"We're Responsible for This": American Surgeons Return from Gaza, Call for End of U.S. Culpability in Genocide

We speak with two doctors who’ve just returned after two weeks at the European Hospital in Gaza. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and Dr. Mark Perlmutter are co-authors of a new piece for Common Dreams titled “As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.” They describe a hospital “hanging on by a thread,” with the majority of patients being young children, and bombing targeted at Muslim Palestinians “concentrated at the time of evening prayer.” “Genocide was the overwhelming impression that I got,” says Perlmutter. “This is dehumanization. The purpose of this is to kill a population.” He also says, of U.S. responsibility in this genocide, “We’re buying the bullets and the gun for the gunman who’s going to the school and killing the children.” “If our support stops, the occupation stops,” adds Sidhwa, urging other Americans to push political leaders and public discourse against the country’s support of Israel. “We have to raise the domestic cost for these policies.” Dr. Sidhwa and Dr. Perlmutter worked with the Palestinian American Medical Association in collaboration with the World Health Organization in Gaza. Collectively, they have previously volunteered medical assistance in the West Bank, Haiti and Ukraine, and after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Boston Marathon bombing.