Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says footage of hospital staff saying they would deny care is ‘sickening and shameful’.
Police in Australia have launched an investigation into a video appearing to show two nurses at a Sydney hospital boasting about killing and denying treatment to Israeli patients.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb said on Thursday that the alleged incident represented a “new low” amid a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.
“This is racial hatred on a level that I have not seen before,” Webb said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “I am shocked.”
Webb said that an Israeli content creator who first shared the footage online had agreed to provide an unedited version of the video chat in which two hospital staff appeared to brag about refusing treatment to Israelis.
“We are looking forward to getting that and then being able to fully investigate the whole content so we get to see it from beginning to end,” Webb said.
In the footage shared on social media, Israeli influencer Max Veifer is seen talking to a man and a woman who appear to be wearing hospital scrubs.
“I am so upset that you are Israeli, eventually you are going to get killed,” the man says in the video.
“I won’t treat them, I’ll kill them,” the woman is heard saying of Israeli patients.
At another point in the video, the man, while moving his hand across his neck and using an expletive, says he sent many Israeli patients to Jahannam, using the Arabic word for hell.
The full context of the footage, which is edited in places and censors out some language, is not clear and Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify its authenticity.
In an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Veifer said he had used social media to get people fired for anti-Semitism in the past.
“We got them,” he said of the video featuring the nurses.
Health authorities on Wednesday stood down two nurses, identified in local media as Ahmad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, over the incident.
Officials have said they have so far found no evidence that any patients had been adversely affected after being treated by the staff.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese labelled the footage “disgusting, sickening and shameful”.
New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said the nurses would not be allowed to work for the state’s health service again.
“This video is disgusting. It is shocking. It is appalling,” Park told reporters.
On Thursday, the ABC reported that Nadir had apologised to Veifer and “the Jewish community as a whole”.
“He understands what has happened, he is trying to make amends for what has happened,” Mohamad Sakr, a solicitor representing Nadir, was quoted as saying.
“He has never appeared before the court in relation to any criminal matters. He is a person of prior good character. It is unfortunate to find myself in a situation like this.”
Australia has been roiled by a wave of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, including an alleged bomb plot and several arson attacks on synagogues.
Advocacy groups have reported a sharp rise in both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Australia since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a multi-pronged attack on Israel and Israel began its war in Gaza.
Elroy Schroeder
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