"As in Gaza, this war takes its toll on children," laments Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta in an Associated Press article last week featuring the British-Palestinian surgeon's program to treat Palestinian and Lebanese children harmed in the war against Israel ("Children brought from Gaza to Lebanon to heal from wounds become caught in another war," Nov. 13). "All wars are waged on children."
Abu Sitta is all too aware of the horrifying price that children are paying for the war that Hamas brutally launched on Oct. 7, 2023 and which Hezbollah joined the very next day.
Indeed, AP's Amy Sewell reports:
Abu Sitta said the wounds of children in Lebanon are "identical to the injuries of Palestinian children from Gaza." Most are wounded at home. They suffered "crush injuries to the limbs, blast injuries to the face," and often "multiple members of the family killed at the same time," he said.
Sewell's 1200-word article describes in detail the life-altering injuries suffered by children the surgeon brought from Gaza to Lebanon for treatment: Halima Abou Yassine, "the youngest, lying in the street, her skull cracked open, her brain exposed." Adam Afana, 5, nearly lost an arm, and faces complex surgery to reverse the paralysis.
The physicians' Hippocratic oath to "do no harm" is directly at odds with Hamas' and Hezbollah's devastating decision to wage war against Israel in October 2023, condemning tens of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese and Israelis, including countless children, to death and injury.
Yet, last December, in calling for an expansion of the war and urging regional war, Dr. Abu Sitta completely rejected his professional code and squarely aligned himself with the terrorist organizations responsible for imposing war's unfathomable toll on children.
Speaking in Arabic to Sifr Magazine, he said:
I believe that it is so important to expand the [Gaza] war so it becomes a regional war, because we are required to negotiate with a system, not just with one of the subordinates of that system. If we negotiate a ceasefire with the Israelis, they will pull their tanks out [of Gaza] but will keep the siege. They will pull their tanks out, but the World Bank will withhold funds, and the banks might prevent the transfer of the funds that are deposited in Beirut, in Amman, and in the Arab countries.
A regional war will force the entire system – the Americans, their Israeli and Arab collaborators, and their subordinates like the WHO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Red Cross... You will not be able to negotiate with these subordinates, unless the Americans have to deal with a regional war. [Translation by MEMRI.]
How does Dr. Abu Sitta's call for regional war square with his professed concern for the welfare of children in Gaza and Lebanon and why does AP conceal his war-mongering sentiment?
More recently, speaking on Nov. 4 on Iran's state-owned Arabic network Al-Alam, Dr. Abu Sitta, who serves as rector at the University of Glasgow, praised Hamas' and Hezbollah's attacks on Oct. 7 and 8 as based on an understanding "that we reached a historic stage, in which one must take initiative against the Zionist project." While more young innocent children like Abou Youssine and Halima will pay the price of continued war, Dr. Abu Sitta used the Iranian platform this month to pan any ceasefire arrangement as "committing suicide."
Abu Sitta is not alone in violating his professional code of conduct. "Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair, and thorough," says the Society of Professional Journalists's Code of Ethics. "Advancing the power of facts" is the AP's guiding motto. Yet not only does AP's Sewell conceal Dr. Abu Sitta's call for regional war by casting him as some kind of saintly Arab Mother Theresa-like figure. She also treats the surgeon as a credible source, though he has disqualified himself as such.
Last year, Dr. Abu Sitta was a leading figure spreading the Al-Ahli hospital libel, falsely charging that an Israeli airstrike hit the Gaza hospital, killing hundreds. He was present when misfired Islamic Jihad rockets hit the facility's parking lot and blamed Israel for the blast. He has yet to recant his false charge. Dr. Abu Sitta also has a record of supporting designated terror organizations. As reported by The Jewish Chronicle, Abu-Sittah spoke at a ceremony in Beirut commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Maher Al-Yamani, who co-founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group.
In addition, as reported by Jewish News, as well as Nicole Lampert at Unheard, Abu Sitta has promoted posts sympathetic to the proscribed terror group, including one on Oct. 8, the day after the terror group's mass murder, rape, torture, and mutilation of 1,200 Israelis, urging Palestinian civilians to "fight back" and martyr themselves with "dignity." Yet, unbelievably, AP considers Dr. Abu Sitta to be a suitable candidate to bolster the unverified account involving Halima "lying on the street, her skull cracked open, her brain exposed." After she was declared dead at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said her mother, a relative, noticed that she was breathing. And then her mother "manually pump[ed] oxygen into her lungs. After a week, the little girl began to breathe on her own. Finally, she woke up."
It's an extraordinary tale if true, though AP was not able to independently verify the account. According to Abby Sewell:
Officials at Al-Aqsa hospital could not be reached to confirm the account. But Abu Sitta, who has worked in several Gaza hospitals during the war, said in the chaotic situation, it was not uncommon for patients to be misidentified as dead because normal protocols for emergency room examinations were then abandoned.
While AP casts Abu Sitta as someone who is well positioned to verify the account, AP covers up the fact that he is a stalwart supporter of the very terror organizations that Israel is battling and that he never recanted after spreading a toxic libel about a Gaza hospital. In this twisted tale of gross professional malpractice, a journalist cripples the power of facts, rehabilitating the image of a physician who clamors for the maiming of innocent children.
