In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, 2023 FMEP Fellow Dr. Yara Asi joins FMEP’s Dr. Sarah Anne Minkin to discuss Israel’s March 2024 attack on Al Shifa hospital, the largest and most important medical center in Gaza, known as the heart of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. In addition to looking at the details of Israel’s assault on Al Shifa and the area around it, Dr. Asi discusses the destruction of Al Shifa as part of Israel’s ongoing effort to destroy the infrastructure needed to sustain any life in Gaza.
Resources from Dr. Yara Asi:
How War Kills: The Overlooked Threats to Our Health, by Dr. Yara Asi, published January 2024 by Johns Hopkins Press
Dr. Yara Asi’s Occupied Thoughts podcasts about public health in Gaza:
- “Famine is a Massacre in Slow Motion:” On Mass Hunger & Israel’s Culpability in Gaza, with Professor Alex de Waal, 2/20/24
- International Law & Israel/Palestine: A Primer, 11/21/24, with FMEP Fellow & human rights attorney Rabea Eghbariah and Professor Ardi Imseis
- From Israel’s Blockade to the Siege on Al Shifa Hospital: Public Health in Gaza, 11/14/23, with Sarah Anne Minkin
- Blockade, Bombings, and Continuing Trauma: Assessing Mental Health in Gaza, 8/2/23, with Dr. Yasser Abu-Jamei (Gaza Community Mental Health Programme), Ghada Majadli (Physicians for Human Rights Israel), and Razzan Quran(George Washington University)
- Palestinian Public Health & Israeli Apartheid: Challenges, Possibilities, and Priorities, 4/4/23, with Sarah Anne Minkin
Resources cited in this podcast:
- Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 4/1/24: Gaza: Shifa Medical Complex witnesses one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history
- Reuters, 4/1/24: Israeli troops exit Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, leaving rubble and bodies
- NYT, 4/2/24: Israeli Army Withdraws From Major Gaza Hospital, Leaving Behind a Wasteland
- MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians) 4/2/24: The destruction of Shifa Hospital is latest evidence of Israel’s systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system
- Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine, 4/3/24: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
- Naftali Bennett’s 3/31/24 Tweet: “Amazing battlefield achievement.”
Bios:
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.
Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, is FMEP’s Director of Programs & Partnerships. She leads FMEP’s programming, works to deepen FMEP’s relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. A graduate of Yale University, Sarah Anne earned her doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley and is an affiliated faculty member at UC-Berkeley’s Center for Right-Wing Studies.