Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a famed Palestinian British surgeon who serves as rector of Glasgow University, was in Türkiye to speak about the plight of Gazans on Monday. The doctor, who raised the voice of Palestinians suffering from Israeli attacks, was hosted by professor Erol Özvar, head of the Higher Education Council (YÖK), before attending a conference in the capital, Ankara.
The famed surgeon traveled to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, where he worked for 43 days to tend to Palestinians injured in the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian enclave.
In April, he was invited to a conference in Germany in the capital, Berlin, to talk about his experiences in Gaza but was blocked from entering the country. More recently, on May 4, Abu-Sitta was also denied entry to France even though he was invited to the French Senate. Upon arrival in Paris, where he was supposed to speak at a symposium in the French Senate, he was informed that Germany had imposed a Schengen-wide “administrative ban” on him for one year.
Türkiye, a staunch advocate of the Palestinian cause, which seeks to be the voice for Palestinians oppressed by Israel, invited Abu-Sitta to a conference at Ankara Social Sciences University on Monday.
At a meeting with the Palestinian British surgeon, Özvar said they condemned the genocide in Gaza and desired that the humanitarian crisis there would end as soon as possible. “We are pleased with your arrival here,” he told Abu-Sitta.
Abu-Sitta later attended the conference entitled “Genocide Attempt in Gaza: Account of an Eyewitness,” where he spoke about what he saw during his stint at Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospitals in Gaza. He worked there until Nov. 18 before leaving for the United Kingdom, when hospitals stopped functioning properly due to a lack of medical equipment.
The surgeon said he did not feel like a stranger in Türkiye and knew he was in a country of people who were aware of the tragedy in Gaza.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference, professor Özvar said they invited all academics and university students who lost their jobs at universities in Western countries due to their opposition to massacres in Gaza to Türkiye. He said the doors of Turkish universities were always open to those people and they would soon launch a website for easier admission to Turkish universities for them.
Türkiye, a major hub for international students, already houses a large number of students from Gaza and other Palestinian cities attending Turkish universities.
A recent presidential decree reimbursed tuition fees for master’s and doctoral students residing in war-hit Gaza, Palestine, who are pursuing a thesis program or equivalent in public higher education institutions in Türkiye.
Özvar said what Abu-Sitta went through in Europe was a blatant violation of freedom of expression and “yet another example of Western countries’ double standards.” He mentioned how peaceful demonstrations by academics and students in the U.S., Western Europe and Canada were restricted through anti-democratic ways and how pro-Palestinian demonstrators faced great pressure, including some fired from their jobs or expelled from their schools.
“I call upon them to come to our country. Our doors have always been open to people from the West who faced oppression,” he said, referring to the Ottoman Empire’s welcome to Jews persecuted in Europe in the 15th century and the Republic of Türkiye’s admission of academics fleeing the Nazis before and during World War II.
Abu-Sitta related his experience in Gaza to students and academics at the conference, recalling how 350 warplanes bombed the city before his arrival. “At Shifa Hospital, every spot was full (of patients),” he said. He recounted how he was forced to use soap instead of a proper disinfectant for a 15-year-old teenager who suffered burns over half of his body.
He told the conference that the children are targets in the war that has razed entire neighborhoods to the ground. He noted that the hospital had a capacity of 2,500 patients, but the number of injured brought there on the first day of the conflict exceeded 6,000.
“We tried to save as many injured as we could and were forced to choose between them for treatment. We ran out of morphine at one instance and had to administer low doses of painkillers to patients. It wasn’t effective, but we had no other option. We started using vinegar when we ran out of disinfectants. We are about to run out of all vital supplies,” he recounted.
Abu-Sitta said Gaza’s health care system was overwhelmed and amid a lack of medical supplies, they had to amputate the injured.
“I worked in Syria and Iraq, but I’ve never seen wounds I saw in Gaza elsewhere,” he said.