# Oct 7th | Why Doctors Beg to Return to Gaza | Gaza Diaries with Dr. Omar Suleiman **Author:** Dr. Omar Suleiman **Series:** Gaza Diaries with Dr. Omar Suleiman **Published:** 2025-10-07 **YouTube:** https://youtu.be/bvmweClisgs **URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/oct-7th-why-doctors-beg-to-return-to-gaza-gaza-diaries-with-dr-omar-suleiman **Topics:** Politics & Practical Theology, Social Justice ## Description Two years into the genocide in Gaza, the pain is relentless, but so is the faith and resilience of the Palestinian people. In this video, Dr. Omar Suleiman speaks with: – Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a board-certified emergency medicine physician who travelled to Gaza, and made headlines for walking out of a... ## Transcript **[0:00]** And then the dad said, which that was very overwhelming for me, but he looked at him **[0:16]** and he said, Amanah, like Amanah, those were his last words. Like that was one of the most comforting things you could say to the father of a martyr, to the father of the shaheed. And for me, it was just this insane cognitive dissonance between like using all my sujood **[0:33]** du'a time to pray for Palestine, to pray for Gaza, and then wake up the next morning and work at a company that I have evidence is contributing to that suffering. I just did not want to face Allah on the Day of Judgment and have to admit to any complicity **[0:54]** in this genocide. We really need to think of our humanity, Muslims, but I'm talking about in general. What is a human being if you don't feel the others, if you don't feel you can, if you can do something, you can do it for the others. **[1:12]** Otherwise we're going to be what? So what can we do? This is, and again, I said this actually at the border after we passed, I looked at my colleagues and I said, I always felt being a physician is a profession gives you a lot. **[1:28]** Yes, it's a humanity, you help people, but reality gives you a lot. This is the only time when I'm so grateful. I felt it at the border. I'm so grateful to Allah. I am a physician because without being physician, this is probably will be very difficult. **[1:45]** And number two, exactly. Why do you want to do that? That's when you say being a physician is a humanitarian, it's you help people. And absolutely, that's what they told us all of us. Even I didn't deliver a lot. **[2:01]** I delivered only two people because the drive from the hospital to the other hospital was not very safe. So they kept telling me not today, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. But everyone looked at me, especially, or everybody actually, they said, the fact you are here, tell us that you care. **[2:20]** Every single person there when it's time for salah is praying. Every single person. And they're praying anywhere. I remember in the ICU that the ICU doctor and one of his nurses stepped out into the hallway to pray Dhuhr. And they've got their sajjadah, they've got their carpet that they're laying down. **[2:38]** Nobody's missing salah over there. But the respect for dignity in Gaza, I've never seen anything like that in the United States. I was in Detroit, in Chicago. If somebody's belly was exposed in the process of us carrying them to a CT scanner or putting **[2:54]** them on the floor, a nurse, a doctor was grabbing a sheet to cover them. If there is an elderly person that comes in that's sick, a young person who's injured or has all these different tubes and lines inside of them, he's getting up off of the bed to give it to the elderly person. **[3:12]** There was a grandma who was shot by a drone, paralyzed from the waist down. Everybody's calling her mama. He said, before the war, he said, I was complaining that I was only getting 60% of my salary. He said, before the war, I was complaining that I can only go from the north to the south. **[3:31]** Before the war, I was saying, we don't have a lot of different restaurants. It's always the same food over and over again. Before the war, I was complaining about the water. Before the war, I was complaining about 12 hours of electricity because Gaza operates at an energy deficit. He said, after the war, I have 0% of my salary. **[3:48]** He said, I've got no food, no water. He goes, I can't even go to the north of Gaza anymore. I can only stay in Khan Younes and Rafah. And he goes, we have no electricity now. He goes, so the day that this war is over, every single day I'm going to say alhamdulillah. I'm going to appreciate the barakah that I live in. **[4:03]** So what the people of Gaza have done is they've built tents right next to the masjid. And so they pray tarawih there, even post breaking of the ceasefire, they were still gathering to pray tarawih in numbers. **[4:19]** Because I, maybe we can talk about it later if you remind me. I went to the masjid for tarawih as well. So I went for a prayer. I saw people going in different musallas, somewhere out in the open, just on the street. Kids with their parents walking to the musalla as well as tents. **[4:34]** So I prayed inside of a tent. The musalla was packed. It was next, it was immediately next to or across from a destroyed masjid. The masjid, the crater that the missile left at that masjid went 18 meters deep. That's how the level, the strength of the bomb they use to attack that masjid in Khan Younes. **[4:54]** And subhanAllah, the khatib, it was a short khutbah, it was six minutes. And he reminded the people of the same things that, see the religion of Islam is universal to everyone. So the same messages that you're being shared with here, they're being shared with there. The reminder of taqwa, that Ramadan is meant to build in us things that carry on with us **[5:13]** throughout the year. And but he, one thing he emphasized to the people is that all of you have suffered. All of you have lost something, your homes, your family, your loved ones, your limbs. But Allah wants us to be happy on this day. So we will be happy on this day. And in Gaza, this man, subhanAllah, old man, 79 years old, but the picture of sakinah, he **[5:35]** had black dress shoes, black dress pants, a suit jacket on, looked very like well, well presented, well composed and the like. And when he told me he lives in Egypt and he entered in, you know, a month before the war, I asked him, why are you still here? **[5:50]** Because he could have left back to Egypt. And his response was so telling. He said that, he said, he quoted the hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ). And which Prophet (ﷺ) said that the best ribat, the best form of keeping, you know, **[6:07]** keeping your ground on a Muslim territory that's being under attack, there will come a time when that the best ribat will be the ribat of Asqalan, which is the ribat of Gaza. Gaza is Asqalan, present day Asqalan. And so he quoted that hadith. And so he said, why would, why would I leave? **[6:23]** 79 years old. And he said, why would I leave when I can have this reward? Prophet (ﷺ) said that one day in a ribat is better than this whole world and everything that's in it. If you really are concerned about the future of Christianity in the Holy Land or in Palestine, **[6:39]** whatever you call it, as an American Christian, you have to bring just peace. You have to bring equality. There is no future for us as Palestinian Christians under apartheid. It's plain simple. So in a sense, Islam provides a roadmap. **[6:57]** For me, having embraced Islam late in life, I have come to believe very strongly that because of the influence of the values and principles that are associated with the faith, **[7:20]** one cannot but seek to live a different life. Are you ready? This is what struck me, Shaykh Omar. As if they were ready. As if they were ready. We were talking before we started. **[7:37]** When you talk to the young people, you don't say, you don't say, do you know Quran? You don't say, have you read Quran? Are you a hafidh? The norm. And then they put their head down like that and said, ten ajza. **[7:53]** Ten ajza? Because I asked them, what do you want from us? And more than one person said, we don't need anything. They need a lot. But the ajza. And they said, just go back. **[8:08]** Tell people about us. Don't forget us. We are here. We are living. And when you come to visit us, that had a lot of impact on us. Because I kept saying, I didn't do much. He said, you, not to me, us. **[8:24]** You all did a lot. Go back and speak about us and remind people about a place called Gaza. ## Other Episodes in "Gaza Diaries with Dr. Omar Suleiman" - [I Was The Biggest Atheist Until Gaza | Gaza Diaries | Dr. Omar Suleiman and Robert Martin](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/i-was-the-biggest-atheist-until-gaza-gaza-diaries-dr-omar-suleiman-and-robert-martin.md) - [He Found His Wife in Gaza | Gaza Diaries | Dr. Omar Suleiman & Dr. Mohamed Mustafa](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/he-found-his-wife-in-gaza-gaza-diaries-dr-omar-suleiman-dr-mohamed-mustafa.md) - [Injustice Won't Stop Us: Mahmoud Khalil with Dr. Omar Suleiman | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/injustice-wont-stop-us-mahmoud-khalil-with-dr-omar-suleiman-gaza-diaries.md) - [The South African Minister Who Took on Israel | Dr. Naledi Pandor | Gaza Diaries with Dr. Omar Suleiman](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/the-south-african-minister-who-took-on-israel-naledi-pandor-gaza-diaries.md) - [Reverend Munther Isaac Calls Out Christian Zionists | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/reverand-calls-out-christian-zionists-munther-isaac-gaza-diaries.md) - [What Eid Was Like in Gaza | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/what-eid-was-like-in-gaza-gaza-diaries.md) - [Microsoft Fired Her For Defending Palestine | Gaza Diaries | Ibtihal Aboussad and Dr. Omar Suleiman](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/microsoft-fired-her-for-defending-palestine-ibtihal-aboussad-gaza-diaries.md) - [How Your Tech Is Being Used for Genocide | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/how-your-tech-is-being-used-for-genocide-gaza-diaries.md) - [The Du'a of Yunus Under the Rubble | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/the-dua-of-yunus-under-the-rubble-gaza-diaries.md) - ["If You Hear Bombing, Say Alhamdulilah" | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/if-you-hear-bombing-say-alhamdulilah-gaza-diaries.md) - [Nasser Hospital to Biden Walkout | Gaza Diaries](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/gaza-diaries/nasser-hospital-to-biden-walkout-gaza-diaries.md)