In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Dr. Tammy Abughnaim, an American physician who has been to Gaza twice since 10/7/23, serving as a humanitarian physician and has worked at Al-Aqsa Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex; and Dr. Yara Asi, assistant professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics, and visiting scholar at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, where she is co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights. Dr. Asi is also a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, a 2020-2021 Fulbright U.S. scholar to the West Bank, and a 2023 Palestine fellow for the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
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Recorded on December 17, 2024
Resources
Dr. Tammy Abughnaim is an American board certified emergency physician based in Chicago. She completed emergency medicine residency at Advocate Christ and now works at several community sites. She has been to Gaza twice during the crisis serving as a humanitarian physician and has worked at Al-Aqsa Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex. Dr.Abughnaim’s work focuses on healthcare delivery in low resource settings, point of care ultrasound, and social justice. She is a member of Healthcare Workers for Palestine.
Media featuring/interviews with Dr. Abughnaim:
- WTTW 10/2/24: Chicago-Based Doctors Returning From Gaza Call for Cease-Fire Amid Civilian Deaths
- TRT 9/11/24: American doctor calls for action after witnessing war crimes in Gaza [“Emergency physician Dr. Tammy Abughnaim said she doesn’t know why people ‘aren’t shouting at the top of their lungs’ about the violence Israel is inflicting against Palestinians – with the US government’s consent.”]
- The Nation 8/21/24: As Democrats Party, Doctors Beg the World to Listen to Gaza
- Common Dreams 8/20/24: ‘History Is Watching’: Gaza Doctors Urge Harris to Back Israel Arms Embargo at Democratic Convention
- WBEZ 4/10/24: This Chicago doctor worked in a Gaza hospital. Here’s what she saw.
Dr. Yara Asi is an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics, and a visiting scholar at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, where she is co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, a 2020-2021 Fulbright U.S. scholar to the West Bank, and a 2023 Palestine fellow for the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She previously served as the U.S. fellow at Al Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. Her research focuses on global health, human rights, and development in fragile populations. Asi has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Nation, among other publications, and has been featured on Al Jazeera, The World, and other outlets. Her new book with Johns Hopkins University Press, How War Kills: The Overlooked Threats to Our Health, examines war as a public health crisis.
Dr. Asi-authored reports/analyses:
- Arab Center Washington DC/Yara Asi 11/7/24: Intent to Destroy: Documenting a Year of Israel’s Attacks on Health in Gaza
- Wilson Center/Yara Asi 10/10/24: A Year of Horror for Gaza’s Women, and an Uncertain Future
- The New Humanitarian/Yara Asi 5/20/24: Gaza demands a new kind of humanitarian action
- Harvard University 4/9/24: Press Release: New Study of Satellite Data Shows: Israel’s assault on hospitals, schools, and water infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was not “random”
- New York Times/Yara Asi 3/12/24: Gaza Is Showing Us We Need New Tools to Measure Trauma [podcast + transcript]
- Conflict & Health Journal 4/4/24: ‘Nowhere and no one is safe’: spatial analysis of damage to critical civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the Israeli military campaign, 7 October to 22 November 2023 [Yara Asi, David Mills, P. Gregg Greenough, Dennis Kunichoff, Saira Khan, Jamon Van Den Hoek, Corey Scher,
- Saleem Halabi, Sawsan Abdulrahim, Nadine Bahour, A. Kayum Ahmed, Bram Wispelwey & Weeam Hammoudeh]
- New York Times/Yara Asi 2/22/24: The Trauma Experienced in Gaza Is Beyond PTSD
- Health & Human Rights Journal (Harvard/Drexel Universities) 11/29/23: Health Faculty Call for Ceasefire in Gaza and Centering Palestine in the Classroom [led by A. Kayum Ahmed, Bram Wispelwey, and Yara Asi]
Previous Yara Asi podcasts with FMEP (specifically about health & Gaza);
- 4/25/24: Dead, Disabled, Displaced, Detained, Orphaned: The Toll of Israel’s War on Palestinian Children
- 4/5/24: “Incitement, Displacement, Destruction, Willful Flouting of International Law”: Israel’s Assault on Al Shifa Hospital
- 2/20/24: “Famine is a Massacre in Slow Motion:” On Mass Hunger & Israel’s Culpability in Gaza
- 11/14/23: From Israel’s Blockade to the Siege on Al Shifa Hospital: Public Health in Gaza
- 8/2/23: Blockade, Bombings, and Continuing Trauma: Assessing Mental Health in Gaza
Other resources
- Gaza Projections Project – Crisis in Gaza: Scenario-Based Health Impact Projections
- Action on Armed Violence 12/12/24: Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza, study finds
- The Guardian 12/6/24: It will take years to clear medical evacuation backlog in Gaza, says WHO
- Doctors Without Border 12/3/24: Three questions about the “apocalyptic” situation in Gaza
- Doctors Without Borders 11/29/24: Obstacles to essential supplies deepen Gaza’s catastrophic humanitarian and medical situation
- Airwars: Patterns of harm analysis – Gaza, October 2024
- New York Times 10/9/24: 65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza
- The Lancet 7/20/24: Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential
- Institute for Palestine Studies 2024: “Medicide” in Gaza and International Law: Time for Banning the Bombing of Hospitals [Nicola Perugini & Neve Gordon]
- Medical Aid for Palestine