Australian Nurses Plead Not Guilty Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients

Two nurses in Australia who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients pleaded not guilty during their arraignment on Monday.

Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 27, and Ahmad Rashad Nadir, 28, previously worked at the Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney until appearing on a video with Israeli social media personality Max Veifer in February 2025.

The footage, which circulated widely, featured Abu Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and would instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture when he confessed to having already killed many.

“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.

“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added.

Veifer began asking the two during a night shift discussion how they would respond if an Israeli seeking treatment landed in their hospital. Abu Lebdeh, preempting the question, interrupted: “I won’t treat them. I’ll kill them.”

Nadir interjected: “You have no idea how many s—t dog Israelis came to this hospital,” and using a throat-slitting gesture, continued, “I sent them to Jahannam,” the Islamic word for hell.

The video went viral and sparked global outrage, prompting a two-year nationwide suspension to prevent them from continuing to treat patients.

Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass.

Nadir was also charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.

Speaking before Judge Stephen Hanley at Downing Center District Court in Sydney, Abu Lebdeh appeared “with tears streaming down her face,” according to Australia’s Sky News.

The Australian reported last year that Lebdeh has expressed remorse and is now experiencing extreme anxiety. An uncle told a journalist that she “will come out and make a statement when she’s ready, but you can’t talk to her now because she’s having a panic attack, an anxiety attack. We might be calling the ambulance for her.”

Lawyer Zemarai Khatiz represents Nadir and confirmed to Sky News that the defense strategy would seek to make the video inadmissible in court.

“It will be, yes,” Khatiz stated before declining to elaborate. “You will have to just wait until the first of June when the applications are heard.”

The video drew international attention, with Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Sharren Haskel, demanding action.

“There needs to be an investigation immediately into these two Australian medical professionals who are saying they will kill Israeli patients – and suggesting that they already have,” Haskel posted on social media after the video was released. “They are expressing criminal intent towards Jewish people; this must be stopped.”

Haskel went on to declare antisemitism “a disease that is spreading in Australia,” arguing the nurses should be fired and their behavior must “be treated with the highest consequences under the law.'”

“They have broken the Hippocratic Oath,” the diplomat continued. “They have talked about killing Jews, they show the true racism and hate that the Australian Jewish community is currently enduring.”

A US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago told The Algemeiner last year that she no longer feels safe in hospitals given the atmosphere of heightened antisemitism.

“In the past year alone, my little boy has witnessed many hostile protests where ‘anti-Zionists’ have actually come into the Jewish community without permits to intimidate us. Time and time again, instead of [authorities] dispersing and arresting anyone in the crowd for screaming racial slurs and threats, Jews are asked to evacuate and told if they don’t run away, they are inciting violence,” the woman said.

“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” she continued, referring to the case in Australia. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”

Following the video’s exposure and international condemnation, a group of 50 Muslim leaders and organizations came together in defense of Abu Lebdeh and Nadir. “This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks,” the coalition wrote in a letter. “It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity.”

The district court scheduled the suspended nurses’ trial for Aug. 31 with an anticipated five days of arguments and deliberations. A pre-trial hearing will take place on June 1.

The charges against Abu Lebdeh and Nadir reflect a global trend that has emerged since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel wherein medical practitioners come under scrutiny or even legal prosecutions following the exposure of antisemitic statements and behavior.

One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who British police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism. She also described London’s Royal Free Hospital as “a Jewish supremacy cesspit” and declared her belief that “over 90% of the world’s Jews are genocidal.”

That same month, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the National Health Service (NHS)., amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan in October to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the NHS.

Another notable incident occurred in September, when a Belgian doctor reportedly listed “Jewish (Israeli)” as a medical problem in a child’s report.

Jewish writer Jonath Weinberger, a dual Belgian-Israeli citizen living in Amsterdam, recounted an episode in November about a nurse denying her medical care after refusing to remove a pro-Palestinian button

In Argentina, a Buenos Aires doctor received a suspension following a social media post in which he wrote about Jews that “instead of performing circumcision, their carotid artery and main artery should be cut from side to side.”