'American Doctor': Three US Doctors Travel to Gaza
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- Poh Si Teng quit her job at ABC News and self-financed "American Doctor" with $150,000 of her own money, directing the documentary from New York City while Gaza-based cinematographers Ibrahim Al Otla and Christopher Renteria shot the footage.
- Three American doctors — Dr. Mark Perlmutter (Jewish physician), Dr. Feroze Sidhwa (Zoroastrian-Iranian trauma surgeon), and Dr. Thaer Ahmad (Palestinian-American emergency medicine physician from Chicago) — traveled to Gaza's Nasser Medical Complex to treat patients.
- Dr. Thaer Ahmad was denied re-entry into Gaza because of his Palestinian heritage, while Drs. Perlmutter and Sidhwa were allowed back in; the source notes the documentary is "ambiently sensitive" to the different frequencies at which a Jew and a Muslim might communicate the same message.
- The doctors' meetings in Washington included one with Sen. Ted Cruz's staff, whose aides "didn't even bother to bring notes back to their boss," per the review.
- The film references a double-tap Israeli drone strike on Nasser Medical Complex that occurred shortly after production, which the source describes as targeting the stairwell "where journalists and rescue workers were then obliterated."
- At a Jews for Peace conference, Dr. Sidhwa told the assembled crowd he had "lost any hope for the future of Gaza," prompting an audience member to compare the timeline to ending the Vietnam War.
- The article's author estimates Israel has killed more than 1,200 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect last October, calling that figure "only the official count."
Why it matters: The self-financed $150,000 documentary by former ABC News journalist Poh Si Teng documents specific medical workers' experiences at Gaza's Nasser Medical Complex, including Dr. Thaer Ahmad's denial of re-entry due to his Palestinian heritage — illustrating how the Gaza crisis has pushed some journalists outside traditional news structures to bear witness to what the film's reviewer calls an ongoing genocide.
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