TULSA, Okla. — Three Oklahoma doctors spoke at a Circle Cinema charity event Sept. 22 describing what they saw while treating men, women, and children in Gaza as Israeli bombs and drones flew overhead.
The continued Israeli bombardment of the occupied Palestinian territories – even in an official ceasefire – has wrought the deadliest modern military campaign against children, journalists, and healthcare workers, according to numerous international agencies including the United Nations.
The Circle Cinema event was hosted by Tulsa-based nonprofit Give Gaza Hope, which raises money for food and medical care for Palestinian civilians.
A sold-out panel featured three Oklahoma City-based doctors to recount their experiences on UN-affiliated medical missions to the Gaza strip in the past three years, then organizers aired a screening of the documentary The American Doctor.
Nephrologist Dr. Talal Ali Khan led much of the panel outlining what he described as "horrors" at hospitals already bombed by Israeli forces and hospitals run by the UN.
“The hospitals, the ERs, the floors, full of patients," Dr. Ali Khan told 2 News. "Men, women, and children. The blood- everywhere. Body parts (were) everywhere. This is something I have never seen in my life.”
Pediatrician Dr. Shagufta Yousaf described a ride to Friday Muslim prayers suddenly targeted by the Israeli Defense Forces.
“We had a female physicians car and then a male physicians car, and literally from a few meters away there was a drone and it just blasted the car in front of us," Dr. Yousaf said. "And then our car took a U-turn. So, that was the closest to a death experience that I experienced over there.”
OU brain cancer neurosurgeon Dr. Abu Basit Khan recalled the majority of patients he encountered being children as well.
“I operated on one boy, 13 years old, who had to come from the north of Gaza," Dr. Basit Khan told 2 News. "We were in like the middle of the south of Gaza. His father had to bring him through a heavily-policed militarized zone. The boy was rendered paraplegic from a single (Israeli) sniper shot through the spine. There was a no one in the north of Gaza who could perform the spinal fusion operation. So I mean, a malnourished, paraplegic who had to be carried by his father. So I removed the bullet from his body and gave it to his father."
- WATCH: Full interviews with doctors who treated patients in Gaza
As of this summer, United Nations reports suggest Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,600 healthcare or humanitarian workers.
Dr. Ali Khan said he considers himself lucky just to have left the Gaza Strip.
“All of the international medical delegates who went in, everybody ended up coming back," Dr. Ali Khan said. "I consider myself highly privileged, and I carry with myself a guilt. And the guilt is I am able to come back but they are not able to get out of that situation.”
“You know, I’m not a politician or anything like that," Dr. Basit Khan said. "All I can describe medically what I saw was just catastrophic. Patients who needed care could not get care. Patients who I could have saved, I could not save because of the limited resources. That’s just not humane. It’s not right for any human being to experience.”
The panel and screening also raised money for clinics in Gaza.
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