Dr Thaer Ahmad (Unifying Faiths in Gaza, Healing through Storytelling and the Rebirth of Humanity) - Episode 1297

About this episode

Dr. Thaer Ahmad, MD is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, global health expert, educator, and humanitarian who has provided medical relief and healthcare capacity-building in some of the world's most devastated conflict zones for over fifteen years. A Palestinian-American raised on Chicago's South Side, Dr. Ahmad first traveled to Gaza in 2009 on a medical mission and has returned multiple times since. After borders reopened in late 2023, he was deployed by the World Health Organization as part of an Emergency Medical Team to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in 2024, where he worked in the emergency department's resuscitation room. His humanitarian medical work has also taken him to Lebanon (missions in October 2024 and May 2026) and to the West Bank (four medical missions, most recently July 2026), with capacity-building across Syria, Türkiye, Jordan, and Kenya, and refugee-health work across Europe and the Middle East. Since October 2024, Dr. Ahmad has been denied entry into Gaza by Israeli authorities on five separate occasions, most recently on July 29, 2026, despite planned humanitarian medical missions. At home, he is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Univ