‘Absolutely appalled’: Worst part of sickening nurse video revealed

The video of two Sydney nurses boasting about wanting to kill Israelis has stunned the nation - but we missed the most twisted part.

OPINION

“Sickening and shameful”. “Vile, disgusting and deranged”. “Absolutely appalled”.

There were a lot of big, strong, angry words flying about from politicians and government officials yesterday after a video showing two NSW nurses boasting about wanting to kill Israelis started circulating.

There were even near tears, when NSW Health boss Susan Pearce appeared to be on the brink of being overcome while calling the anti-Semitic comments “appalling on every level”.

NSW Health Secretary Susan Pearce during an emotional press conference on Wednesday. Picture: NewsWire/Nikki Short

But none of this – none of the forceful and emotional words offered up by our leaders – managed to really convey how truly horrifying and scary this situation is.

War used to be something that happened far from home for most Australians. The closest we came to actually experiencing the consequences of conflict being when our flights to Europe suddenly had to be diverted around Iraq and Ukraine.

War happened on the news and in headlines and it was bad and all that, but it never intruded on our safe and peaceful lives in Australia.

This week’s video drives home that war is now very much here.

Social media has transformed nearly every part of our lives and the conflict between Israel and Hamas is arguably the first fully social media war.

In the early noughties, when the “Coalition of the Willing” invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, Facebook had yet to be conjured up out of Mark Zuckerberg’s lonely boy mind. Even as that bloody war continued, by the time we were all hooked on the dopamine high of likes, the fight had become a morally confusing quagmire and it never really widely captured our attention online or our hashtags.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed things a notch with Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops using social videos as part of a deft social media operation. I know two men at least who watch the conflict daily via YouTube and Reddit.

The vile video has sickened Australians. Picture: NewsWire Handout

But still, it was all happening far away. We were safe.

Until the war between Israel and Hamas radically brought war onto our phones and into our everyday lives. Wednesday’s video just horribly clarifies this sad fact.

The exchange was recorded by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, who uses a platform similar to Chatroulette to record video conversations with random users.

It starts benignly enough.

On screen and wearing scrubs is Bankstown hospital nurse Ahmad “Rashad” Nadir. During the conversation, fellow nurse Sarah Abu Lebdeh also joins in.

After Veifer reveals where he is from, Nadir says: “I’m going to be really honest with you … I’m so upset you’re Israeli. Eventually you’re going to get killed and go to Jahannam (hell).”

Abu Lebdeh then appears in the frame, saying: “Listen to me, when your time comes, I want you to remember my face so you can understand that you will die the most disgusting death.”

Then Veifer asks what Nadir and Abu Lebdeh would do if an Israeli patient sought treatment. Abu Lebdeh says: “I won’t treat them, I’ll kill them”. Nadir adds: “You have no idea how many Israeli … came to this hospital and … I send them to (hell)”.

Derriwong Road in Dural, near where a caravan was found that apparently contained explosives and anti-Semitic material. Picture: NewsWire Damian Shaw

Since the video hit social media, Nadir and Abu Lebdeh have been suspended by NSW Health, which also said that after an initial examination, it had not found proof of any Israeli patients being harmed. NSW Police has indicated that Nadir and Abu Lebdeh, who have since both apologised, could be charged.

“Vile” and “deranged” don’t really cut it, do they? You nearly have to feel sorry for the pollies getting out thesauruses yesterday to try and dig out the most forceful language possible, a doomed task given there are no words that adequately convey the horror of this exchange.

And so we as a society and a community are left in shock and are forced to face the fact that not only has the Israel/Hamas war long since seeped into Australians’ digital lives, but we are also way past rhetoric and people mouthing off online.

There has been a seemingly endless stream of hateful incidents taking place on our streets.

Here is only a small taste.

In December, Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed. In late January, a caravan was found in the semirural Sydney suburb of Dural packed with enough explosives to create a 40-metre blast, part of what police suspect was an anti-Semitic bomb plot. This year, the phrase “F*** the Jews” was graffitied on a car in the Sydney suburb of Queens Park and synagogues in both Allawah and Newtown were vandalised with swastikas.

Newtown Synagogue was targeted recently. Picture: NewsWire/Simon Bullard

In 2024, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, there were 2000 anti-Semitic incidents including physical assaults, attacks on synagogues, vandalism and graffiti across the country.

And the ugliness has hit all sides.

In 2023, a man was jailed for 12 months after planting an explosive device outside the home of a pro-Palestinian resident in Sydney. In December 2024, a truck displaying Palestinian flags in Melbourne’s inner west allegedly had a molotov cocktail thrown at it. In January, the words “F*** Arabs” were graffitied on a Sydney supermarket which stocks Lebanese products.

In May 2024, the stabbing of Assyrian Australian bishop Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was live streamed on X, sparking a riot. In the weeks that followed, 400 police carried out 13 raids and seven young people were arrested by the joint counter-terrorism team.

For Australians, war, generally speaking until October 7 2023, was much easier to ignore.

In May 2024, the stabbing of Assyrian Australian bishop Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was live streamed on X

The incident sparked a riot. Picture: Liam Mendes

We could very easily, ostrich-like, put our heads in the sand over the unthinkable suffering and misery being experienced by millions of people around the globe in an untold number of conflicts.

However, since the October 7 attacks, the videos, the posts and the reels laying bare the inconceivably brutal reality that has seen 45,000 Palestinians and more than 1700 Israeli and foreign nationals killed, according to data supplied to the United Nations in December, means we no longer have the easy option to look away.

Even if NSW Health has found no evidence of Israeli patients being hurt, even if that caravan laden with explosives was discovered, even if, even if, even if … with this video, we can no longer ignore how close we have come to bone-chilling offline consequences.

With this week’s video, the war has unquestionably hit home.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘Absolutely appalled’: Worst part of sickening nurse video revealed