A SILENT GENOCIDE

Civic reception for brave doctor

A doctor, who has worked in some of the world’s worst conflict zones, says what is happening in Gaza now is a “silent genocide”.

“There are still explosions although not as many, but people are starved to death, the drinking water is dirty and there is a lack of de-salination facilities. There’s a lack of medicines, rats and rodents are everywhere so disease is on the rise – Palestinians still have no human rights,” Dr Morgan McMonagle told the Celt.

Dr McMonagle was talking to the Celt following a civic reception held in his honour in Cavan Courthouse on Monday evening. The event to acknowledge the Cavan doctor’s life-saving humanitarian efforts came off the back of a proposal by Cllr Niamh Brady (FG) in April.

Speaking at the ceremony, Dr McMonagle took the opportunity to raise the plight of the Palestinian people, who he said, are still living under siege.

“Gaza and Palestine have dropped off the radar, but they are still suffering every single day. They can't get any clean water, the sewage system is gone, hygiene is gone, they’re all living in tents, they’re all displaced internally.”

EXPERIENCE

Since 2021, the local doctor has worked as a trauma surgeon in the West Bank, Lebanon, Ukraine on two occasions and three times in Gaza.

He is the 2025 recipient of the RCSI Humanitarian and Community Award for his commitment and service to protecting the lives of others and the welfare of humanity.

The 53-year-old usually works as a vascular surgeon in University Hospital Waterford.

In his career, he has worked and trained in Australia, the UK and Philadelphia in the US.

When asked how his long career prepared him for what he would later witness in war zones, Dr McMonagle didn’t hesitate to single out his time in Philadelphia where, as a trauma surgeon, he dealt with “five to eight gunshot wounds every single night”.

But even that experience didn’t train him for the specialist treatment of blast wounds.

“The gunshot wounds were in adults,” he said. “In Gaza we were treating mainly children injured in explosions.”

Gaza has the land area of Manhattan with the population of London “and half the population is under the age of 14”, he points out.

“And so many of them are amputees with no chance of rehabilitation or getting a prothesis.”

The doctor who worked from a field hospital north of Rafah and the Nasar Hospital in Gaza, also described the dark reality of treating mass casualties.

“The Director of Nursing, whose own brother’s head was brought to him in a bag, and whose wife and children were killed, asked us to concentrate our skills, energy and time treating children and women of child-bearing age first because it is the only way they can continue as a defined people in the future,” Dr McMonagle said.

During our chat, Dr McMonagle took out his phone to show a WhatsApp message thread from a Palestinian colleagues. He showed a photo of an exhausted-looking man in scrubs.

“Every day when you would come into work you would be told ‘you know Dr Khalid you worked with yesterday? He won’t be in today because he’s dead’ or another doctor is not at work today ‘because his wife and children were killed last night when he was working late’.

“During a shift these exhausted doctors would have to leave work for a couple of hours to try to find food for their families who were waiting at home hungry,” Dr McMonagle described. “I know of some doctors who give their children extra salt at night to stave off the hunger the next day.” And on the role of doctors Morgan McMonagle asks why the testimony of doctors in the west is accepted in court and other official arenas but, when they return from Palestine “as advocates for truth”, they are not listened to by governments.

WHAT WE CAN DO

When asked what Palestinians need from westerners, Dr McMonagle becomes even more animated. His answer is concise and unequivocal.

“Pressure your local politician to pressure central government to put pressure on international bodies like the UN,” he said, and I suspect not for the first time.

I tell him that the UN has had no teeth over Gaza to which he shoots back: “And they have been de-funded by Trump.”

“Let western journalists in,” he continues. “The battle-hardened war reporters of the west should be allowed into Gaza.

“I would strongly advocate for envoys in western governments to go and see for themselves what is happening.

“Israel has to call a ceasefire for say, five days and senior politicians, like cabinet ministers, should go into Gaza. I would like to see Micheál Martin, Andy Burnham and Ursula von der Leyen in Gaza,” he said.

“The west also has to stop selling arms and parts to the Israeli Government,” the doctor added. “I have seen kids coming into us after being hunted by an Apache helicopter. One of those things costs about $50 million. Stop helping Israel get their hands on this equipment,” he said.

IRISH CONNECTION

Dr Morgan McMonagle said, despite their unimaginable suffering, Palestinians remain “amazingly upbeat” but many are dubious around westerners.

“Being a white Caucasian male gives you a passport to so many places you don’t even realise but they think you’re just there to take another photograph of their injuries. However, as soon as you mention that you are Irish, a lot of barriers come down,” he said.

“Palestinians are a highly educated people, and they know about the Irish struggle for autonomy and self-determination and they know that the Irish have been a voice, a small beacon of light.”

AFTERMATH

When asked how his experience in conflict zones has affected his every day life, Dr McMonagle says he did not require the de-compression psychological services offered to medics returning from Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere.

“NGOs take time to explain to you what may or may not happen before you go and if you have any doubt whatsoever that is OK.

“I knew I was in the right place at the right time,” he adds frankly. “I felt very at one with the Palestinian suffering. Plus, I was happy to lead and not just be there to bear witness.”