This story has been updated with additional information.
As hospitals in Gaza struggle to keep up with the ongoing humanitarian crisis, Dearborn Heights internist Dr. Nidal Jboor has helped raise more than $400,000 to expand Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
Shifa Hospital is functioning at 200-300% capacity, according to the World Health Organization on Aug. 12. The fundraiser hosted by Doctors Against Genocide, the group Jboor co-founded with Dr. Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle, a Boston-based pediatric neurologist, hopes to add a 140-bed extension to Shifa.
Israel invaded the hospital in November 2023 and March 2024, saying Hamas worked in the area of the hospital, a claim Hamas denied. Medical professionals have continued to work out of the seriously damaged hospital in the time since.
The Zeffy fundraiser that’s raised over $400,000 of its $737,000 goal will help engineers in Gaza buy and reuse materials — as aid entering Gaza is heavily restricted by Israel — to extend the hospital, Jboor and Hawash-Kuemmerle said. The project will require demolition of broken structures, site clearance and construction.
“The project is made up of very high durability tent material and wood frames that are reclaimed from wherever they can get them,” Hawash-Kuemmerle said. “They’re recycling beds that have been destroyed, and they are rehabilitating them with welders in Gaza.”
The floors will be reclaimed plastic and concrete, and the equipment in the hospital will be sparse, as there are no monitors available, Hawash-Kuemmerle said.
“They’re using whatever is in the rubble to rebuild,” Jboor said.
Doctors Against Genocide, a group made up of more than 20,000 medical professionals around the world, is in contact with doctors in Gaza daily, Jboor said. Hawash-Kuemmerle said the group hears from project organizers in Gaza daily about conditions, project updates and how the funds are being used.
Jboor said many donations come from the group’s membership, but anyone can donate and advocate for Palestinians in Gaza through Doctors Against Genocide. With the conflict changing every day, the plans to rebuild the hospital may also change, which could mean putting it in a different location based on evacuation orders, Jboor said.
“Despite all the killing, despite all the disaster that has happened and has been inflicted on Gaza, there’s still more people alive there, more children alive, more patients alive, more doctors alive than the ones we’ve lost,” Jboor said. “So we cannot give up on them and whatever they need. Whatever they think they need to manage these impossible conditions, we are ready to help them.”
Israel’s military assault has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians in Gaza since Oct. 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The recent Israel-Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage, according to the Israeli Government.
Since then, almost everyone in Gaza has been displaced. As of Aug. 22, more than 500,000 people in Gaza are facing famine, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global initiative aimed at enhancing food security and nutrition.
Doctors Against Genocide started as an advocacy group taking the medical perspective that prevention and stopping more people from being injured or killed is better than sending aid as the war continues, Jboor said.
“Advocacy to stop the genocide is a medical intervention,” Jboor said. “We are not trying to be politicians. That’s not our goal. We are doing this as doctors because we think this is a medical necessity. It is a medical emergency.”
The group moved to raise funds for and help organize the distribution of medical and food aid because it was a tangible action that could help the people on the ground they hear from daily, Hawash-Kuemmerle said.
“It (fundraising) is not our main thing, but we felt obligated to do it because we saw how our colleagues are on the ground are having such a hard time meeting what’s required from them,” Hawash-Kuemmerle said. “The only reason why we actually started aid is because we know the people extremely well. We trust them. We trust the project. We know exactly what is happening.”
Outside of this fundraiser, Doctors Against Genocide is also hosting fundraisers to help sustain 400 medical students and their families in Gaza and a food distribution center for those who have become blind during the conflict due to malnutrition or Israeli attacks, Hawash-Kuemmerle said.
Another goal for the group is to create a widespread medical definition of genocide that emphasizes prevention over intent, Jboor said.
“It’s our mission to put international guardrails or stops to be effective to stop this,” Jboor said. “It (the current definition) might be good for history, but for us doctors who care about protecting life, we need a definition, we need a mechanism to be deployed immediately, once there is significant risk that a community might be at risk.”
Hawash-Kuemmerle said, though many of the group’s actions so far have focused on Palestine, the group hopes to do more advocacy for people in Congo, Sudan and Rohingya soon.
Doctors Against Genocide will hold its second annual convention on Sept. 20-21 in Ann Arbor. Jboor said healthcare workers around the U.S. will gather to discuss the intersection of social issues and medicine in the U.S. and abroad, as well as hear from speakers from Palestine, Sudan and Congo.
Doctors Against Genocide’s advocacy has faced pushback by groups including the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israel group founded in the 1910s to combat antisemitism, after clips of speeches from the Aug. 29-31 People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit circulated online.
“It is time for us to pay back and stop the criminals, the perpetrators, the child murderers,” Jboor said at the conference. “We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, in Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe. We all know them … They need to be locked up, they need to be taken out, they need to be neutralized, to save children … We have been speaking up for two years. Now it’s time to escalate and to act and to get the murderers out.”
Jboor told the Free Press on Tuesday, Sept. 10, this is not a call for violence, but a call to remove complicit lawmakers from office.
“There is nothing controversial about stopping a genocide,” Jboor said. “As doctors, we care about protecting life. We never endorse violence or killing. All what we care about and all what we are asking is for the killing to stop everywhere.”
Contact Natalie Davies at ndavies@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroit doctor leads multi-thousand dollar fundraiser to rebuild Gaza hospital
Reporting by Natalie Davies, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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