You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
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 needed to leave for my own safety.
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 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 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
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 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.
Thank you for having me.
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 put words in your mouth. But it's a live trauma. How are you today? How are you going emotionally psychologically?
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 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 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 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, 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.
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?
Yeah? Yeah, my dad was born in Gaza. Yeah.
What was that experience like growing up as someone with a Palestinian background in the UK.
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 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. 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 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.
Wow.
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 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 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.
Were you aware growing up in the UK or did you have contact with extended family who still lived in Palestine at all?
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.
Prior to October seven, What did you know about what their quality of life was, Like, I.
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 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, 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 almost two years.
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 behind that decision?
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 or whatever, it.
Was treated with respect.
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, 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 you know that's why I chose it as a career path for me.
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
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.
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 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, 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 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.
And your heart has space to break for both?
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 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.
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 was bracing for what was about to happen.
Yeah.
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?
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?
Were you scared?
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 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, 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 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 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.
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 was it like walking in there?
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. 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 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. 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
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 off every two days, and.
Their screams and no pain relief.
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. 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.
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. 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?
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 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.
That's not what you saw.
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 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 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, 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.
Well said, it won't stop.
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.
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?
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 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, 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, 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
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, 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.
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 even begin trying to describe the horror that he's living in Gaza right now?
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, 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 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 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 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
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 had to keep going And.
Sorry, I'm so sorry.
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.
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 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?
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.
Was there a reason? Was there an explanation?
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 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 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 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.
And that's just the reality every day life.
That's just the reality of everyday life.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
So were you fasting? Yeah, so people are fasting in the midst of these yeah wow.
Yeah we used to. Yeah, so you know, we'd fast and.
And then you would congregate at night because it's it's a celebration, right that it's a.
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. Would be about ten minutes after the col to prayer.
What happened when the seas fire broke? What was your experience of that?
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 hear coming from outside.
Were you terrified that it was going to hit the hospital?
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 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.
What do you say in the aftermath of that in the hours you're an emergency doctor, it must be bracing yourself.
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 you know you just sat there and you think to yourself,
where like what is going on here? Like what.
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.
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
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 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 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, 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 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?
Then are they being killed in the bombings like you saidyeah, yea, yeah, yeah, they've.
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, like they spit out these blades.
Had you worked in war zones before this? Like, had you what some hospitals had you worked at?
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.
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.
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 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, and I was posting lots of videos and people were worried for my safety.
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.
Right.
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?
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 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 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?
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 to make that happen.
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 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 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, 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, 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.
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 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 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.
So have you spoken to politicians? Where is that plan at?
I have spoken a lot with politicians. I've traveled around the world.
Have you spoken to Anthony Abenezi yet.
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.
What would you need so you would need?
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. 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. Her home was bombed two days ago. Luckily she wasn't in it.
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.
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 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. 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, 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.
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, 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 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 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 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 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.
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 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?
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 because there's just so many.
I can't imagine the trauma that they're living with. How you just get up and go to work.
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 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, 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
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 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. 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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, 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.
And she's is she still working in the hospital.
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, she's complete different, Like this is what I mean, Like she is so incredibly smart, so incredibly compassionate and kind and beautiful.
And do you know when you're going to say her next?
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 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. 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.
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 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, 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 have the Australian community behind you, you really really do.
So I just wanted to thank you. I appreciate that, thank you so much for having me.
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 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.