Since October 7, Zionists have wielded atrocity propaganda to justify genocide, while Palestinians have shared testimony of the atrocities they have witnessed. The difference is not just in the truth of these stories, but also their function.

In a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah discusses the liberatory potential of medicine, the genocidal nature of Zionism, and the obligation, when confronted with the logic of elimination, to remain unwavering in our commitment to life. 

In the sterile field of medicine, mention of culpability or politics amounts to contamination. In the colonial situation, doctors can’t afford this narrow a definition of health, or of life–diagnosis requires context.

Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing exemplifies the inextricable tangling of witness and attempted erasure—of martyrdom in the wholest sense—in occupied Palestine.

The erasure of Palestinian life has been ongoing since the start of the Nakba in 1948. This erasure is material — massacre-propelled ethnic cleansing — but it is also narrative.

Although coronavirus seems to be relatively contained inside the Gaza Strip, the new cases raise the specter for what many of us have known for a long time: trapping millions in close quarters is a death sentence. In this crisis, as many officials reocgnize, incarcerated people should be released.