Camilla Forte/Borderless Magazine/Catchlight Local/Report for AmericaEl Dr. Thaer Ahmad pasó años viajando a Gaza como médico voluntario antes de 2023. Ahora, continúa tratando a pacientes en el South Side de Chicago mientras aboga por los trabajadores de la salud de Palestina.
Esta historia ha contado con el apoyo de la campaña Brave of Us .
Palestinian American Dr. Thaer Ahmad knew he wanted to be a physician after watching his father deal with rheumatic heart disease — a complication from strep throat that he developed when he was 9 years old due to lack of antibiotics and access to healthcare.
“That was always something that made me bitter and resentful,” Ahmad said. “That he had to deal with that because of the circumstances of occupation and apartheid.”
Those moments solidified Ahmad’s passion for medicine and humanitarian aid over the years. He became the first in his family to step foot in Gaza in 2009 at 21 years old, and has been back on five separate occasions by the time Israel launched its military attacks on Palestinians in October 2023.
Noticias que ponen el poder en el punto de mira y a las comunidades en el centro.
Suscríbase a nuestro boletín gratuito y reciba actualizaciones dos veces por semana.
Now based on Chicago’s South Side, he works as an emergency medicine physician and has been involved in humanitarian relief for over a decade.
“I knew that this was going to be part of what I wanted to be doing for a long time,” Ahmad said.
Borderless Magazine spoke to Ahmad about his commitment to humanitarian aid, his experiences volunteering in Gaza and his advocacy efforts since.
Where it all began
I was 4 years old when my parents sent me to Palestine. I still think about this day.
It was 1992, right towards the end of the Intifada*. I stayed with my grandparents in their home in a suburb of Jerusalem and it was probably one of my earliest actual memories.
I remember the very small garden in front of my grandparents’ house. There was a tense atmosphere because of the First Intifada.
But it was incredible — actually meeting different family members there. We’ve got family in Chicago, but most of our family lives in the village back home in Palestine.
Everybody knows each other. As you’re walking in the street, someone will stop you and ask you who your father is, or who your mother is, and then they will explain to you how they know your whole family. They’ll ask how they’re related or about childhood memories they have of you.
There’s this instant connection you feel.
It became a very important part of my identity. I really started to understand what that meant when you use the phrase “back home.”
My parents came here in the ‘80s from Palestine, and we have been in the Chicagoland area since.
We were initially in the South Side, where there were a lot of other members of the Palestinian diaspora. Then, we slowly started moving more towards the southwest suburbs, where many folks with similar backgrounds were resettling.
Even having been born and raised here, being Palestinian American is still a very new process that I think many of us are trying to figure out how to navigate.
The diaspora here is now coming to terms with the fact that there is a chance we may never be able to return home to Palestine. Despite that, the solidarity and connection still exists within the people.
There were a few pivotal moments that made me want to get into medicine. One of my core memories was when my 17-year-old cousin got shot and killed in Palestine. He was an unarmed protester advocating for better prison conditions.
I remember being in the hospital as they performed surgery on him. He remained in a coma until he ultimately died.
That was a scene I won’t forget, and still remember that entire atmosphere. It left a lasting impression on me.
As time went on, I spent more time in Palestine, and realized I wanted to be involved in relief and development. But I asked myself, “Where could I be effective and what role could I play for my people?”
I felt like becoming a physician and somebody involved in global health would be really impactful.
I was fortunate enough to be involved in a humanitarian relief mission before I began medical school. That reinforced my decision to go into medicine and humanitarianism.
Volunteering in Gaza
The first time I ever went to Gaza was in 2009, after Operation “Cast Lead."
Barack Obama won the presidency in November 2008, and that same day, the Israelis had conducted an airstrike, killing four people in Gaza. That event subsequently led to Operation “Cast Lead,” where in December 2008 through January 2009, 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including around 300 kids.
I remember that moment very distinctly. Our community was devastated by it. We were protesting in Chicago and across the U.S.
I had the opportunity, a few months later, to join a humanitarian aid convoy that was going from Egypt to Gaza.
After many delays because of the suffocating blockade on Gaza, I was able to enter and saw the areas that had been destroyed and met some of the families. I stood on top of the rubble where there were still bodies underneath.
Más información
When the genocide broke out in Oct. 2023, I had been to Gaza five separate times on different missions as a physician working in hospitals alongside other Palestinian healthcare workers. The focus was to improve access to resources, but also to build a collaborative effort between the diaspora and local healthcare workers.
After Oct. 7, the borders were sealed shut, and nobody was entering. But in December, we got word they were going to allow international teams to enter.
We found out the World Health Organization (WHO) was looking for volunteers. I told them that I was going to have to be one of those people. And I left.
All the volunteers got assigned to a hospital — I was going to be at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which is near the south of Gaza. The hospital administration put us up in a room in the hospital.
I was in the emergency department, in the resuscitation room where you send the critically ill and injured people. I was usually with one or two Palestinian doctors who were training to become ER doctors.
The largest hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, was surrounded, attacked and no longer functioning — it was out of commission. Nasser had become the largest hospital and so we were getting patients from all other parts of Gaza. We were overrun with not just patients but displaced people.
Every nook and cranny in this hospital was occupied by somebody who had been displaced. It’s a very overwhelming scene for someone coming from the United States. I have never seen something like that.
On top of that, nonstop streams of patients were coming in because of the bombs that you’re hearing. I’ve been to Gaza before when Israelis have bombed it, but I’ve never heard anything like this. Every single time you hear a bomb go off, you actually feel the pressure wave hit your body.
I was looking outside my window, and I could see each neighborhood and street being leveled and destroyed. Gusts of smoke were rising from the buildings that collapsed and it was getting closer every day.
I’m treating people on the floor and we’re having to do procedures that I’ve never done in that kind of setting. I was relying heavily on the Palestinian doctors and nurses in Gaza. They had been doing this, at that point, for at least half a year.
We were constantly having to adjust based on the person in front of us. We were moving from chaotic emergency to chaotic emergency.
For instance, one day, there’ll be a shortage of premature baby formula for the eight babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. For the next two days, that is emergency number one because of how dangerous and deadly that is. Then once we get a little bit of baby formula, suddenly, we are one hour away from losing all the diesel fuel in the generator powering the hospital and all the people connected to ventilators using electricity, kids on incubators, people undergoing surgery — they’re going to die.
With these limitations and the overwhelming volume of patients, how do you determine the allocation of resources for lifesaving care and attention?
One situation I was involved in occurred when a house was bombed, and a family of 20 were brought in. Six were dead on arrival, but three of them were in their last moments unless we did something. But we only had the opportunity to devote these resources to one person.
Is that an impossible scenario in the United States? It’s not. But would that happen every day? No. That was happening every day in Gaza.
Those are the kinds of agonizing decisions Palestinian healthcare workers were making every day, without exception. You can imagine what that does in terms of moral injury to these human beings who are serving their communities.
They’re not coming from the United States and being able to enjoy some reprieve after a month of working. They are doing that every day to people who look like them and talk like them. The sheer fact that the hospital was able to even function is a testament to the Palestinian health care workers figuring out ways to continue to treat patients.
They found ways to work. This is something that they don’t get enough credit for.
From Gaza to advocacy
Some days, I’m bitter and don’t know how to process the fact that, if I wanted to, I could order an MRI here in Chicago and scan somebody’s entire body. That has not been available to anyone in Gaza in two and a half years. Even then, it was limited.
It’s a bizarre thing to sit behind a computer and be able to order any treatment or test you want at the tip of your finger.
So, I think part of coming back here to the United States is trying to make sure I am continuing to organize, continuing to document for the historical record what’s been going on in whatever way I can.
One positive perspective is that I’ve been able to interact with the next generation of healthcare workers. Not just at my institution, but across the country.
I’m an assistant program director for the training program at our hospital for people who want to become ER doctors, so I’m involved in their education.
There is a difference with this generation. They’re paying attention and they want to know what they can do differently.
These are the future leaders of healthcare in the United States and they care about social medicine here. They connect it to global medicine abroad.
That solidarity is going to change our profession in a way that is going to have a real impact locally and globally.
*Intifada in Arabic refers to “uprising” or “shaking off.” It refers to Palestinian uprisings and protests against years of Israeli occupation. The First Intifada is marked between 1987 and 1993.
Tara Mobasher is Borderless Magazine’s newsletter writer and reporter. Email Tara at [email protected]
