The innocent children of Gaza

Lidia yarns with Dr Mohammed Mustafa (Dr Mo) after his recent return from humanitarian work in Gaza. They discuss the Genocide happening in Gaza and Dr Mo gives an eyewitness account of the atrocities, particularly the loss of innocent lives at the hands of the Israeli Defence Force. 

Dr Mo is a Palestinian Australian emergency medicine physician who has been to Gaza twice since October 7, 2023, on humanitarian missions to support the people with in need of critical healthcare.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 

LIDIA THORPE

Palestinian families are just like our families. 

You know. We're dealing with the same shit. This Genocide, this oppression, this steeling of land. It's the same, the same. And we're still reeling in the effects of this continued Genocide, it just looks different

00:00:24:18 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

You know, obviously, when I came, I had a lot of sympathy with the Indigenous community because I felt like it was a lot like my story. You know, I was a Palestinian refugee. My dad was born in Gaza. But I wasn't born in Palestine. I was born in Mecca. I was never allowed to enter Palestine. I never even had any Palestinian identification documents, anything like that.

Like my identity was erased, essentially, of where I was from. So, you know, I always longed for the homeland. 

You always see pictures, but you're never allowed to touch it. 

And, you know, when you come here and you see the same thing here, you see Indigenous communities pushed out to rural areas. They don't have access to the cities like other people do.

They don't have access to those jobs. They don't have access to housing, and stuff like that. So, they pushed in some of the most, you know, desert rural places, far away from the naked eye. 

And that's like that in the West Bank and Gaza, where you push these people into these places. Maybe you throw a little bit of money on them, you know, a few international aid organisations, you know, oh, we're going to give you a bit of healthcare, a bit of food, but just stay quiet.

It's the same thing. It's the same story.

00:01:33:07 

LIDIA THORPE

Well, you know that their concentration camps— basically. And my mother still lives on one, in what is now called East Gippsland, Gunai country. They had missions where they rounded us up. And they didn't want us out into, you know, into where white people were congregating. So, they rounded us up and told us not to speak our language, not to practice our law or culture.

And dispossessed us from our lands and waters.

And my mother still lives on one of these missions. And, you know, those communities are the poorest and sickest communities, you know, in the country. And we're meant to be the so-called lucky country, but it's only lucky if you're white. Not if you're from the land and the water. 

00:02:36:10 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

It is not a case of you don't want people to be here as well, but it's a case of like, why? Why can't we also have access to that? Why can't we share the same privileges as everyone else? We've took care of this land. 65,000 years.

00:02:49:20 

LIDIA THORPE

Since time immemorial.

00:02:51:03 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Since time immemorial. Well, you know, like the old. 

And this is a question that was really wanted to ask you; for 65,000 years with the Genocide that the Aboriginal people have endured, the displacement of their land and everything else. They're still here, still survive and still thriving in their cultures. 

They still have the music, the knowledge of how to take care of the land, how they move through the terrain.

All of that is still preserved despite all of these things that have happened. And I look at that as a Palestinian, you know, refugee. And I'm like, do we have the strength to continue and endure like they did? 

If you were to speak to the Palestinian people while they're going through the Genocide and they're going through their displacement?

What would you tell them?

00:03:45:06 

LIDIA THORPE

That we can never give up who we are and where we come from. 

Because that is our birthright. That is our identity. And we all have a responsibility to maintain that identity for our future generations. 

No one can erase who we are. No matter how much they hurt us, they can't erase that.

It's in our DNA. And you can't take that away. And our blood is in the land. It is in the sky. It is all around us. It is in our totems, you know ,that we are given the responsibility to care for. Imagine if everybody in this country and in your country had the same value.

Then we wouldn't be in this situation that we're in today. 

00:04:37:21 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

What I always find fascinating is the more killing, the more displacement, the more of these keffiyehs you see all around the world. And it's almost like, you know, when someone dies and their blood spills, these little droplets of blood go everywhere. And it's like Gaza and Palestine is shooting up all over the place. And it's become such a prominent cause.

It's like a call to action. 

And why do you think Gaza now is like, you know, the issue of our time when it comes to Indigenous people, like when you look at Indigenous struggles all around the world, whether it's Native Americans, Aboriginal people, all of them. Gaza is like the flashpoint. Why do you think that is?

00:05:23:20 

LIDIA THORPE

Power, greed—capitalism? 

And to eradicate and wipe out Indigenous peoples from their lands all over the world, which is something they can never do. 

The they can never do. 

And the only people that can ever heal the world going forward are the Indigenous peoples of their land.

00:05:51:11 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

The custodians.

00:05:52:06 

LIDIA THORPE

We are the only people who know what our motherland needs, we know how to nurture. The colonizers, the murderers, they don't have those values. If they did, then we wouldn't have what we're saying. And I think what is going on in Gaza is what we all should be standing up against and saying, you know, Indigenous people around the world.

We all are in solidarity with Palestine. It is those colonisers and the murdering thieves that continue to perpetrate the violence. 

00:06:35:05 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

And what's happening in Gaza is like the large focus, but it's happening everywhere with Indigenous people on a micro level. On a, you know, and if you look for it, you can see it, but you have to look for it. And, you know, when I was in Gaza. Because, you know; look, I've worked in rural communities all over Australia, and I've worked with Indigenous communities, and I've worked in places that were slave trade routes for Indigenous people.

You see that generational trauma in those communities. 

And it's the humiliation, right? 

The humiliation ritual that I saw a lot of in Gaza that really stuck with me. You know, there was a man who was there, and there was an airstrike, and this was in the afternoon, and he brought his children in on the back of a donkey cart, because there's no fuel.

No Money. 

So he came with a donkey cart and his children were in blankets, and you could hear screams. 

And when he arrived, and, you know, everyone rushes because everyone wants to help, wants to bring them into the emergency department, open the blankets. One of the children had their head missing. The other one had her arm severed, and the other one had a head injury.

And they weren't even crying because they were so much in shock. 

But when the donkey stopped, the donkey started urinating, and it bounced off the floor over onto the children while they were there, and they were cut open, bleeding. And essentially, this donkey had urinated over his children that were bleeding to death. 

And I remember thinking to myself, this man is probably living in a tent for the last year, probably been begging for food any way he can, risking his life, and he has to watch his children die and an animal urinate on them. For what?

Why? Why that level of humiliation? 

Where's the humanity today? 

Not even. Even in death? 

There's no dignity in death. 

But that really, really stuck with me, and it was something that I've, like, seen this humiliation ritual that we have to go through as Indigenous communities everywhere. I just remember the despair look on his face. I was just like, what do I say to him?

How do you comfort somebody like that, you wouldn't, when that's what we've just seen. 

And they're bleeding out to death, and we're carrying them in blankets and bringing them into an emergency department that's under-resourced, understaffed. You know, that was very much like Indigenous communities here that have to deal with that kind of ritualistic humiliation.

00:09:11:19 

LIDIA THORPE

Yes it is. And that reminds me of when I lived on my country, Gunai country, and there was a man that I went to visit at the hospital, and he was sitting outside with no wheelchair, bleeding from the mouth. Because he wanted to smoke, and he wasn't helped out. And he just sat outside bleeding, and all the white people would walk past him.

And I knew that he was a proud man, and he was humiliated by that experience. You know, I turned up and wiped his mouth and demanded a wheelchair and demanded that the nurses and the doctors come out and help this man. But, you know, that's not on the level that you just spoke about, and the humiliation.

…

Absolutely. And it's ongoing every day for our people being, you know, we're begging on the street, we're homeless. We're the sickest, poorest people. But we will continue to resist, and we'll continue to stand with Palestine because we know what it's like. And we lost a lot of our people, warriors of the frontier wars, you know, the first war on the shores of this country was against its first people.

And no one wants to talk about that on Anzac Day!

00:10:38:06 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

No, they don't, they don't,

When I was in Palestine and even when I arrived during the ceasefire, I would see children coming into the emergency department, and they would be shot in the head. And it would be a single gunshot wound to the head.

And you know, we've got pictures of the trajectory of the bullet, which would go from up to down. So, it would be a drone overhead. 

And when I would speak to the family, I'd say what happened, were you in a red zone? Were you in an area that you shouldn't have been in? And they would say, ‘we were just walking through the market,’ and it was, you know, the woman and her children.

And I was like, well, why was it him? 

Did he run somewhere? Was he holding something? And always, always, always. Almost 80% of the time. It was always the youngest child that was targeted, almost every one of these children that we saw coming into the hospital. Single gunshot wound to the youngest child. And they're just walking the walk.

And it was like.

You know, I said to myself, this child hasn't done anything wrong. 

There's no political affiliation to this child. They don't even have thoughts other than sleeping and eating. 

Why were they shot in the head? 

And it just hit home again, over and over again. These messages in my head where I was, just like, even if you do the right things, being an innocent child, it still doesn't spare you from the injustice.

And you know.

It's hard sometimes because I think to myself, how do we overcome this? Like, where's the way out here? We behave. We still don't get to sit at the table. We don't behave. And they tell us it's our fault. And we did this to ourselves and, you know, get over it and all that kind of stuff.

So why do we go? How do we move forward from this? How do we get a seat at the table? How do we get a seat at the table?

00:12:26:09 

LIDIA THORPE 

Well, we need politicians to grow a spine, particularly the ones in this country. And tell the truth.

To protect children. No matter what. If we can't protect innocent children, then what kind of human beings have we become that this is okay? Yeah. And that’s because it's somewhere else. It's not. our problem. 

00:13:01:06 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Because the children are innocent. 

They don't, you know, they don't know the social issues. They need to be protected, and still, they don't get the protection.

00:13:09:11 

LIDIA THORPE

Children should be playing with other children. And be free to be children. Free to smile and be happy. But we need, you know. And I'm talking about the politicians here. We're in an election here. And we've got two white men running for power, as per usual, in this country, as a colonised, oppressive country, that is, who haven't even spoken about children in Gaza. 

Not in any of the election campaigning have they mentioned once, about the rights of children in Palestine or the rights of children anywhere, for that matter. 

The rights of children here don't matter; the incarceration rate of children in this country is out of control.

00:14:20:14 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

And it's mainly in the Indigenous community!

00:14:22:08 

LIDIA THORPE

Absolutely! We have prisons full of Aboriginal of black children.

00:14:26:23 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

I think the statistic is that the most incarcerated ethnic group in the world is Indigenous Australians.

00:14:35:15 

LIDIA THORPE

Yes.

00:14:37:01 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

That's a difficult thing to handle.

00:14:39:23 

LIDIA THORPE

Absolutely!

00:14:41:00 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

The life expectancy is much less. Incarceration is much higher. Literacy rates…

00:14:46:19 

LIDIA THORPE

Yeah.

00:14:47:08 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

All of these things, domestic life, all of these. And to me, like I look at that, and I go, even if the Palestinian struggle is over and the bombs stop. What about all these other things that we’re going to have to deal with? Do you know what I mean? How do we navigate that? 

Obviously, you're a bit of a trailblazer.

I don't know if we've got someone here or in Palestine that can be like that. 

But how do we navigate these injustices that we have? But it's not just the bombs. 

You know, Palestinians, if they move to say, you know, in America right now, people getting kidnapped off the streets and deported just for the crime of being Palestinian and protesting Palestinian rights. And all over the Middle East, they are put into refugee camps and in neighbouring countries, it's the same thing. You know, so these struggles are ongoing. How do we navigate with that?

00:15:44:20 

LIDIA THORPE

Well, I don't have all the answers. And, you know, you say I'm a trailblazer, but that's because of the strong matriarchs that made me. Who paved the way for me and my children and their children and our communities? We were taught in our family that you always stand up for your people no matter what. Always protect your land.

You always protect your water. And you always protect the children. Our children are our future. That's what we're told. We have to infiltrate. And we have to protest. And we have to resist.

00:16:28:17 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Because, you know, it's interesting to say matriarchy, because that's something that's very unique. Within the Indigenous communities, as a matriarchy that helps navigate and educate, which, you know, if you go to other societies, it's male-led. And yet there's this, you know, we now have this modern idea of letting women lead. But this was around 65,000 years ago.

But it's the lack of respect for, like you know, Indigenous culture can still teach us things today. And you know, they can teach us how to take care of the land. 

They can teach us how we structure society and power structures.

00:17:09:22 

LIDIA THORPE

How to live in harmony. With the land, and the water and the animals we all live with. There's no hierarchy. We are no better than our totem animals. We are no better than the water and the land that we walk on, we live in harmony with. With all of it.

00:17:27:19 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

These are all like progressive values that we have now. But they were around. We didn't need, you know, a movement in the 50s. We didn't need a Second World War and all of these killings of all these people to have the Geneva. We already had this thing. And that's the thing that's upsetting because we're dismissed from the table. Yet we have so much that we can teach.

00:17:49:17 

LIDIA THORPE

Yes.

00:17:50:19 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

And were dismissed from the table. Yet we can teach so much. And I think that's something.

00:17:55:12 

LIDIA THORPE

And we look at our land and our water as our mother. Because it's the land and the water that nourishes us. A mother nourishes. Your mother nourished you. She brought you, you know, she gave birth to you, and she nourished you through the body. And we see that the water is the veins of the mother.  

You cut that water, you cut that vein. You redirect that waterway. You can't do that with the veins. And you have to love and care for that water and that land, just as you do your mother. Then something, something's going to happen, that's how we look at. 

We are one with our land and our mother.

00:18:49:23 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Don't you think that we've missed an opportunity? The Palestinian community in Australia and the Indigenous community to come together and do something together. I know there are links between the Palestinians in Palestine and the Indigenous community here and the, you know, Native Americans in America. But don't you think that it should be something that we should organise together?

00:19:13:00 

LIDIA THORPE

I think that's happening, brother. I think that.

00:19:17:02 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Tell us about.

00:19:17:21 

LIDIA THORPE

We are standing in solidarity, and that, you know, your fight is our fight. Our fight is your fight, and there's no question about that. And, we're organising together. You know, for me personally and my family, we have an ongoing connection to Palestinians and vice versa. 

00:19:48:23 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Because I remember I reached out to you, and when I was in Gaza, I was leaving comments, and your team got back to me and responded to me when I was in Gaza, saying, like, you know, we support you. 

You know, we'll be there for you and stuff like that. And, you know, because we were scared of like, you know, because when we were there, things just went from, well, it wasn't zero when we had it was about at least 20%, you know, even though it was a ceasefire.

But it went from that to 218. It went past 200. You know, we had, you know, hospitals bombed. We had journalists burned alive in their tents. We had the paramedics executed and buried. We had the UN safe houses struck with international aid workers killed. We had international doctors killed as well. So while I was there, and I was obviously thinking to myself, I'm posting a lot here.

I'm going viral. Not wanting to, I was just posting what was going on, and obviously it seemed to resonate with people, and I was really worried. I was genuinely scared. You know, everyone's a target here. The hospital that I was in was bombed, and I was like, you know, who do I reach out to? Who do I ask for help?

Obviously, you know, I was like, alright, there's somebody here in Australia that might be able to reach out to you. So, you know, I reached out to know your team, let them know. And obviously they got back to us. Which I thought was like, which was really genuine. You know, so obviously that was part of the reason why I wanted to come talk to you, because it was when we were there, and we were vulnerable, it was your team that, you know, reached out and let us know that you had my back. So, I appreciate that.

00:21:19:20 

LIDIA THORPE

And you're not alone. You know, and no one in Palestine is alone, because we are watching. And we are fighting. We are resisting. We are together. And we are building a movement. And, you know, this is a revolution. We're going to revolutionise Palestine and this country through our solidarity, and show the rest of the world what can happen.

And we are reaching out. You know, even with me telling the king off, this international solidarity, that I didn't realise, that has given me strength.

00:21:56:09 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Do you think when we can organise this, what do you think? When the war stops and there's a free Gaza that we can go to Gaza. We can bring some of the Indigenous community there, we could do a welcome to country song in Gaza, and just bless that land and just say, listen, the Indigenous communities all around the world.

We're with you. We're right here. I think that would be amazing. 

But I think that would just be so powerful to just have the Indigenous community come in. 

And it's not optics. You know, sometimes here we have the optics where, they have the before the opening game, they'll have the Welcome to Country song. And, you know, it's just like, yeah, okay, you're doing that.

But what about all the other issues that you're not addressing? You know, just having a spectacle doesn't solve the problem.

00:22:39:02 

LIDIA THORPE

It would be a sacred ceremony.

00:22:40:17 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

It would be a sacred ceremony on that land. Absolutely. I would just go, hey, listen, what we do is all the way. I just know that I appreciate that, because I actually did see, when I was there, I did see, on the walls. I saw Aboriginal graffiti of Palestinian artist doing Aboriginal graffiti on the wall. I saw messages.

Saying always was, always will. 

This was in Gaza. So, the people that know and they're connected, and I think, you know, I think that's something that we should push for when there's a you know, obviously, I'm, I'm a doctor. I'm a humanitarian. That's my path. That's my lane. That's what I want to do. I want to heal those children in Gaza.

I want to help them. But obviously, your line is, is that I think we can do that. I think we can bring it in. I think we could talk to them. I think we could do it. I think when there's a free Palestine, we can go in, that we could do a welcome to country, so we can get Native Americans as well, and that we can get all the Indigenous people to come there because it's our struggle, because it is the cross-section, Gaza, of colonialism.

It is the cross-section of capitalism. It's the cross-section of apartheid. And Indigenous struggle. It's that it's the cross-section of all of that.

00:23:58:10 

LIDIA THORPE

Yes, it is.

00:23:59:09 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

You know, and it's a unifying thing because if there's a free Palestine and people act on it, then there'll be a free Indigenous community here.

00:24:08:12 -

LIDIA THORPE

Because they'll be liberated.

00:24:10:03 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

We'll all be liberated by it's a liberating thing. And then that Welcome to Country is not just, you know, ceremony. It's we are liberated. We're here as an Indigenous community to one Indigenous community. Your free land. Our free land. This is our country. I think that would be amasing. Yes. I think that's something that we should, we should push for more.

00:24:29:11 

LIDIA THORPE

I'd be honoured, and I will, you know, do all that I can to make that happen. Because I know that there are Aboriginal people across this country; we might need, you know, quite a few planes with the amount of Aboriginal people that would just jump at the chance to go to Gaza and stand with Palestine.

As we do here every single day. And for the Palestinians that are here. You're welcome here. We have a colonial government that may say otherwise, but, you know, we can do ceremony here too. And give you all Aboriginal passports that can travel freely around our country to all the nations and language groups that we have in this country, so that you're free here as well as free in Palestine.

00:25:20:13 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

That would be amazing.

I did actually get you something. I couldn't get you anything from Gaza. The reason was that we got searched on the way out and were not allowed to take anything out of Gaza, even a seashell, a rock, a cup, nothing is allowed from Gaza to leave Gaza. But I did get you this from the West Bank.

You should open it up and have a look, see what it is.

00:25:52:23 

LIDIA THORPE

Amazing! Look at that. Amazing.

00:25:57:16 

LIDIA THORPE

Thank you so much, brother.

00:26:00:07 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

That's really.

00:26:00:17 

LIDIA THORPE

Cool. I'll wear them into Parliament.

So, I have, the map of Palestine, dangling from my ears in the most beautiful way. Which is like a constant reminder.

00:26:19:09 - 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Well, do you know why I picked it? I might sound corny, but there was a lot of thought process behind it. You guys heard me when I was there in Palestine. You hear the Palestinian struggle. I thought I'll get you some earrings because you hear us. And that was the message behind it.

00:26:37:17 

LIDIA THORPE

Brother, I want to, just ask a little bit more about, you know, what you're doing.

And , what more can I do? 

00:26:52:19 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

You know, it's very hard to do anything, you know, for Gaza right now because of the blockade and the bombs. And a lot of people have lost hope. You know, it's two years. A lot of people have fatigue. You know, in this and, you know, I had a bit of fatigue as well. But I've been to Gaza twice during the war,

What I want is I want people to rally around, and I want us to get a win for these children. Right. They've been humiliated. They've been killed. They've been starved. Everything you can think of that's happened to these children. I want a W. We need to get a W on the board for them.

And you know, if it means that I have to work with every party available. Right. 

I'm going to go from this from a humanitarian point of view. I don't care if you're Liberal, Labour, Green, I don't care. I want you to come. I want this to be a unifying message. And the reason why it's unifying is because one, it's children, two, you owe us this, this what you did to our Indigenous community here, don't let it happen to another Indigenous community over there. Show us that you've changed. Show us that you mean it. When you say that you respect Indigenous rights. Show it.

And you know, if the Prime Minister, Penny Wong, can help us get a hospital in Gaza. Because that's what I want. I want, I want to be able to have access to health care for those people. If we can do that right.

I want that to be unified. I want it to be a unifying thing. You know, people will complain, people. When I was in Gaza were complaining because I put up a picture of me in a Snickers and people would write in and comment and say, you know, that's on the boycott list. I would say to myself, I'm literally in the hospital while it's being bombed right now, and you're telling me about a boycott, but there's no food I haven't eaten in the whole day.

And you're telling me that my version of struggle, or I'm not struggling good enough or whatever, while you're at home and I'm putting my life on the line. I need people to listen to people who have given everything to this. Like yourself, like other doctors who have been there.

For me, it's not a political thing. It's not a political issue. This is life and death for those children. And I want to help give life to those kids. And if we can get a unified humanitarian response from our government, then we can work together. This should unify us. Because if you're an Independent, if you're Green, if you Labour, everyone says on paper they want a ceasefire and they want an increase in humanitarian aid.

All right, let's unify. Let's unify these political parties and let's unify over this issue. And let's help the children.

00:29:31:00 

LIDIA THORPE

So, a children's hospital.

00:29:34:14 - 00:29:56:04

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Improved health care, improved funding. And I want a more active role in what we're doing. You know, it's not just about, you know, sending 20 million in increased aid and big, you know, organisations and just saying, well, we gave more money. It needs to be like concerted. 

There needs to be actual on the ground. What are the viable things that we're actually doing?

The same with Indigenous communities. We just throw more money at the problem, and we don't actually talk on the ground and see what the people need.

So, what good is all this aid if we're not even, we’re not even using it properly?

But if we were to have a field hospital manned by Australian doctors, Australian medical equipment, Australian safety, the government working in coordination, getting us safe when we're in. Then we can save lives, we can give dignity back to these people.

00:30:23:08 

LIDIA THORPE

And this is not a big ask. You know, it's not a big ask of Albanese, or even Dutton for that matter, whoever gets in. Yeah, it's not a big ask, you know.

I mean, they talk about Gaza in the Parliament all the time.

00:30:39:00 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

I keep hearing, ‘we're not a major player in the Middle East’, we don't need to be a major player to be a major healer. So let's be that. Let's be the healer.

00:30:53:06 

LIDIA THORPE

That's right. And who wants to be a major player? It's not about that, it's about how do we how do we contribute. How do we stop this agony and this torture of innocent children and babies? We can't just look at these images and know that this is happening and go out for lunch and have a nice day.

We have to do something. Otherwise, we are all complicit. We’re aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity, which ultimately is targeting innocent babies and children who've done nothing wrong to anybody. Thank you, brother. 

00:31:47:07 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Well, keep up the good fight.

00:31:48:13 

Yes. We will. We won't stop. We have responsibility. 

00:31:53:16 

DR MOHAMMED MUSTAFA

Thank you.