Minneapolis: ICU nurse tells of firsthand experience with Gaza healthcare crisis

Minneapolis, MN – On Sunday, October 27, over 100 people gathered at the New City Center to listen to a presentation given by Willy Massay, a critical care ICU nurse who was one of the few American healthcare workers to go to Gaza since the start of the war last year. The presentation was hosted by the Minnesota Anti War Committee.

Willy Massay reported his firsthand experience of the healthcare crisis in Gaza, where he witnessed the violence of Israel’s siege. Massay talked about his journey and the tremendous dangers and difficulties of actually getting into Gaza. He spoke at length about the Israeli forces shooting innocent civilians and the children that he watched die in the hospital, while trying to save their lives. Moreover, he described the indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure, the attacks on the hospitals that he worked at, and the murder of his colleagues and patients by the Israeli military. Finally, Massay spoke about the lack of essential healthcare products such as gauze, tourniquets, antibiotics, soap, gloves, etc., due to the total blockade on Gaza, and the countless preventable deaths he witnessed due to the lack of these essential healthcare products.

Massay stated that what Israel is doing in Gaza clearly constitutes a genocide and denounced the U.S. government’s complicity in Israel’s crimes against humanity. He spoke about the role that he and other healthcare workers are playing in documenting the genocidal conditions in for the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court. Massay’s speech and the images and videos he captured while working in Gaza were deeply moving and many people in the packed lecture hall wept while he was speaking.

Layna Crandell, a member of the Anti-War Committee who attended the presentation, said, “Today, Willy Massay told us the true stories of what is happening in Gaza, what our popular news stations barely mention, with vivid details that showed the true humanity of his patients and simultaneously the depraved brutality and violence of Zionism.”

Willy Massay received a standing ovation when he concluded his presentation and it was announced that he would be returning to Gaza in the near future to continue his healthcare work, as Israel continues the ongoing genocide.

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