A DOCTOR WHO is set to address a meeting of the Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign today has said he feels anxious ahead of his return to Gaza following the killing of the aid workers earlier this week.
Professor Nick Maynard is a surgeon at Oxford University Hospital and has been visiting Gaza since 2010 on a regular basis to perform and to teach cancer surgery.
He gave a talk on his experiences in Gaza in Kinsale earlier this week and will take part in a public meeting at 1.30pm in University College Cork.
Maynard had been due to take part in a rally and march, but this has been changed to a public meeting in UCC due to Storm Kathleen.
Maynard has Cork connections via his wife Fionnuala, who is from Kinsale.
He was most recently in Gaza during the Christmas and New Year period, when he led the first UK medical team into the besieged region during the current conflict.
Maynard told The Journal that the killing of the aid workers from World Central Kitchen means that the team’s “anxiety levels now much higher” ahead of their next visit to Gaza.
Israel has said it was targeting a “Hamas gunman” when it killed the aid workers, with the Israeli military admitting a series of “grave mistakes”.
The Israeli military said it had dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in the drone strikes, adding thet they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.
“I’m going back in later this month, and I think it’d be silly not to be concerned about it,” said Maynard.
“I am anxious about going back in but that is overridden in many ways by the desire to go and help people I know so well.”
Meanwhile, Maynard told The Journal that he’s never seen evidence of Hamas militants in Gaza hospitals during his almost 15 years in the region.
On Monday, the Israeli army pulled out of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after an intensive, two-week military operation against Hamas.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari this week claimed that there were “more terrorists in the hospital than patients or medical staff”.
He added that 900 suspects had been apprehended at the hospital, with over 500 of them “definitely” militants.
Al-Shifa hospital has been left in ruins and Hamas has denied operating it or other health facilities.
“There are claims with the final destruction of the Al-Shifa Hospital that there were Hamas soldiers fighting Israeli Defence Forces in Al-Shifa,” Maynard told The Journal.
“That may or may not be true, I’ve no idea, and I certainly can’t say there have never been any soldiers fighting there,” he added.
“But the claim that it’s a major command centre, there is no credible evidence to support that.
“I can only talk about my own experiences, and I’ve been in Al-Shifa Hospital on many occasions in the last 15 years, I’ve spent two weeks in Al-Aqsa Hospital during this current conflict, and I’ve never seen any evidence of Hamas militants in the hospitals.”
Maynard also noted that no part of Al-Shifa Hospital has ever been off-limits to him and added: “It seems inconceivable to me that this would be a command centre for Hamas, and yet there is completely unrestricted access to every single part of the hospital.”
While Maynard acknowledged that he doesn’t “know what goes on in any tunnels”, he said he has seen “no evidence whatsoever” of Hamas in the hospital.
“The people who’ve worked in Al-Shifa for many years, who were there every single day until it was disabled, who I’ve known for many years and trust, they have told me repeatedly they’ve never seen Hamas there,” said Maynard.
Maynard was scheduled to go to Gaza on 21 October last, but that trip was cancelled due to the 7 October attack by Hamas which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians.
Maynard visits Gaza as part of Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that offers medical services in the region.
“I’ve had a long relationship with them, so I said to them, ‘the minute you send any team in, I want to be with it’.
“So I was part of that first team at Christmas time.”
Maynard told The Journal that he primarily performs and teaches cancer surgery during his time in Gaza.
However, all the cancer surgeries he had planned have since been cancelled and he spends most of his time in Gaza working on severe bomb injuries.
“Virtually no one’s getting treatment for cancer,” said Maynard, “and what’s even worse is no one’s being diagnosed with cancer because there are no diagnostic facilities.
“We hear about the 34,000 people killed by the bombs, which is tragic, but we’re not really hearing about the vast number of excess deaths due to infectious diseases, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease.
“None of those conditions have been treated properly and the excess deaths will dwarf that figure of 34,000.”
Maynard said it’s been estimated that “if the war continues to escalate as it is, the number of excess deaths will exceed 260,000”.
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