Dr Feroze Sidhwa writes:

I worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from March 25 to April 8. I’ve volunteered in Ukraine and Haiti, and I grew up in Flint, Mich. I’ve seen violence and worked in conflict zones. But of the many things that stood out about working in a hospital in Gaza, one got to me: Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest, virtually all of whom went on to die. Thirteen in total.

At the time, I assumed this had to be the work of a particularly sadistic soldier located nearby. But after returning home, I met an emergency medicine physician who had worked in a different hospital in Gaza two months before me. “I couldn’t believe the number of kids I saw shot in the head,” I told him. To my surprise, he responded: “Yeah, me, too. Every single day.”

An enormous amount of information about the extent of the devastation in Gaza has been gleaned from satellite data, humanitarian organizations and Gaza’s Ministry of Health. However, Israel does not allow journalists or human rights investigators into Gaza outside of a very small number of embedded reporting trips with the Israeli military, and stories from Palestinian journalists in Gaza have not been read widely enough, despite the incredible risks they take in reporting there.

But there is a group of independent observers who have seen this war from the ground, day after day: volunteer health care workers.

Through personal contacts in the medical community and a good deal of searching online, I was able to get in touch with American health care workers who have served in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. Many have familial or religious ties to the Middle East. Others, like me, do not, but felt compelled to volunteer in Gaza for a variety of reasons.

Using questions based on my own observations and my conversations with fellow doctors and nurses, I worked with Times Opinion to poll 65 health care workers about what they had seen in Gaza. [Continue reading…]