there an explanation?

Speaker 1 (27:11):
The reason is they don't see these people as human beings,
even children. We keep trying to rationalize what they're doing.
Why would they say no to baby for There's no
reason why you would say no to baby formula, no
reason whatsoever. I never grub, you know. It's it's different
for me compared to other people because I'm a fluent
Arabic speaker, you know, so, and I work in the

(27:34):
emergency department, so I'm right there when the disasters happen.
I'm right there when the carnage ensues, and people talk
to me, and you know, I'm going out, like you know,
in the marketplaces and I'm doing food shops for the
for the for the staff and getting some food for
them and things like that. So like I lived the

(27:54):
life in and amongst these people, you know what I mean.
I would stay at my uncle's house, you know, not
in the safe house, not in the hospital, my uncle's house,
you know. And man, I mean it was it's really scary,
you know. I remember one night I was staying at
my uncle's house and there was an Apache helicopter that
had flow around the neighborhood and it was just shooting

(28:15):
at rooftops and it was shooting at our uncle's house.
And we were just sat there as a family in
one room because we were like, if there's going to
be a bomb drop or anything like that, then we'll
all go together. And we just said that. I just
remember it myself, this is fucking nuts.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
And that's just the reality every day life.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
That's just the reality of everyday life.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
When you were there in twenty twenty four, because I
know that recently the images of starvation have circulated around
the world and has perhaps contributed to some sort of
international tipping point. You're there in twenty twenty four. Was
there evidence of starvation?

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Then? Yeah, there was. You know, we had plenty of
kids that were coming in that was being starved to death.
Children that were coming in Cacasia, I think you've got
to remember. And and then we bought with us shampoo
and body wash, right, yet that was gold dust. There
was none of that in Gaza because remember that there
was only like fifty eight trucks a day going into Gaza.
Back then, there was no aid that got into Gaza.

(29:09):
For like four weeks, no trucks had got in. So
you're drip feeding like fifty eight trucks in a day
and then you cut it off for six weeks. There's
no toothpaste, there was no body wash. That's why skin
infections were so rampant. So our shower gel was like
gold dust. You know. When we were like we would
have like little bottles of like water and we'd fill

(29:30):
in a little bit with some shower gel and then
fill it up with water and we would hand that
out to people you know, living in terms so that
they could use that to shower and wash. So you know,
like there wasn't like this was how desperate the situation
was then.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Because you went back in twenty twenty five the second time,
what was the first you know, hours days like when
you went back the second time, because was that when
the seats fire broke the second time.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, so I was like I arrived during the seasfire. Yep, yeah,
I remember. We'd finish work at like eleven o'clock at
night or something like that. We would go out to
the streets in Gaza and just like explore and there
was loads of like people who had you know, because
it was Ramadan, so people would make food out on
the stalls and stuff like that, and we would go
around and explore there.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
So were you fasting? Yeah, so people are fasting in
the midst of these yeah wow.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah we used to. Yeah, so you know, we'd fast and.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
And then you would congregate at night because it's it's
a celebration, right that it's a.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Villigious Yeah, well, now you'd congregate to eat together. But
the problem was was that the Israeli is used to
bomb when it was the call to evening prayer for
people to you know, when people would pray and then
come together and eat, that's when they would bomb. So
it would be ten minutes after the call to prayer
when people would be gathering together as families to eat,
and that's when the bombings would be at its most intense.

(30:52):
Would be about ten minutes after the col to prayer.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
What happened when the seas fire broke? What was your
experience of that?

Speaker 1 (30:58):
And that was a horrific night, you know, the night
that is firebroke. I mean I'd finished work at like
eleven o'clock. I've gone up to my room, you know,
and finished texting my mom, family, friends, just letting them
know I was all okay, And then one o'clock, one
thirty in the morning, just the explosions that you would

(31:19):
hear coming from outside.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Were you terrified that it was going to hit the hospital?

Speaker 1 (31:25):
I mean, I mean we were terrified because we just
didn't know. You know, you don't know like comms have
been cut, you know, once the bombs start, they cut
comes for like however many few hours, you know, and
so coms have cut, we don't know what's going on,
and all we're hearing is like just the room is shaking,
literally dozens of bombs going off in the space of
like five minutes. And you're looking around and you can

(31:47):
see the explosions out from your window, like that's how
close the bombings is, and you just have no idea
what's going to happen next. So I remember you going
in during the seas fire. Now the bombing has started,
you know, I mean I knew going in the second
time round. It just so it happened that I you know,
I was always planning on going back, but it just
so happened that I went back during say, this is fight,
but I knew this is fire was not going to hold.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
What do you say in the aftermath of that in
the hours you're an emergency doctor, it must be bracing yourself.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
We we had I remember just like these these families
coming in, and these mothers coming in, and they would
bring in plastic bags and it would just be their children,
just organs that were left of their children and body
pieces that they'd gathered and they'd bought in in plastic bags.
They would have that a plastic bag of one of
their children, and they would know they'd have their other
child that they would carry that would be injured. Do

(32:38):
you know you just sat there and you think to yourself,
where like what is going on here? Like what.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
How do you even? How do you triage? How do
you decide? When you were that overwhelmed, you have no supplies,
barely any start. You went into this, I would imagine
to save lives. That's why doctors go into it. Where
do you begin with children that need you.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
It's difficult for me compared to other people because those
children they look like me. You know, I'm a Garden,
I'm a Garsen, and you know, when I'm there in Gaza,
most people don't believe I'm an international doctor. They think
I'm from Gaza. And when you see a child that
looks like you or looks like your sister, who really

(33:23):
hits home. And then when you know there's no tree,
it's just chaos, like there's just bodies everywhere and people screaming,
and you get so overwhelmed right in that moment that
I say to myself, if I start going around and
looking at everyone, I'm not going to see everyone because
there's just so there's like literally dozens of people, hundreds
of people. So I just focus on what's right in

(33:44):
front of me, like what can I see in front
of me? And I remember there was this guy and
he was literally at the entrance because it was so crowded.
He was literally at the entrance to the emergency department.
And you know, I just got down on the floor
and I had my pocket ultrasound and I scanned his
chest and he had, you know, blood in his lungs,
and I knew we needed to get a chest train in,
so I literally grabbed a scalpel and I stabbed him
in the chest and put in a chest train in

(34:07):
on the floor and he's like, you know, badly injured,
bleeding everywhere, and I'm putting this chest strain in securing
the tube. Once I've got that in with one of
the nurses, and I've told him to stay with him,
and I'm going to go see if there's anybody else
that's in a critical condition because I've got the ultrasound
to see if I can scan more people, see who's
in critical condition, who's bleeding out. But I remember, like,

(34:29):
you know, I had to go carry this guy to
the CT scanner. And I got him to the CT
scanner and we scanned him in the cets kander and
we scanned his head initially, and then we were about
to scan his body and he died. Died on the
CTS kander, and we literally didn't even have the time.
We just literally put him down off the CT scanner
and then we got the next person on there. And
the next person was this woman who had it intestines

(34:50):
hanging out. That was the next person that we were scanning.
And it's just it's just carnage, just total carnage. And
you know, every day you're losing staff in Gaza because
doctors and nurses are being killed every single day in Gaza.
So you know, you don't know what's going to turn up,
what kind of workforce is going to turn up?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Then are they being killed in the bombings like you saidyeah, yea, yeah, yeah, they've.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Been killed in the bombings as well. So you just
you know, you go into this and you have no
idea one who the staff that are going to turn
up today, what kind of mass casualty event you're going
to see, Like what kind of bombs they're going to
use today? You know sometimes you know when they burn
the journalists in their tents, there's a certain type of bomb.
They sometimes use bombs that like cause shredding of people,

(35:32):
like they spit out these blades.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Had you worked in war zones before this? Like, had
you what some hospitals had you worked at?

Speaker 1 (35:40):
You know, I'd work at refugee camps before and stuff,
but never in a war zone. But you know, I'm
like a young guy. I mean, you in my medical career,
and it just so happened that this was the first
big major conflict event where I was in my training.
I was ready to deal with quite a lot.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
And how did it compare You've been to refugee camps,
which is not like your hospital in Australia, Like I
can imagine that you had some image maybe of what
to expect. How did it compare to what you've done previously.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Nothing can prepare you for Gaza. Nothing can prepare for God.
And I think everybody has said that, Like, you know,
major figures in the UN who have been to thirty
different war zones have said Gaza is just different. I mean,
you know, like I say, like you have no idea
whether you're going to be alive, whether you're going to
be bombed, the level of injuries that you're seeing, and
the lack of medical equipment, the lack of food, the

(36:32):
power outings and the cuts and electricity, I mean, it
is a scary place to go and work. And it
is just you know, the guilt when you leave Gaza.
I didn't want to leave Gaza, you know, I really
didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and I
wanted to continue working but you know, I was told
that I needed to leave for my own safety because
you know, I was going viral while I was there,

(36:53):
and I was posting lots of videos and people were
worried for my safety.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
And so you shared those videos, which were incredibly powerful.
I mean, witnessing and broadcasting feels like when you're powerless,
one of the only things you can do.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
What was the response to that? Obviously within Australia globally
people are watching it, But did you have second thoughts
when you were in those hospitals about sharing it, knowing
that that was putting you in danger?

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Well? I remember when I was filming this mass casualty
event and we had this like doctor who'd come in
and she was like an American doctor from a major NGO.
She said to me, you're not allowed to film. Switch
that off. You're not allowed to film. It's against the rules.
And I remember just stood in a part of these
bodies and I went and is this the rules? Is

(37:47):
this the rules? Is this the rules that we're playing
by here? I'm not allowed to film what's going on,
but they can kill these children? Is this the rules?
Is this the double standard? But this is why I
was like, we need to do something about this. And
this is why I was like, I need to do
something about this because it's not working what we have now.
We have NGOs that are so scared to talk in

(38:09):
case they lose access to Gaza that they won't call
it for what it is. I mean, just imagine, imagine,
like you know, coming in there and saying no, we're
not allowed to record what's going on. I'm like, what
do you want? You want us to die quietly then
so they can allow a few ventilators to come in
and some small amount a couple of boxes of antibiotics.
Is that why we're not going to film?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
When people look at this, you know so many people
are horrified and completely overwhelmed in terms of what they
can do. And you left your second stay in Gaza
and you came up with a plan. Can you talk
us through that plan and what you need in order

(38:52):
to make that happen.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
I know that I can't stop the bombs. It's not
me that's going to stop it. It's going to be
these powerful government figures that come together and decide one
enough is enough. And you know what we have to
do as a population is we just have to keep
applying pressure. So we're going to apply pressure for the
bombs to stop. That's what needs to happen for as
the bombs need to stop and there needs to be
food and aid that goes into Gaza. But my aim

(39:15):
as a doctor was to re establish the healthcare system
in Gaza and it was to bring in a mobile
hospital into Gaza. Now, the whole idea of bringing a
mobile hospital into Gaza is this would be under the British, Australian, Canadian,
New Zealand Irish flag. That would provide some form of
protection for the hospital because now it's like a essentially

(39:38):
like a diplomatic base that hospital now because it is
under the governance of the British the Australians, which are
allies with Israel, that hopefully that would provide it with safety.
But it would also mean that we have an unrestricted
access line to medicine and medical equipment and also that
what that would mean is when we bring in the hospital,

(39:58):
what comes in with the hospital is dozens of doctors
and nurses, not the eight doctors that come in on
a Tuesday and the eight doctors and nurses that come
in on a Thursday. And as they get swapped in
and out only you know, a handful of doctors that
go into Gaza at a time. This is a self
sufficient hospital. It's solar panel powered, it has operating theaters,

(40:18):
it has a pathology lab, pharmacy, it even has transfusion
centers in it as well. It has doctors quarters, it
has a kitchen in it, and you know, I've traveled
around the world to try and get these governments to
sign on to bringing in a hospital and to take
back some level, you know, because they say that they're
disgusted at what they're seeing and it's unacceptable. We'll do something.

(40:43):
Bring in a hospital and start treating these these people
and trying to alleviate some of these images that we're
seeing out of Gaza. We can't even evacuate children out
of Gaza. There's literally thousands of children that need evacuating
out of Gaza, that need medical aid treatment that are
not being evacuated. And I know this because I'm actively
behind the scenes trying to get these children evacuated, helping

(41:04):
out with filling in their referral forms and going through
different and finding hospitals that will take them. And it's
a very hard process and you know, we'll try for
weeks to try and get someone out and they might
die while they're waiting. These kids. So, if we can't
get these kids evacuated out of Gaza, if it's too
much of a political nightmare to bring in brown kids
here because you know people will complain if we bring

(41:24):
kids here that or what about the kids? Our kids here?
What about our hospitals are already And I totally get all
of that right, But if you're not going to do anything,
and you're not going to bring them over here, then
at least we can do is bring a hospital over
there and start treating children over there.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
So have you spoken to politicians? Where is that plan at?

Speaker 1 (41:45):
I have spoken a lot with politicians. I've traveled around
the world.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Have you spoken to Anthony Abenezi yet.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I've not spoken to Anthony Abenzia. I've been reaching out
to him over and over again to speak to him.
I've spoken to anyone, but I've spoke to anyone, you know,
when I first came out of Gaza and not since
we've materialized this plan. I speak with aunt Ali, who's
the full development minister.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
What would you need so you would need?

Speaker 1 (42:11):
I need courage, I need courage. I need courage. I
need my Prime Minister. I need him to be a
leader here. I need him to save those children's lives.
That's what I need him to do. I need him
to take leadership. I know the amount of flak that
he gets and the put like you know, what I'd
say to him is you're the Prime minister. It's your job.

(42:32):
People are not going to like what you do. But
at the end of the day, history is going to
judge and what we did for these children. And I
can't be the one that carries this. I'm just I'm
just a junior doctor from birth. I'm just a just
a kid, not a not a politician. And I've had
threat on my life, my you know, my wife and Gaza.

(42:55):
Her home was bombed two days ago. Luckily she wasn't
in it.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
I'm in awe of that courage for in absolutely awe. Sorry,
and I think that there will be a lot of
people listening who want to help. I don't know how
you argue with the children's hospital. I don't know how.
I don't I don't.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I just we just have to keep going. Look, I
hate breaking down, but it's like so hard because I
watch her every single day and I see the weight
that she's losing, and I see that she's struggling. And
our home was bombed and then my uncle's home. And
I asked them, I say, look, I will stop if
you want me to stop, and they just say you

(43:41):
have to keep going because it's needed. People need you
to be successful here. People's lives are relying on this.
I don't want to be the one that carries this.
I want I want it. I want I want Anthony
Alberty easy to step in. I want him to help.

(44:02):
And I'm pleading all the time. Just meet with me,
talk with me. Let's get this done. Do you know
I've I've got the Irish I'm on board. I've got
the British government talking now with the Australian government behind
the scenes. I've you know, got World Central Kitchen on board,
and they've said that they would provide the food for
this hospital and they would feed all the doctors and nurses.
I mean, I'm just a kid. I'm like, I'm like,

(44:26):
you know, I'm just a thirty five year old junior doctor.
And if I'm able to do this, you could do
this with one phone call. Anthony Albanezi And look, I
know I'm simplifying it and saying with one phone call,
but like you can be the guy that leads this, right,
I'm trying to do this and I've got my family's
and my wife's life on the line here, and it's hard.

(44:48):
And it's hard every day getting up in the morning
and just reading the abuse and the threats and knowing
that your family's in danger and the amount of family
members that I've had killed in the last few weeks
in Kaza, and it's just it's relentless. But we just
have to keep going because I just feel like if
I stop, then what's going to happen? And you know,

(45:11):
I wish there would be more people that would be
brave enough to talk. And I know there's a lot
of people that are talking about it, but I just like,
I don't know what to do. You know, I've been
thrown into this. I've not chosen this. I've not chosen
to be out here talking to people and speaking about this.
You know, I'm not media trained, I'm not a politician.
I'm not a fundraiser. I've never built a hospital in

(45:33):
my life. Somehow I've managed to put a blueprint together
of how to build a hospital. I've got governments on
board of how to do it. I've got an infrastructure
in place, I've got an enng O that I'm willing
to do it. I've had to do all of these
things since coming out of Gaza, living out of a suitcase.
But if I can do these things right, then then
then our government can do a lot more. If I

(45:56):
can get this done, then then I just need Anthony
albin Easy to sit down with me, talk with me,
and I need him to take on the bat And
I know, I know this is politically it's a political minefield. Yeah,
this right, But this is not politic. This is children's
lives on the line. Here. There are moments in your
life where you get tested on your character of who
you are. Right, you can sit there when you have

(46:17):
your victory speech after the elections and you can say
that we are a compassionate nation and we are built
on kindness. But it's not easy to do that. It's
not easy. It takes risky, It comes with risks, It
comes with risks. And I'm telling Anthony albanias I'm telling
him that these risks that you perceive right here, the
rewards are so much more, and there's so many more

(46:39):
people around the world would be grateful for your leadership here,
for your courage to stand up for these people. But
it can't be left to ordinary people to stand up.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
If we can't agree on a children's hospital, then what
are we doing. I think that that's a sense that
I bet a lot of a lot of people have.
And in one of the most despairing, you know, apocalyptic spaces.
You met someone when you were in Gaza and you

(47:12):
are now married. What is life like for her right now?
What's that been like? That that distance and advocating for
someone who you just must be so scared?

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Do you know? Like when I met her, I was
working in the emergency department and she was there, and
you know, look, it's been two years of this where
you know, you have these children coming and they're dying
on the floor and stuff, and a lot of doctors
have compassion fatigue. You know, there's not the same adrenaline
rush when you see an injured child now in Gaza

(47:47):
because there's just so many.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
I can't imagine the trauma that they're living with. How
you just get up and go to work.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
The next day and they do it every single day.
I mean, credit to them, they get up every single
day despite this trauma. Right. I remember just seeing her
and like she didn't have that compassion fatigue that a
lot of people have. She was there seeing every single patient,
giving time to every single patient. Like I remember, just

(48:13):
I remember just hitting myself out, like this woman's empathy
and kindness and compassion really shine through. And I was just,
you know, I was just so nervous to even approach
to talk to her, because I was just like, she's
like this angelic thing like walking around and I didn't
know how to approach her. And I remember thinking to myself, right, tomorrow, tomorrow,

(48:36):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak to it. I mean, you know,
I'd spoken to her, but in a professional context of
like dealing with patients. But I said, tomorrow, I'm gonna
I want to speak to her and just like get
to know her a little bit. And then at four
o'clock in the morning, we got a call from the
un saying that we had to be evacuated from the
north and go to the South, and that the bus
was going to be there at eight o'clock in the morning.
So I had to leave at eight o'clock in the

(48:56):
morning before I got to see her. And I remember
thinking of myself here, you know, just there's there's no
way that this is ever going to be, you know.
And I remember because you know, at that stage, I
hadn't seen my own cool because because they were in
the south and I was placed in the north. So
when I was there in the South, I went to
go visit my uncle at his house and I was
I was going to stay there, and you know, I

(49:19):
said to my uncle said, oh, yeah, you know, there
was this girl at the hospital. But you know it's
not my it's not my destiny of but to be
with her. And he went, no, he went new call
up the head of the hospital and you ask him
about her. And I was just like, no, no, no,
that's just I was like, this is this is slack.
I'm sure he's busy, the head of the hospital, like
with an entire you know, there's a war going on here.

(49:42):
And then I called up the head of the hospital.
It was doctor name, and I said to me, you know, doctor,
there was a girl that worked in the er, and
you know, I just really liked her name was not
And he said, oh, I know, her father. Her father
is actually an orthopedic sursion he works with me. He goes,
I'll speak to him. So he spoke to her father,

(50:03):
and then a couple of hours later, her father called
me and he was like, you know, I heard that
you're interested in my daughter. I was thinking myself, what
this is getting real serious. I was just I just
wanted to talk to her, and you know, we sat there,
we spoke on the phone, and then he just said, like,
you know, look before I talked to her, I want
to meet you in person. So he came from the

(50:25):
north of Gaza to the south of Gaza, and he
came because there's only one road that's open and into
the Sea road. So he came via the sea road
to where I was at my uncle's house. And then
he spent like three four hours with me, just talking
to me and getting to know me. And the next
day he went and he, you know, he said, I
want to speak to Nord. I like you you're a
good guy, and doesn't want to go to speak to Nord.

(50:46):
So he spoke to Nor and Noah said yes, that
she would meet with me. So then the next day
he came again with Laurence. She came from the north
to the south. It's so dangerous, like traveling from the
north to the south. And he came and you know,
me and her I were in my uncle's house and
it was so funny because they gave us like a
room for me and her to sit in and to talk,

(51:07):
and my cousins would like knock on the door and
like bring in like coffee, and like I was all going, guys,
you two love birds. And you know, at the end
of like that conversation with me and her, you know,
you know when you just know, you know, look, I've
been born and I was raised in the west. Like
I always thought that I would, you know, the way

(51:28):
that I would meet somebody would be like you know,
I would get to know them and you know how
I'll date them for a while and then and then
get married. But like, you know, just listening to the
way that she spoke and her grace and her manners
and her kindness and her empathy, I was just blown away.

(51:48):
I was just like, there's there's there's no one better
than this than this, than this woman. And you know
when you know, she's so graceful, so like when when
you know, when we finished talking, she said, I'm going
to pray and then I'll and then I'll give you
my answer of what we want to do. So you know,

(52:09):
she they went home and in the morning, after morning prayer,
I got a call and I was in the hospital
at the time. I was working, and I got a
call from her dad and he said congratulations, he said,
she said yes, she wants to go ahead, and I
was like, all right, cool. I was like, so you know,
we'll get engaged in will halal date or whatever, and
then you know, I told my uncles like yeah, she
said yes, and he was like all right, good. He

(52:30):
was like all right, go get a suit and I
was like what he was like, He's like listen, well,
He's like, we're in a war zone here, but we're
not going to mess around here. He goes, you're going
to marry this girl. And I was like, oh my god, okay,
let's let's go do this. And there was no suits
that would fit me in Gaza because so we ended
up getting like this shirt that didn't even close. So

(52:53):
it was me wearing a white shirt and this pink
shirt and coincidentally, we match. She was wearing this like
pink Palestinian dress. And you know, the crazy thing about
all of this as well as is I I hadn't
even seen her without her head jab so like I
didn't know what she looked like. This was purely based
on her as a person and as a character. And

(53:17):
you know, I got married and everything like that, and
I still hadn't seen what she looked like. And it
was only after like the day after she came. Afterwards,
the day after she came, and took a couple of
days later and we hung out at my uncle's house,
and you know, that's where I saw the first time
about her head scoff on, and I was just like,
oh my god, I've struggled here, you know. And you know,

(53:38):
since then, we talk every single day, every single night,
and you know, she's been so supportive of everything that
we that I've been doing.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
And she's is she still working in the hospital.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Yeah, you know, just this morning I was speaking to
her and she just performed a cesarean section, and the
day before she had operated on someone's leg. Because her
father's an orthopedic surgeon, so she she assists with him,
and she does now the full surgeries like from A
to B by herself. And now she's performing these sections,

(54:08):
she's complete different, Like this is what I mean, Like
she is so incredibly smart, so incredibly compassionate and kind
and beautiful.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
And do you know when you're going to say her next?

Speaker 1 (54:21):
I hope soon, because you know she's really really struggling.
And like I say, her home was bombed yesterday, and
you know, I feel guilty sometimes, you know, and seeing
family being killed every day, seeing your wife suffer, it's tough, man,
It's it's it's tough. And do you know sometimes I

(54:44):
wish I wish I wasn't in this position. I wish
I just was just a quiet life. But you know,
I know that my experiences in my life have shaped
me for this moment to be ready to help. And
this is this is now where they need me to
stay focused and they need me not to cave into
the pressure. And I know that the pressure now is mounting.
It's mounting because we're close. Yeah, it's mounting because we're close.

(55:08):
And you I just hope that the Prime Minister does
eventually meet with me. You can take a bit of
this pressure off. You know, I can't carry this all
on my own.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
You have an enormous amount of support and I think
in a moment that has been so divisive, it has
broken families, it has broken communities, and this is on
the other side of the world that's not even acknowledging
the real crisis which is happening in Gaza. I just

(55:41):
want to end by saying thank you. Thank you for
what you do with your hands, thank you for having
the skills that mean that you actually can make a
tangible difference in Gaza. But also thank you for your patience,
because this is not the first interview you've done. You've
been doing interviews for a long time with a lot
of people revisiting trauma, talking about some of the worst,

(56:03):
most horrendous things a person could ever witness. And it
is patient, and it is gracious, and it is truly
truly making a difference. And I hope that when you
get some sleep and a moment to rest, you can
feel the gravity of what you're doing because you do

(56:24):
have the Australian community behind you, you really really do.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
So I just wanted to thank you. I appreciate that,
thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
After listening, I hope you can understand why I was
so deeply moved by our conversation. If this interview brought
up anything for you, there are links to Lifeline and
Beyond Blue in the show notes. If you're wondering how
you can help, we've included links to charities and organizations
that you can donate to in our show notes. And

(56:57):
of course, if you want to continue to follow the
work and the advocacy of doctor Mo, we have linked
to his instagram, The Beast from the Middle East. Thank
you for listening. The executive producer of No Filter is
Nama Brown, the senior producer is Pre Player, and our
audio engineer is Jacob Brown.