Bearing Witness in Gaza: A Conversation with Dr. Sarah Lalonde

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Bearing Witness in Gaza: A Conversation with Dr. Sarah Lalonde

"Solidarity without cost is not solidarity.”

nashwa lina khan

Jul 18, 2025

A message written by MSF's Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila before he was killed in a strike on Al-Awda Hospital on November 21, 2023. Palestine 2023 © MSF

In this episode of Habibti Please, Nashwa speaks with Dr. Sarah Lalonde in Monreal a Montreal-based emergency and family physician who recently returned from Gaza. Dr. Lalonde shares what she witnessed while working in the emergency department at the European Gaza Hospital amidst ongoing Israeli attacks—including the deliberate targeting of health workers, collapsing infrastructure, and the catastrophic impact on children.

Together, we explore what it means to bear witness, the emotional toll of working under siege, and how Canadian healthcare systems are complicit in global injustice. This episode is a continuation of our series on medical solidarity, following our previous conversation with Dr. Tarek Loubani of Glia.

We recorded this conversation on July 11th, 2025, in Montreal at Halte 24-7.

“Solidarity without cost is not solidarity.” – Dr. Sarah Lalonde

Sarah is a Montreal-based physician who recently returned from Gaza a few months ago where she joined a team of international medics working in the ruins of a healthcare system under siege. What she witnessed, what she lived through, is not just a humanitarian crisis—it is the architecture of genocide, laid bare.

There’s something haunting about the way Sarah describes a hospital that no longer functions as a place of healing, but as a site of mass death. About treating children whose bodies are broken not by rare diseases, but by bombs. About watching colleagues—nurses, surgeons, paramedics from afar—targeted and killed. In her words and in her silences, there’s a clarity: this is not a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis. It is a man-made horror.

Sarah also speaks to the impossible conditions that define what it means to be a healthcare worker in Gaza. To heal is to resist. But resistance can mean death. In that double-bind, neutrality is a lie—and the idea of “do no harm” becomes a radical, life-threatening commitment. Since October 2023, we've seen Canadian healthcare institutions fail to rise to this moment. Instead of standing up against genocide, they've punished those who do. We've seen students, nurses, residents, and physicians silenced, suspended, blacklisted. Meanwhile, those who justify or ignore the destruction of life go unchallenged. As Sarah reminds us, medicine has never been apolitical. You either uphold life actively—or you make peace with systems that end it.

As listeners, as comrades, as people who care, our work isn’t just to hear these stories—it’s to act on them. To connect Gaza to Canada. To understand that the siege abroad is mirrored by silence at home. That every institutional reprimand for speaking up is part of the same machinery.

Please consider sharing this episode. Talk to your colleagues. Interrupt the silences. Support groups like the Glia Project and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Habibti Please is a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network. Get weekly updates from Canada’s progressive podcast community at harbingermedianetwork.com.

About the Guest

Dr. Sarah Lalonde (@dr.sarah.lalonde)

Dr. Lalonde is an emergency and family physician specializing in rural, remote, and community medicine, particularly within Indigenous communities. She has worked internationally with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Guinea, Albania, Togo, and Chad, and is recognized as Quebec’s provincial physician expert on human trafficking. In Gaza, she served at the European Gaza Hospital as part of an international medical mission.

Resources & Links

Previous Episode

→ Dr. Tarek Loubani on Glia, Open-Source Solidarity, and Gaza

Support Medical Work in Gaza

→ Glia – Global organization for low-cost, open-source medical tools
→ Donate to support Dr. Lalonde & Dr. Loubani’s ongoing work through Glia

🚢 Track the Flotilla

→ Follow the Freedom Flotilla & Dr. Yipeng Ge’s journey aboard the Handala
Freedom Flotilla Tracker

Follow

Dr. Sarah Lalonde – @dr.sarah.lalonde
Dr. Tarek Loubani – @trklou
Freedom Flotilla Coalition – freedomflotilla.org

💌 Call to Action

→ Donate if you can to medical missions and grassroots aid efforts like Glia
→ Share this episode with others who care about justice, healthcare, and solidarity.
→ Bear witness—listening is not passive. Let it move you to action.

Humanitarian & Community Aid:

Support the Glia Project: Donate or amplify their open-source medical tools: glia.org
Donate to frontline organizations: Support trusted orgs like Islamic Relief Canada, Doctors Without Borders and Humanity Auxilium
Organize within your profession: If you're a healthcare worker, speak out, form collectives, and protect each other from institutional repression. Check out Health workers Alliance for Palestine
Stay loud: Refuse silence in your classrooms, hospitals, unions, and friend groups. Silence is complicity. Check out Labour for Palestine
Educate yourself: Study the roots of this genocide—settler colonialism, white supremacy, and global capitalism. Check out The Anti-Empire Project