Khairy and Dr Ang in the middle of their talk at The Chow Kit (All photos: Low Yen Yeing/The Edge)
Experts from the United Nations have already said it is imperative to call a genocide a genocide. And yet war crimes against humanity continue. Nowhere is this most apparent than in a skinny strip of land in the Middle East called Gaza. With a land area of just about 360 sq km, what was once a thriving place is now, in the words of Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, “a wasteland of rubble and human remains”.
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Dedicating the last four decades of her life to fight for the Palestinian cause, the Penang-born but London-based Dr Ang Swee Chai recently made a fleeting visit to Kuala Lumpur to speak about her experiences volunteering as a surgeon in the restive region. “To be alive means I have a duty to speak up on behalf of those who died. Keeping quiet is not an option,” she says.
Besides showing harrowing images taken while in the line of duty and speaking from the heart on how all of us need to “not turn our faces from injustice”, the 77-year-old also took part in a Q&A session hosted and moderated by politician Khairy Jamaluddin. The event, co-organised with Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan of ECM Libra Foundation, was held at The Chow Kit — an Ormond Hotel. Copies of Ang’s book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, were also given out to every guest.
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One question posed by both Ang and Khairy lingered long after the evening wound down. “What will you tell your children and grandchildren when they, one day, ask what you did while the Palestinians were being massacred?” What indeed?
This article first appeared on Aug 18, 2025 in The Edge Malaysia.
