By Rabia Ali
ISTANBUL (AA) – Although the harrowing numbers are already in the tens of thousands, the actual magnitude of the death and destruction Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza has nowhere near been revealed yet, according to British-Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta.
Abu Sitta was in Gaza for more than a month after Israel launched its deadly war last October. He has since become one of the strongest voices against – and key witness to – Israel’s relentless aggression.
The death toll in Gaza currently stands around 36,200, an overwhelming majority of them women and children, and continues to rise the by the day.
However, Abu Sitta warns that this not even half of the actual figure, as thousands of more bodies remain under the sprawling expanse of rubble Gaza has been reduced to by Israeli attacks.
“I think the published number … is probably around 40% of the total number of those killed,” he told Anadolu in an interview in Istanbul.
From the very beginning of the war, Palestinians did not have the resources, including heavy equipment, needed to retrieve the bodies under the debris, he said.
In the north, especially after the destruction of Al-Shifa Hospital, he said people were “burying their relatives close to the house because they could not go to the cemeteries, and they could not register the deaths because Al-Shifa was the place you registered most of the deaths.”
“It was just too risky,” he said.
“I know of so many families that buried their relatives in the garden or around the house, and so I do believe that the number is much, much higher.”
- No health facilities in Rafah
As Israel continues pounding the southern Gaza region of Rafah, Abu Sitta warned that there is now just one functional hospital left in the entire area, but it is isolated and almost inaccessible.
“The problem with the European Hospital, which is the last hospital left standing … is that it’s geographically isolated, and now with the presence of Israeli tanks, getting to it is very problematic. It’s the only real hospital that’s left in the whole of the system,” he said.
A May 26 Israeli strike on a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah killed and injured around 300 people, drawing vehement condemnation from around the world.
“The people who were injured in the attack had to go to a couple of very small field hospitals. These field hospitals, I think there are two or three of them, have one or two operating rooms, so it’s nothing like capacity that is required,” said Abu Sitta.
- West’s ‘political and moral bankruptcy’
Speaking about the overall response of European countries and the West, Abu Sitta believes Israel’s war on Gaza has exposed the hypocrisy of Western institutions.
“And the fact that their relationship with human rights is just as a weapon to use to justify attacking Third World countries, and to justify their position regarding Russia,” he said.
All of this has shown their “political and moral bankruptcy, especially countries like the UK, Germany, France and the US,” he said.
“This is going to change the face of foreign policy in these countries because they can no longer return to the idea that their foreign policy is, in any shape or form, influenced by human rights,” he added.
- ‘This war is a genocide’
Abu Sitta, who has worked in war zones around the globe, reiterated that Israel’s assault on Gaza is unlike anything the world has ever witnessed.
“It’s the difference between a flood and a tsunami … We need to remember that this war is a genocide between one of the world’s most powerful armies and a mainly unarmed population, and those with arms have very basic arms compared to the Israeli army,” he said.
He believes that the objective of the war was “genocidal from the very beginning” and “the world has failed by allowing it to continue for eight months.”
Abu Sitta plans to go back to Gaza in July with a medical team registered with the World Health Organization.
“It has changed my life because it hasn’t stopped … because you feel connected to the colleagues that you left behind and the patients you left behind,” he said.
“So you are still in that war, even though physically you’re not there anymore.”