00:00Well, as Israel stands on the brink of launching another major offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City,
00:06UN Chief Antonio Guterres is again calling for accountability and condemning an endless catalogue of horrors.
00:13Local medics say another 71 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombs and gunfire over the past 24 hours.
00:21Nearly two dozen of them had been waiting for desperately needed aid.
00:25This, despite international demands for Israel to reconsider its plans to take over Gaza City,
00:31over fears that the offensive will cause significant casualties and displace the roughly one million people who are sheltering there.
00:40Well, in southern Gaza, medics say dozens more Palestinians have been admitted to Nasser Hospital in Hanunis with gunshot wounds
00:47after being transferred from an aid distribution site.
00:51This staff there are still coming to terms with the deadly strike on the hospital earlier this week.
00:57For more, we are joined now by Dr. Travis Malin, an ICU doctor who had been working at Nasser Hospital,
01:05but he's now safely back in the US.
01:08Travis, thanks so much for speaking with us again.
01:11We had been talking with you earlier this week.
01:14Technical difficulties, though, disturbed the interview a little bit.
01:17So it's great to have you back on the programme again.
01:20Since leaving Gaza, have you been able to get in touch at all with your colleagues at the hospital?
01:25And how have they been doing after that attack earlier this week?
01:30Yeah, they were very interested here when I got home safe and sound, of course.
01:34And so, yeah, we've communicated quite a bit since then.
01:39And, you know, for them, you know, this is not, well, this is horrible and awful.
01:45They have been experiencing this for two years.
01:47So, you know, two days later, they're back to business as usual, seeing the usual mass casualties, working in the operating rooms.
01:55You know, so in some ways, it's as if nothing has happened.
02:00But in other ways, they all carry the mental scars and they have friends that have been killed now and, you know, friends that have been injured.
02:06So it's just one more insult on top of two years of ongoing insults.
02:12Yeah.
02:12And the Palestinian ambassador to the UN accusing Israel of carrying out a premeditated strike on medics and journalists.
02:20Would your former colleagues there agree with that assessment?
02:25Yeah, I think everyone there and the entire or the vast majority of the international community would all agree with that, right?
02:34This, you know, you know, there were two initial strikes appears, you know, one on the stairwell that you can see pictured there.
02:42And there's another one on the east stairwell that's just around the corner where I had a couple of friends hang out at the moment who were injured.
02:48And then, you know, shortly thereafter, I guess we're now finding out that there were kind of two simultaneous strikes that hit, you know, this stairwell that killed the majority of those journalists.
02:59So, you know, four strikes within a whatever, a 15 minute period, obviously no mistake there.
03:06Yeah. And while that is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu has called is a tragic mistake, Israel hasn't provided an explanation at all for that more deadly strike that we saw that hit as medics were rushing to the scene, medics and journalists.
03:21What do you make of claims from the IDF, regular claims from them, that Hamas militants are operating in and around hospitals in Gaza?
03:29You, of course, have been working at Nassar Hospital.
03:34Yeah, I mean, they make that claim continuously and they use that as an excuse to do kind of whatever they want to do, right?
03:39They're using that as an excuse to starve a civilian population, which is, you know, a war crime.
03:44So they're kind of routinely using that to justify their war crimes.
03:48What I can tell you from having worked and lived in the hospitals there for four total months is I, you know, I and all the rest of the doctors who have ever worked there have not seen any evidence of Hamas or anyone operating out of hospitals.
04:06So of 100% of people who have been on the ground living in those hospitals for the last two years, no one has seen that.
04:13So it's, you know, pure propaganda from, I think, you know, every doctor and nurse who has operated there.
04:20And Travis, given the fact that hospitals are protected from attack under international law, why do you think the world is tolerating these kind of assaults?
04:28It's a great question.
04:31I mean, you know, I think there's been like a slow creep, perhaps, you know, in what is OK.
04:37And now we've gotten to a spot where, you know, Israel can, you know, live stream a very clear war crime.
04:45And, you know, the international community is not as outraged as we should be.
04:51Right. So I think it's just been this like slow creep of war crime after war crime.
04:57You know, like last year, you know, the ICC issued arrest warrants for starvation as a as a weapon.
05:03Right. And that was and then since then, they've started a complete embargo and complete blockade of food for months.
05:11So like they were accused of a war crime and then they nothing happened.
05:15And then they intensified their war crime that they are committing.
05:18And that's kind of what we've been seeing, I think, over the last two years is just, you know, you get away with a little bit and they take push a little bit further each time.
05:28So it's really time for the international community to to step up and actually do something about this, you know, impose some sanctions, arms embargoes like like this really has to end.
05:39This is so brazen and it's just being a slap in all of our faces that we're allowing this to happen, you know.
05:45And Travis, you're obviously just back in the U.S. having left Gaza this week.
05:49But have you seen any change in rhetoric at all when it comes to the discussions that are taking place about what has been happening in Gaza?
05:59Personally, no, I haven't really seen a lot.
06:02You know, I've heard people say things, but I've never seen any actions, you know, change.
06:08I've never seen anything different on the ground.
06:10And, you know, in the time that I was there, you know, last year people were starving, you know, and then came back this year and people were, you know, like acutely starving.
06:20And then they started letting a little bit of food in and, you know, the international community kind of just started ignoring the stardation crisis because people are getting 10 percent of the calories they need.
06:30So, no, I think I haven't really seen anything change appreciably in the last two years.
06:38And you spoke to us earlier in the week about the kind of injuries that you were treating when you were over in Gaza.
06:43Some doctors are reporting seeing the same kind of injuries occurring essentially in clusters to people who've been admitted with gunshot wounds from aid sites.
06:53Is that something that you can attest to?
06:55Yeah, it's atrocious.
06:58It really felt as if they, you know, the Israelis had picked a target for the day and said, let's shoot everyone in the genitals.
07:07And so we'd have a wave of people come in that had all been shot, you know, in and around their scrotum.
07:14Because a lot of the people going to get the food at these aid sites are men.
07:18And, you know, another day we might see every single person with a gunshot wound to the head as another example.
07:26You know, even down to like, you know, 10-year-old boys, you know, they're trying to go there and get food for their families.
07:32So it very much felt as if, like, they were just choosing a target for the day and having fun, you know, with, you know, target practice.
07:42You know, the other things that I saw was, you know, gunshots to the tops of heads, tops of shoulders.
07:47So, you know, very clearly that people are, you know, docking for cover, you know, while they're being shot at.
07:53And they're being, you know, targeted in the tops of their heads while they're hiding from being killed.
08:00And Travis, given that it is such a difficult place to work, it's even upsetting, you know, watching the images that we have been seeing coming out of Gaza.
08:08Why do you go there and are you planning to return?
08:13Yeah, I'd love to return.
08:15You know, I can only spend so much time there a year, but, I mean, this is a place in the world that has, like, the greatest need right now.
08:24This is where, you know, doctors aren't allowed to go.
08:27This is where food is not allowed to go, you know.
08:30So the need is intense there.
08:33And, you know, I think, you know, I know it's the U.S. that is funding this.
08:38And, you know, it's my tax dollars that are going into this also.
08:42So I think for a variety of reasons, I feel like it's kind of, you know, our duty as a medical community to stand up and, you know, do something about a very clear genocide that our country is complicit in.
08:56OK, Travis, well, it's highly commended the work that you've been doing over there, you and your colleagues.
09:03Thanks so much for joining us again on the programme.
09:06We do really appreciate your analysis and your testimony.
09:09That is Dr. Travis Millen, an ICU doctor who had been working at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, is now safely back in the U.S.
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