The viral video of two Australian nurses caught threatening to kill Israeli patients is “tip of the iceberg” of virulent anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment in the Australian healthcare system, according to an Australian reporter, Sharri Markson. 

“The Bankstown nurses video shocked us all, but it turns out it’s simply the tip of the iceberg,” Ms. Markson said on Monday. “I can now further expose a toxic and racist culture in the Australian health sector with shocking cases of doctors praising Hamas and saying Zionists should be destroyed.” 

The damning video, which showed two Bankstown Hospital nurses, Ahmad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, unleashing an antisemitic rant while speaking on a chat roulette site with an Israeli social media influencer, Max Veifer, sent shockwaves across the country. 

In the video, Ms. Lebdeh is heard responding to a question about treating Israeli patients by declaring that “I won’t treat them, I will kill them.” Her male accomplice, Mr. Nadir, chimed in to brag about “how many Israelis” who “came to this hospital” he sent to “Jahannam” — the Islamic word for hell. “I literally sent them to Jahannam,” he said, making a throat-slitting gesture. 

Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, condemned the video as “sickening and shameful” and confirmed that the nurses had been “stood down” pending an investigation. The health minister of New South Wales, Ryan Park, declared that the duo would never work for the state health department again. 

According to Ms. Markson, though, Jewish doctors down under have been raising the alarm about pervasive antisemitism in the health system for some time. Just a few weeks after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, more than 260 Australian doctors penned a letter to Health Minister Mark Butler asking him to investigate instances of antisemitism, SkyNews reports. 

The concerned medical professionals described antisemitism as a systemic issue in the field and included a dossier of some of the industry’s worst offenders. One offender, an Australian doctor, Mohamed Ghilan, who worked at Alfred Hospital until three months ago, was caught sharing pro-terror messages on social media. Among the more shocking posts, Mr. Ghilan was caught calling to “Live like Sinwar or die trying” and declaring that “I am Hamas, they are Hamas, we are all Hamas.”

Although Mr. Ghilan was suspended from Alfred Hospital in November pending an investigation into his online activity, he still holds his medical registration, SkyNews reports. 

Another troubling case included a junior medical officer at Western Sydney Local Health District who decried on social media that “every Zionist, young to old” is a “psychotic maniac.” In another post he called for Zionists to be “defeated, crushed and utterly removed from power.” The pile of evidence goes on. 

“Let us be clear: this is not an attack on individual practitioners but a call to address a systemic problem. Discrimination in any form is corrosive, but in the medical field it’s downright dangerous,” the group of doctors wrote in October 2023. According to the Australian Jewish Association, their pleas went unaddressed — “none of the Labor MPs bothered to even reply,” the group charges. 

The president of Australia’s Zionist Federation, Jeremy Leibler, described the viral nurse video as a “chilling reminder” of “how far” antisemitism has gone in the country. “While we welcome the swift response from authorities and political leaders who have rightly called this antisemitism for what it is, we must also confront the deeper issue — this did not happen in a vacuum,” he said. “This is the cost of tolerating hate and demonization of Israel in this country”

Over the past 16 months, Jews in Australia have faced “an unprecedented rise in antisemitism across the country” a recent Parliamentary inquiry reported. Australian lawmakers last week passed legislation clamping down on hate crimes, including mandatory jail time for giving a Nazi salute in public. 

In light of the rising incidents of antisemitism in the health care sector, a group of Jews have set up an Instagram account titled “Not My Doctor” that targets offending healthcare professionals.  Some Jews have opted to conceal their Jewish identity while visiting the hospital, the chief executive of the Australian Jewish Association told the Jerusalem Post.