Dr Kiran Rahim is a UK paediatric doctor. She saw Gaza volunteer doctor Ali Tahrawi’s footage of the appalling, horrifying death of a little Palestinian toddler ripped apart by Israeli bombs in Gaza, breathing her last with her shredded internal organs hanging outside her body as a helpless, stunned Tahrawi could do nothing more than watch and try to comfort her.
If you can bear to watch – and we must bear witness if we can – the footage is at the end of this article.
Ali Tahrawi: horror in Gaza
Dr Rahim wrote this:
As a children’s doctor, I have seen death in many forms:
drownings, burns, sudden cardiac arrests, sepsis, even gun and gang violence.But never – not once- have I prayed for a child to die.
Until today.
Because today, I saw her.
Her tiny body ripped open.
Her liver shredded.
Her intestines outside her body.
And yet, she was still alive.
Still breathing.
Still gasping.
Still covered in blood pouring from every wound.And in that moment, I prayed.
Not for her survival
but for death’s mercy.
Because to survive this would mean a lifetime of trauma, pain, endless surgeries and hospital visits in the best centres in the world.
A lifetime of pain and suffering
And that is not life. That is torture.I will never unsee her.
I will never forget her trembling body.
I will never forgive.Because children are being shredded on our screens every day
by weapons and hellfire missiles paid for with our tax money.
Children whose only “crime”
Was to be born Palestinian.
CONTENT WARNING
Tahrawi’s own stunned horror was also filmed:
He wrote:
Two years into this hell, and I have never seen anything like what I’m witnessing now.
These days bring the most devastating, heart-shattering injuries; wounds so severe you stand frozen, wondering if even God could save them.
We stood helpless, not knowing what to do. I felt this little girl’s final heartbeats with my hands, pulsing through torn flesh.
If images of torn and broken children are not enough to stop this madness, then what is?
I am ready to sacrifice my life for this cause. I will never stop struggling for my people. But how can I, when what we are facing is nothing but death and evil?
Seventeen hours into my exhausting shift, carrying the weight of unbearable stories; families escaping death in the north, only to face more death here, and others arriving with injuries that could not be treated there. I finally lay down to rest my back. But then came another airstrike.
Minutes later, the ambulances arrived with the wounded. Among them was this girl. I saw her heart stop beating, and I feel mine will stop soon.
My message to the world is simple: if we are left to burn in this hell alone, then humanity itself has already died. This world is no longer human.
And the silence that allowed all of this will haunt you forever.
Israel is a terror state, a child-murderer state. Every government leader that aids it or does nothing has the blood of almost 500,000 slaughtered and starved Palestinian children – four fifths of them under five years old – on his or her hands. Keir Starmer is steeped in the blood of innocents.
Featured image via screengrab
