Dr. Ayaz Pathan, an emergency room physician from Cary, spent three weeks in Gaza this summer on a medical mission.
He flinched at the shudder of bombs, had Israeli soldiers point guns at him, endured hunger as he lost 13 pounds and, in the worst of his experiences, was helpless to prevent the deaths of wounded children he could have saved in a U.S. hospital.
“You have to make a decision that the child is going to die,” he said. “That is something that still haunts me, putting kids aside and letting nature take its course.”
When it came time for his group of doctors and nurses to leave that ravaged strip of land full of battered people beside the Mediterranean Sea, he thought he would be grateful to depart.
Instead, he thought of those who were trapped behind. “I thought when we got out of Gaza there would be this big relief,” he said. “But honestly, all I felt was guilt. They can’t exit.”
Yet Pathan also took to heart the words of a Gaza doctor who thanked him for his work there, but told him, “Your real work is going to begin when you go back.”
Pathan, 47, who is Indian-American, has been back in Cary with his wife and three young children since August. He is continuing that “real work” by speaking at churches and mosques, to local government meetings, and to the media and medical students about what he saw and what he wants to see end in Gaza.
A year after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led raid on Israel killed some 1,200 people and resulted in the abduction of more than 250 hostages, Israel’s response is taking an ever-higher toll. More than 43,000 Palestinians are reported to have died, at least half of them women and children.
Pathan said his first-hand reports are eye-opening for many in his audiences. Indeed, the testimony of doctors who’ve spent time in Gaza is one of the few ways the world is able to learn about what is happening there. Journalists are generally barred from entering the enclave, new medical missions are blocked and aid workers on the ground are being evacuated from northern Gaza.
Gaza medical students and doctors keep Pathan informed via text. This week he learned of the bombing of a building full of displaced people and medical staff depleted by the Israel Defense Forces’ detention of doctors suspected of ties to Hamas.
A text this week reported on the killing of a doctor by drone fire during the evacuation of Kamal Odwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which came under assault by soldiers and tanks. The hospital is near where Pathan worked, the severely damaged Indonesian Hospital, one of northern Gaza’s largest health care facilities. Another text reported on a doctor’s arrest of the only surgeon working in northern Gaza.
Pathan said that in taking extreme measures to root out Hamas, Israel is in turn creating a new generation of people who will fiercely oppose it.
“It’s like the Martin Luther King quote, you can’t drive out darkness with darkness, only light can do that. It’s almost like you’re trying to drive out hate with hate and you’re creating more hate there,” he said.
Pathan is accustomed to treating serious injuries. But it’s what he couldn’t treat for lack of resources in Gaza that troubles him now. “I still have nightmare dreams about specifically bad days when I’m looking at children that I know are going to die. These are kids that all I can think of are my own kids because they are in the same category, 8 years old and my oldest is 13, and that is exactly the category of kids that I couldn’t save or couldn’t do anything for.”
Those memories drive Pathan to spread the word of what he saw in Gaza and what he wants to see stop. When he is asked to speak, he tells those inviting him that the size of the audience doesn’t matter.
“I tell them I don’t care if it’s one person or a thousand people, yes, I will tell the story,” he said. “I’ll make some time. I’ll do what’s needed because I think that’s important.”
When it’s possible, Pathan wants to go back to Gaza. But for now he’s using his words instead of his hands to save lives there.
Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com
