Shahrzad Joharifard MD MPH

Pediatric surgeon @BCChildrensHosp & @UBC • Surgeon @MSF • Co-Lead @GlobalSurgLab • Settler, Africaphile, social justice activist, & aspiring ski mountaineer.

[The Associated Press @AP]

Israeli troops have besieged the last three functional hospitals in north Gaza, a new chapter in a conflict that has targeted hospitals with an intensity and overtness rarely seen in modern warfare. The AP spent months collecting their stories. https://t.co/ftPrkO02J1

[MSF International @MSF]

We are outraged by the killing of our colleague, Hasan Suboh, in Khan Younis, Gaza.

Israeli forces killed him on the night of 24 October when an airstrike hit his relative’s house. We denounce the killing of our colleagues in the strongest possible terms.
https://t.co/m3nqgOAZay

[The Presidency 🇿🇦 @PresidencyZA]

South Africa has filed its Memorial to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today, 28 October 2024, in its case on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). https://t.co/Xedm9ZW6LQ

[Ghassan Abu Sitta, Chair of Conflict Medicine AUB @GhassanAbuSitt1]

Israeli arrested Dr Mohammad Obaid, Al-Awda Hospital, Jabalya Camp. He exemplifies all that is noble, heroic and dignified in medicine as a tool for resisting the genocide. Staying in northern Gaza for over a year, his return to work after he was shot by a sniper inside the hospital at end of 2023. He embodies all that is great in our people.

[Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières @MSF_canada]

Doctors Without Borders denounces in the strongest possible terms the killing of our colleague in #Gaza

This is our 8th colleague killed in #Gaza and the second in two weeks.

[Jewish Voice for Peace @jvplive]

Many of us have parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who survived or perished in Nazi death marches and we have all grown up in the shadow of the Nazi holocaust.

The state of Israel is currently perpetrating a holocaust, the deliberate mass slaughter of Palestinian people, with weapons provided by the US.

[Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières @MSF_canada]

“There is death in all types and forms in Kamal Adwan hospital and north #Gaza.

The bombardment does not stop.

The artillery does not stop.

The planes do not stop." https://t.co/Cr797WFwIP

[Ahmed El Mokhallalati @AMokhallalati]

Testimony of Dr. Mohammed Obeid, an orthopedic surgeon with Doctors Without Borders, who sought refuge at Kamal Adwan Hospital, North Gaza – recorded on October 22.*

*”Death is present in all colors and forms at Kamal Adwan Hospital and in northern Gaza.* The bombing doesn’t stop. The shelling doesn’t stop—neither the artillery, the airstrikes, nor the drone attacks. Even the hospital is targeted. The situation feels like a movie, it doesn’t seem real.

About five days ago, my house was targeted. They blew up the roof and the water tanks completely, but we were on the ground floor, and thankfully, only one person was injured. We left several times, moved to different areas, and my family and neighbors were terrified. I sought refuge at Kamal Adwan Hospital with my wife and children, and now I work here and can treat many patients.

There are no words to describe the situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital. The situation is catastrophic. The hospital is completely overcrowded. There are injured people everywhere, outside and inside the hospital, and it has no capacity to treat the wounded, neither with medical staff nor surgical tools.

Ambulances cannot move. We can’t reach the bodies of civilians, nor can we save those injured in the streets. Many died before they could reach the hospital, and others died inside because we couldn’t treat their injuries.

*We have more than 30 bodies of martyrs that have arrived at the hospital, and about 130 injured who need urgent medical care. The medical staff is severely exhausted, and some have been injured. We feel hopeless. Words cannot express our situation. We appeal to all countries of the world to look at northern Gaza and end this aggressive siege, which has led to the death of many in northern Gaza.”*

[Shahrzad Joharifard MD MPH @scarzad]

Too good not to repost

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

For Israel, a "surgical strike" is one in which you deliberately kill surgeons.

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

For Israel, a "surgical strike" is one in which you deliberately kill surgeons.

[Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd]

Last week, a friend sent me an episode of a progressive Jewish podcast where one of my essays was discussed. At some point, the host and her guests began talking about the "ostracization of Zionists," and they agreed that it was a complex and controversial matter—almost as though it were unreasonable for us to demand that proponents of this racist, genocidal ideology face social consequences. One guest even called it "litmus testing Jews on Israel."

Anyway, while the episode continued, I opened social media to see to see the news: Zionists were burning Palestinians alive. I saw 19-year-old Shaban al-Dalou, connected to an IV drip on a makeshift hospital bed, being engulfed in flames. I couldn't think of a starker juxtaposition to illustrate the chasms that separate us from some of our allies—between their priorities, their concerns, and ours. I could not come up with a better metaphor for this level of detachment from reality.

We know that, rightfully, they would never extend the same grace or nuance to Nazis, but somehow, miraculously, when the conversation is about Zionists, demanding moral and political consistency becomes much more intricate—hesitation masquerades as intellectual complexity. I don't know whether it's incredulity, cognitive dissonance, or willful ignorance, but we are on two completely different planets and only the Palestinians are expected to bridge the gap. It’s depressing to think that, after a year of nonstop televised massacres, the irredeemable, indefensible rot that is Zionism remains "debatable" in public life.

I know these words will be hard to read for some, and for others, they’ll be easy to dismiss. Some will cast me as overly critical and their worldly Palestinian friends will agree. Others will say: “No matter what we do, we’ll be called either Hamas supporters or Zionist apologists,” a refrain I often hear, reminiscent of clichéd biracial slam poetry. Others are waiting for some kind of BDS fatwa to command them to spit in the face of their Zionist uncles, knowing that fatwa will never come.

So can we be honest? What will it take? What is it, if not the systemic rape of political prisoners, that will propel you to have the difficult dinner conversation, to dispel and disown Zionism materially, not only discursively? What is it, if not the carving of the Star of David into the cheeks of our young men, that will propel you to protest the Israeli flags present in every facet of Jewish American life? I ask sincerely—is there a threshold?

[Adrian Harewood @CarAdrianH]

We need more precise language. Israel’s deadly bomb attack right outside Beirut’s “main specialist public hospital” where ordinary people go to heal, get surgeries, scans & checkups, is not a mere “airstrike.” It’s an act of terror on a civilian population. It’s terrorism.

[Hind Khoudary @Hind_Gaza]

You either leave or die.

[UNRWA @UNRWA]

Horrifying scenes unfolding in northern #Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands of people are stranded amid intensified violence, relentless Israeli strikes, and an ever worsening humanitarian crisis.

The situation is only getting worse. This war must end.
#CeasefireNow

[Hind Khoudary @Hind_Gaza]

Burned alive

[Shahrzad Joharifard MD MPH @scarzad]

Israel is not fighting a war of self-defence. It is fighting a war of aggression. A war to occupy more territory, to strengthen its Apartheid apparatus and tighten its control on Palestinian people and the region.

[Shahrzad Joharifard MD MPH @scarzad]

Read in full : Arundhati Roy's PEN Pinter Prize Acceptance Speech https://t.co/SrDVMsD3X2 via @thewire_in

[Shahrzad Joharifard MD MPH @scarzad]

What compromise have they not accepted—other than the one that requires them to crawl on their knees and eat dirt?