“Many children would not speak for days, even with their family at bedside. One child would not accept a gift I brought of a little plastic car, because she did not want to touch or talk to anyone but her father.”
Summary (see link for full aricle): The article, originally published in the (New York Times), and translated into Hebrew by Haaretz presents the testimonies of 65 medical professionals in Gaza – doctors, nurses, and emergency staff – describing the collapse of the healthcare system during the war. Their accounts depict severe shortages of medicine and basic equipment, frequent power outages, and surgeries often performed without anesthesia or under non-sterile conditions.
Many testimonies focus on injured children, some of whom arrive at hospitals without surviving family members. Doctors describe how they are forced to serve not only as healers but also as emotional supporters, social workers, and at times even parental figures. A recurring theme is the profound sense of helplessness, alongside a deep commitment to remain by their patients despite personal risk.
The report highlights sharp criticism of the gap between Israel’s declarations about minimizing harm to civilians and the reality on the ground as experienced by medical teams. The voices of these 65 healthcare workers illustrate the scale of the humanitarian crisis: hospitals unable to admit more wounded, exhausted staff working around the clock, and countless patients left without adequate care.