An American surgeon volunteering at a hospital in Gaza has underscored the Israeli regime’s heavy toll on Palestinian medical facilities since October 7, 2023, asserting that the occupying entity is “deliberately” destroying the health-care infrastructure in the besieged territory.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who is a trauma, critical care and acute care surgeon based in California, made the comment in an exclusive interview with Press TV’s Face to Face program while on his second volunteer trip to Gaza and working at the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern Strip city of Khan Younis.
Sidhwa stressed that Tel Aviv has, over the past 17 months, repeatedly targeted hospitals and committed mass atrocities against Palestinian patients and those seeking refuge in medical facilities, which are protected under international law.
Pointing to the Western and European disregard for Israel’s unrestrained bombing of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Sidhwa said, “You are not allowed to just say the simple and obvious truth.”
“The Israelis are deliberately destroying the health-care system with the backing of the United States and Europe… anybody with half a brain can figure it out but you are not allowed to say it.”
The American surgeon censured the US administration for providing military, intelligence and financial assistance to Tel Aviv in perpetrating atrocities in the besieged Palestinian territory.
“When I go back to the United States, I can tell people about the professional work I did and which I do, but I also want people to understand that we are committing crimes in Gaza,” he said.
He pointed out that people say America is complicit in these crimes, arguing that this is not the case. “That implies that Israel is committing the crime and we are in the background or something. The US and Israel are committing crimes in Gaza together,” Sidhwa told Press TV.
“It’s American airplanes, it’s American helicopters, it’s American bombs, even the tanks, these Merkava tanks were made in the United States. I do not accept that my government has to be involved in committing crimes against people who have done us no harm.”
During the interview, Sidhwa also touched on the Israeli regime’s repeated violation of the ceasefire that took effect in mid-January and its onslaught on Gaza hospitals, most of which are not functioning due to the regime’s relentless bombardment.
“Gaza still has no normal connection to the outside world even during the ceasefire,” he said. “The Israelis never allowed [entry] in the tents that they were supposed to allow during the ceasefire, they never allowed in the mobile homes that they were supposed to allow during the ceasefire, they never allowed the proper number of aid trucks in… and they never allowed for the evacuation of wounded people and they also restricted the entry of foreign medical personnel.”
The Israeli regime was forced to agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas in January, given the illegal entity’s failure to achieve any of its objectives, including the “elimination” of the Palestinian resistance movement or the release of captives.
The 42-day first stage of the truce, which was marred by repeated Israeli violations, expired on March 1, but Israel is refraining from stepping into talks for the second stage of the agreement.
Israel launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
The regime has massacred over 50,200 Palestinians and injured at least 114,000 others since, according to the health ministry.
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