When Dr. Nour Sharaf thinks back on her time volunteering in Gaza, a few patients stand out in her mind. There’s 2-year-old Isla, who was at home when a nearby bomb caused a wall to collapse on top of her. The girl died in Sharaf’s arms as she tried to resuscitate her.
Another was 17-year-old Ahmed, who died after suffering third- and fourth-degree burns over more than 40% of his body when his tent caught fire as he slept.
And a patient who’s name she never learned — a victim of a bombing at one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites in Zikim. Sharaf, an emergency medicine physician from Dallas, recalled seeing his body covered in bomb shrapnel, some penetrating his lungs.
“I could feel his ribs, his ruptured diaphragm and his liver with my hands as I desperately tried to save his life,” Sharaf described, her voice shaking slightly, but firm. “How is Israel claiming that these kinds of attacks are self-defense, when it was people like my patient who we saw coming into the hospital with severe injuries after just trying to get food?”
Sharaf was among the dozens of American doctors and nurses who’ve volunteered in Gaza over the past two years that gathered at Parkland Hospital in Dallas Thursday to call for a ceasefire amid the humanitarian crisis they’ve witnessed firsthand.
The doctors who gave their accounts of what it was like providing care in Gaza all told similar stories of volunteers being turned away and denied entry, and of their medical supplies — including baby formula — being confiscated before they could use it to help those in need.
Israel’s war in Gaza began after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, which left about 1,200 Israelis dead. Most of those who died were civilians. Another 251 were taken hostage. Most of the hostages have since been released, but of the 50 still held in Gaza, only around 20 are believed to be alive.
In response to that attack, the Associated Press — citing Gaza’s Health Ministry — reports Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians. The ministry does not say how many were civilians but did say around half were women and children.
That climbing death toll has stretched thin what little medical resources are in Gaza. Sharaf detailed the state of the makeshift hospitals, painting a grim picture of the sheer volume of patients: “every single hour, there were hundreds.” Sharaf described having to step over dead or dying patients on the floor because there was no where else for them to go.
The doctors also loudly criticized the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S. and Israeli-backed program established to provide food and medical supplies to war-ravaged civilians. Contractors with the group have been accused of using live rounds and stun grenades on hungry Palestinians.
The U.N. human rights office identified around 1,400 Palestinians killed seeking aid since May. Most of those deaths were near GHF sites with some along U.N. convoy routes, according to the Associated Press. The office says almost all of those were killed by the Israeli military.
The Israeli military maintains it’s only fired warning shots at crowds they say have posed a threat to its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly crowding at its sites.
But the doctors who spoke in Dallas Thursday told a different story.
“I was witness to the scores of starving civilians, adults and children, searching for food who were massacred in mass at the death traps masquerading as aid sites,” said Dr. Kaled Al-Hreish, an internal medicine physician from Dallas. “International journalists have been barred from Gaza for a reason, so it falls on us — the health care workers who have been there — to bear witness.”
Additional reporting from the Associated Press.
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