Inverness doctor says US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plans are ‘morally incomprehensible’
Proposals announced by President Donald Trump for the US to take over Gaza and relocate the Palestinian people are ‘morally incomprehensible’, according to an Inverness doctor with family living there.
For the past 15 months, Gaza-born Dr Salim Ghayyda, a consultant paediatrician at Raigmore Hospital, has lived in daily fear for the lives of his extended family including his siblings.
Along with his elderly parents, they lived in the north of the Gaza strip but fled south after Israel began its offensive following the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen who killed 1300 people and took 251 hostages.
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Amid a fragile ceasefire, members of Dr Ghayyda’s family are among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who walked the long road back home to what is now a bombed wasteland.
“They did it on foot because it was too difficult to use cars,” Dr Ghayyda said.
“It took a whole day. They started about 5am and got home by sunset.
“It was a horrendously long journey with small kids.
“What they found was like a bomb site.”
But he said they were lucky in that although parts of the four-storey family home built by his father were partially destroyed including doors and windows, other parts were habitable.
The flat where he and his wife first lived when they were married has been totally destroyed.
“It is like a ghost city of rubble and people are still buried under the rubble - that is my understanding,” he said.
He responded to comments made by US President Donald Trump who has spoken of his vision of the US taking over Gaza which could be redeveloped into the "Riviera of the Middle East" and resettling the 2.1 million Palestinians elsewhere.
“If it was not someone like him, I would have taken it as a joke which it is not,” said Dr Ghayyda who maintained it would amount to ethnic cleansing.
“He is the president of the USA, the most powerful country on earth and I think he is serious about it.
“It is morally incomprehensible. It is dangerous.”
Dr Ghayyda was born and grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza - his father having born in the city of Lod and forcibly moved to Gaza following the creation of the state of Israel.
Now a British Palestinian, he is married with a son and two daughters and has worked for the NHS for more than 20 years.
After Israel began its offensive, Dr Ghyadda launched an online funding campaign - which has raised more than £124,000 - in a bid to get 31 members of his family to safety.
In April, his elderly parents. a sister and nephew were allowed to cross the border into Egypt following a difficult and uncertain process involving a $15,000 payment to an official travel agency.
They were followed by a brother and his wife and their two children while a sister and her husband and their two children managed to leave by their own efforts.
But four brothers and a sister along their families remained in Gaza as the conflict raged on.
They included a brother, a radiographer, and his wife, a nurse, along with their young daughter who was to ill to travel at the time an evacuation to the south of the Gaza strip was ordered.
Dr Ghyadda said his family wanted to remain in Gaza.
“They are have aspirations and hopes,” he said.
“They will help to rebuild Gaza and rebuild their house.
“They are willing to sacrifice and stay in this awful situation which is almost inhuman.”
Recalling his memories of growing up in Gaza, Dr Ghyadda said he had fond and happy memories of his young childhood in a close-knit family.
“We lived a basic life,” he said
“I was a typical child. All I wanted was to have fun.
“I spent my childhood playing football in the streets of Gaza - and running from my mum so I didn’t have to do my homework!”
He said things started to change as a teenager.
“I was beaten by Israeli soldiers randomly in the street,” he recalled.
“On our way to school they would stop us at checkpoints.
“I was slapped and kicked. It was my life as a teenager.
“Many of my friends were arrested. Luckily, I was not imprisoned.”
But such was the worry he could be imprisoned - and also the lack of a medical school in Gaza - his father was keen that he should continue his education abroad.
After completing his medical studies, he returned to work as a young doctor at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main hospital, and Nasser Hospital as well as the Al-Nasser Children's Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
He and his wife, Hala, also owned a small flat in Gaza where they had their first two children.
After coming to the UK, it was rented out and the money used for charity or to help family members.
“That is all gone now,” he said.
“It was a civilian building. Families lived there. It was not a military base.
“In my opinion, Israel has destroyed it and they need to pay me back.”
Asked about the possibility of revisiting Gaza, he replied: “Whether it is me, my family or Palestinians in diaspora, we will never lose hope.
“We will stay resilient and remain steadfast.
“This is our land. This is our history.”
