Video by TRT World Digital
Norwegian physician and professor emeritus Mads Gilbert opens up about his decades-long experience working in the occupied Palestinian territories and how the current situation is — in terms of Israeli brutality against Palestinians — unlike any other he’s witnessed in an exclusive interview with TRT World Digital. He also reflects on his activist side, inviting viewers to consider our shared humanity and what is required on the part of the international community, however challenging, to end Israel’s genocidal assault against Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert is a Norwegian physician, humanitarian, activist, and politician for the Red Party. He is a specialist in anesthesiology and head of the emergency medicine department at the University Hospital of North Norway and Professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø. Since the 1970s, he has been actively involved with solidarity work concerning Palestinians, and has served as a doctor for several periods in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. His book on the Gaza War, Eyes on Gaza (2009), has been translated into several languages. He has been the subject of controversy for his political activism. In November 2014, Israel indefinitely banned Gilbert from entering Gaza, officially for security reasons. The decision sparked outrage and the Norwegian government subsequently requested that the decision be reversed. The Israeli Foreign Ministry later clarified that the ban regarded setting foot in Israel, not Gaza. Israel, Haaretz wrote, is the only available transit point for entering the Gaza Strip when the Rafah border from Egypt is closed.
