HUMZA Yousaf’s brother-in-law has detailed the horrors of being a doctor in Gaza over the past year in an emotional interview.
The former first minister talked to Mohammed El-Nakla – brother of his wife Nadia – a year on from when Hamas launched attacks into southern Israel, killing around 1200 people and taking 250 hostage.
Since then, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza, with around 2.3 million people displaced from their homes.
El-Nakla has been working in Gaza as a doctor and described to Yousaf the horrific scenes he has had to encounter.
Asked to describe what he saw firsthand when coming into the hospital, he told Yousaf: “Young girl who had been torn apart. This is the first one I faced and I never forget. The first victim I faced, this girl torn apart, and always I see it in my dreams.
“I saw many victims. I saw many things in the hospital, and even I couldn’t help them.”
El-Nakla went on to describe how there were so many victims doctors knew nothing about and how difficult he found facing the families who were looking for lost loved ones.
He said: “Many of them died because no medical supply. Nothing to do, the victims inside unknown.
“We don’t know who’s this? Victim one, victim two, victim three, and most of the dead bodies are boys, women and elderly. No Hamas fighters. This is the truth.
Today, I want to use my platform to amplify the voices of those who have been impacted by the last 365 days. I interviewed @daniellebett a Jewish peace advocate who lives in Tel Aviv & my brother-in-law who was a doctor in Gaza. I hope you find their words as powerful as I did. pic.twitter.com/CwzDgeBuYT
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 7, 2024
“Sometimes we couldn’t do anything. Sometimes they are coming in [with] cut limbs, sometimes they come in black bags. Nothing at all, nothing at all [we could do].
“Sometimes there comes a body without [the] head, sometimes there comes a body without the lower part, sometimes without the upper part.
“The hardest thing for me when the families came to me [to say] ‘oh doctor, please, did you see this photo? This is my son. This is my husband. This is my mother. This is my father.’
“Really it was the hardest time for everybody there.”
El-Nakla also detailed how doctors were often forced to choose between saving one person’s life over another’s, simply because there was more chance of saving someone if they were less injured in the stretched circumstances.
“Too injured, and you think could I help this one or this one?,” he said.
At the weekend, Yousaf accused the UK Government of an “abject failure of moral leadership” while attending a pro-Palestinian march in London.
Speaking to Sky News, he said: “They continue to send arms to the Israeli government that has, of course, committed war crime after war crime and the fact that the international community has failed so badly means we don’t have a ceasefire, the massacres continue, [and] hostages continue to be kept captive.”
Yousaf was also questioned if by being “pro-Palestinian” he risked being seen as “too anti-Israeli, maybe even anti-Semitic”.
He responded: “It cheapens anti-Semitism by saying that criticism of the Netanyahu government is somehow anti-Semitism when there are Israelis who disagree and march in Tel Aviv in their hundreds of thousands against the massacre that’s taking place in amongst Gaza.”
Following the march, Yousaf carried out an interview with Jewish peace advocate Danielle Bett about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bett said she didn’t believe Netanyahu was interested in peace and is purely driven by politics.
“Netanyahu is a political actor, he’s a genius political actor, but his decision-making is political and selfish,” she said.
“Any decision that is made by him you cannot trust.
“I certainly don’t think the Israeli public are at the heart of his decision-making.
“Every poll is showing he would not win an election, he would not manage to form a coalition. So it’s in his best interest for this government to stay together, for him to continue the war.
“I don’t think he’s interested in peace.”
