UNSPEAKABLE

an exclusive, bombshell report from someone just arrived on the frontlines of Gaza medicine

Below: video of the bombed-out Gaza landscape.

The report below from Gaza was emailed to me over the weekend. A Western doctor on a mercy trip sent this to friends and colleagues. I have posted it with a few fixes for clarity. I did not deep dive the Muslim prayer he mentions but it appears to be a purification before death ritual or a plea for safety. Anyone who knows better, please post a clarification. I have also included a report from October about the rescue teams who try valiantly to save lives after the bombs. You are not seeing these stories on Western legacy media. First the email:

It is so much worse here than you can ever imagine here. I don’t know how they are surviving to be honest. I don’t know how they can even go on every day smiling. Every single person has lost so much. 75% of people’s homes have been destroyed. You gotta understand. These are all salaried people and whether rich or poor, put all their money into their homes. The doctor I am working with worked hard for 10 yrs building his house…all his money went into it and so much love and attention… The house was intentionally destroyed by occupation forces… like so many others. 

The video below of all these tents structures within and out of the hospital is where they are living now. All these people you saw the video all had homes and they lost all their homes mostly destroyed by the occupation forces. The hospital has over 20,000 people living within it in the hallways and outside. There’s one bathroom for 200 people. The bathrooms are filthy and riots break out sometimes over bathroom use. I don’t blame them. It’s cold outside… they’ve lost everything and have no money, food or water barely. The European Gaza hospital was the premier hospital before the war. It was the best looking and maintained hospital. Now it’s filled with people living in and out of it, intense.

The amount of amputations: I’ve seen 15 in one day alone, the amount of eyes removed, 7 in one day…and more coming…the people who have lost both legs, both arms, one arm, one leg, both eyes and other facial disfigurement, along with losing brothers, sisters, parents is just immense.  

Like WTF… who can do this… so many amputations. So many legs and arms…endless right in front of me…or burns or skin peeled ALL off… you cannot imagine.

You see these people pictures before all this happened walking and running and smiling and so beautiful. Just breaks you. 

One patient I saw last night was a 45-year-old woman who was a victim of last night’s bombing…she lost both legs that were amputated, both arms were fractured and pinned, and both eyes were ruptured. In addition, she lost her husband, her daughter, and her two sons. If she survives this, what will she do with no legs maybe no arms and no sight and no family. Fortunately for her, God blessed her and she died just as I was going to operate on her. This is a mercy for her. She’s in a better place now. Just one example.

Mass casualties come in every single day… every single hour. The Occupation Forces just keep on bombing and these are civilians coming in. The screams, the suffering, the shrapnel face (if you’ve ever seen it)  is constant and everywhere.

So leave the dead side… you cannot imagine the thousands of amputees and blind people who will be out there after…many of them…most of them, young and disabled. It’s just horrible. 2 brothers… 15 and 17. I had to take care of both of them. This was yesterday‘s bomb drop. One of them had an above groin  amputation if you can figure that out. And had several eye injuries. Unfortunately both brothers died. This is just one example. There’s so many.

The humming noise of IOF drones in the sky is constant. The bombs, nearly every hour.  Sounds like thunder…and the tattattattat of artillery fire not far.  The IOF forces are only 2 km away from us at the hospital.  90% of the time when there’s a bomb drop or a tank fire, the whole building shakes. People are used to it. But I must admit sometimes when the bomb drops about a block or less away from the hospital I get startled as it seems like it’s just right next to me as my bedroom shakes and you feel it in you body.  Already as I write write this three or four bombs dropped somewhere. The mass casualties are going to start coming in very soon. Usually it’s about 5 to 10  minutes after. 

Today I went to have a shower. My first shower after 7 days . I felt and heard a huge bomb - everything shook…felt so close. I wondered if a bomb dropped where I happen to be. I would have no clothes on then what would happen? Would someone cover me? I don’t know what thoughts the Palestinians have every night. But I have gotten into the habit of doing wudu, two rakats and the sheshada before bed. This is the practice of all of these people here in Gaza. (Muslim purification rituals)

I have also discovered that Palestinians here are the most gentle, dignified, civilized faithful and beautiful people.  How they have  lived for the last 15 years, especially, and now is horrible. This is not living at all. No one  knows what tomorrow will bring at all. What’s going to happen at all. People are disappointed in Muslim/arab leaders and the US and Israel. But they are mature and civilized about it. There’s no chants of “death to USA” or “death to Israel” or “death to Jews”.  None of that.  They appreciate what the whole world has done in supporting them. They know about it and they appreciate it. They are a civilized people not “animals”. They are an advanced nation that are being eliminated/exterminated in front of ours and their eyes.”

I will be following up with the doctor who sent this email, perhaps to appear on the podcast. What will happen to all of these seriously disabled people when the shooting and bombing stops. They have zero chance of a meaningful life.

Here is the report on the rescue workers from October/2023. It is much worse now with few hospitals working, many drivers and medical people dead and supplies running out. Western media are prevented from entering Gaza except occasionally with IDF teams who control and censor. This video from a Gaza-based team for Al Jazeera is upsetting. Note the commitment of both the journos and the rescuers.

Many of you have been asking about what is going on internally in the Israeli government. Will there be any answers about the failings of October 7? Haaretz — is under a paywall so I’ve copied an important piece for your to read. From Friday. Bibi Netanyahu is fighting tooth and nail a review of what went wrong and he knows his days are numbered.

Haaretz | Israel News

Analysis |

Israeli Ministers' Mudslinging Imperils Our Security – and Calls for a Pressure Campaign

The nasty debacle at Friday's security cabinet meeting, where rightist ministers lashed out over an internal IDF probe of its October 7 failings, is a nauseating appetizer of what's to come

Yossi Verter

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Jan 6, 2024

The ugly brawl that erupted overnight Thursday at a meeting of Israel's security cabinet is just a glimpse of things to come. A nauseating appetizer of what the coming months hold. If Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has any reason to choose exile over martyrdom, it must be the joy of watching from afar as Israelis tear each other apart. It will be his second victory, after the October 7 massacre.

The obvious conclusion from that night at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv is that the leader of this failed government, as well as the thugs bearing the title of "ministers," have every intention of sticking to their seats. Even if this means setting the country ablaze.

What they did not achieve during the nine-month judicial coup they will try to accomplish in their war against the army, the protest movement, the media, the politicians who supported the life-saving Gaza Disengagement, and even against the ghosts of Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres. No one, dead or alive, will escape the venom.

Another conclusion is that a public campaign to topple the government must begin immediately. Every moment that these people occupy the corridors of power and decision-making constitutes a clear and present danger to the country's security. The so-called Kaplan pro-democracy protests must move from the Tel Aviv junction for which they are nicknamed and camp out in front of the Prime Minister's Office. The demand must be: Elections, NOW.

A third conclusion: Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot and Gideon Sa'ar have exhausted their part in the government. Their participation in cabinet and government meetings no longer contributes to the "unity of the people." It only aids this group of bullies as they continue thrashing, bad-mouthing and spreading vitriol without paying a public price. Gantz's National Unity party entered the most disastrous government Israel has ever known out of a pure sense of responsibility. Now, this same responsibility requires them to get out. One can be a patriot outside the government, too.

"Netanyahu has to choose between unity and security and politics," Gantz said on Friday. Well, Netanyahu has chosen. In response to Gantz, the "Likud party" (i.e. the Prime Minister's Office) called on him to stop "looking for excuses" to leave the "unity government." Gantz, for his part, demanded that the government vote on Sunday on extending the term of Israel's prisons chief Katy Perry. He did not issue an ultimatum. Right now, the exchanges still do not amount to an all-out war, but it seems we are facing an eruption.

The attack on Israel's army chief was led on two axes: Ministers David Amsalem and Miri Regev, dispatched by Netanyahu; and Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, working on behalf of the messianic-settler electorate. Army chief Herzl Halevi's sin was a news report that aired shortly before the meeting, which said that he intends to form a team to investigate operational aspects in the war. Former IDF chief and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz may lead the team, flanked by two major generals - Sami Turgeman, former head of the Southern Command, and Aharon Zeevi Farkash, former head of Military Intelligence.

These probes are routine. It is what the IDF does. It is also essential for the soldiers: drawing lessons on the go in order to prevent errors that could cost lives. But none of this matters to the four thugs. They derided and clawed at Halevi; claimed he intends to investigate October 7 as a whole and everything that came before; maintained that Mofaz is "the father of the Disengagement" (because, apparently, it was the Disengagement that led to the slaughter – nothing to do of course with the government's actions or with the one at the top).

And plenty of other baseless accusations made by Regev – who was the IDF spokesperson during the Disengagement and happily made a case for it, as some reporters will remember. This same Regev, who sat in top security forums, knows (as opposed to Amsalem, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich) the importance of carrying out internal investigations in the IDF. They save lives. But the soldiers do not interest Regev; she is invested in Netanyahu.

Not to mention the vulgar, aggressive tone taken by Regev, Amsalem and particularly Ben-Gvir. "It's like a court-marital orchestrated in a market," a minister who was at the meeting told me. "The lowest of the low. You can criticize, you can as questions, but their talk was disgusting."

This minister, at least, has no doubt as to who "directed" them to behave this way, who sent them to attack the army chief, who sat there like a houseplant and did not say a word. In the end, this all serves Netanyahu, in his own, private "day after." Every clump of mud slung at the IDF chief, and every curse and swear spoken in the filthy Amsalem-Regev-Ben-Gvir language – serve Netanyahu. He is the leader of the plot.

This was not the first cabinet meeting in which the Amsalem-Regev duo ambushed the IDF chief. They are Netanyahu's Dobermans. They also have nothing to show without him. The hypocritical right-wing media, meanwhile, fired artillery support aimed at the three potential members of the army's probe: Mofaz is a no-go because he was defense minister during the Disengagement. Zeevi Farkash opposed the judicial coup and supported the right of reserve soldiers not to show up for duty.

It must be repeated: These people's political opinions have nothing to do with the thing they will or will not be tasked with investigating. But if one can slander and distort, why not? And who does deserve to be on the investigative team? Retired officers who support the judicial coup, of course. They have no ulterior motive, no other interests.

The security cabinet used to be sacred. Nothing leaked and the discussions were serious. Today, under Netanyahu, it's a free-for-all. Low-level politicians whose skills amount to flattery of the prime minister and his wife sit and get political payoff for their services to the royal family.

Let every Israeli soldier know that while he or she fights in Gaza – and perhaps in the north soon, too – the cabinet, tasked with making life-and-death decisions prefers to fight the army's chief and to weaken the military. Let every soldier know, and let his mother know.

Lots coming this week.

Stay critical, friends.