Testimonies

About the archive of testimonies

A testimony is something entirely different from a report, a statistic, a headline. It carries within it the experience of a specific person, at a specific moment, and places on the listener an obligation that is hard to escape: to pay attention. This archive brings together testimonies of people who were there — doctors, medical staff, civilians — and presents their voices, unmediated and unfiltered, to anyone willing to hear.

Behind the Testimonies

Translators’ Introduction Introduction by Dr. Michal Feldon Letter from Dr. Ezzideen Shehab Compassion as a political act of resistance

International Doctors

When the war broke out, international journalists were banned from entering the Gaza Strip. The exceptions (those who could enter) were several dozen international doctors and healthcare workers, highly experienced in conflict zones, whose entry into the Strip was granted on a limited basis.

View testimonies About the project

Gaza Healthcare Workers

They are in the hospitals, struggling to treat the wounded — children, women, the elderly, civilians — to provide medical care without anesthesia, without equipment, without medication, in hospitals under siege and even directly bombed, as they themselves become targets.

Testimonies

About the archive of testimonies

Behind the Testimonies

International Doctors

Gaza Healthcare Workers

"I've seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life combined. "

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"They don't let journalists enter, and they kill the Gazan journalists who are there, so the doctors who come there reveal the truth to the world."

Dr. Mimi Syed

"You feel a huge responsibility to go back and do something. "

Dr. Victoria Rose

"Apache helicopter is outside Al-Quds hospital, and it is shooting...right now we're completely surrounded by the occupation forces and they are circling the hospital"

Andee Clark Vaughan

"There was virtually no formula feed to feed these newborn babies, all these infants."

Dr. Nick Maynard

"I never thought I could see it get worse, but here I am. "

Dr. Mimi Syed

"She reminded me of my own daughter."

Dr. Yipeng Ge

Dr. Yara Abou-Hamde

Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo

Dr. Rizwan Minhas

Dr. Ben Thompson

Dr. Noor Ul Amin

"This kid was 6 years old."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"That day will be for me this child that was seemingly sleeping all alone on the floor, you know, blood everywhere, you know, people screaming and this kid just [...] lying there and doing [...] nothing in the middle of a ton of noise."

Karin Huster

"People are dying from things that they should not be dying from, and a lot of it has to do with a lack of sanitation that they have, their inability to provide water."

Dr. Khaled Al-Hreish

"You can’t confuse a two-year-old for a combatant."

Dr. Adam Hamawy

"Often there’s not enough pain medication. But the children are not screaming about the pain, they’re screaming: ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” "

Dr. Aqsa Durrani

"Any kind of disability in Gaza is a death sentence."

Dr. Yasser Khan

"You can't get past these memories. "

Dr. Sanjay Adusumilli

Dr. Scarlett Wong

Dr. Modher Albeiruti

"I could still feel her arms around my neck."

Dr. Ahmad Yousaf

"The children of Gaza with their eyes wide open and full of innocence have been subjected to horrors that no child should ever face."

Dr. Mimi Syed

"I don't know which of my colleagues I'll see again"

Dr. Ambereen Sleemi

"I see him in the emergency department trying to resuscitate a man whose arms and legs, sorry, whose both legs and one arm had been blown off."

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

"The scale of violence directed at Gaza’s civilians is unlike anything any of us has ever seen."

152 American Medical Professionals

"On one side you see the remains of Gaza and on the other side is farmland being watered, and it’s very dystopian. "

Dr. Victoria Rose

"I thought, when will this end?"

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

"Their only crime was the fact that they were healing people."

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

"The locals, when I talk to them, they're always very hopeful and strong and resilient."

Dr. Mimi Syed

"In the ER there, ventilators were so scarce that if there was a 70-year-old and a 20-year-old both requiring one, we had to decide who gets it. "

Dr. Aziz Rahman

"There's no triage, people are grabbing your shoulder left and right, please see my daughter, please see my mum."

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"In the midst of this hell, we still dream of life."

Dr. Hussam Hammouda

"Every day I saw babies die."

99 American Medical Professionals

"Actually we evacuated the the injured people and the patients with very difficult condition. So we are carrying them more than 200 m because all the roads to Al-Awda Hospital is totally closed."

Dr. Mohammed Salha

"Trying to explain to a little boy that you are using a saw to cut through his bone."

Dr. Abdullah Ghali

"The list is too long … and I will never see any of them again"

Dr. Hazem Maloh

"Now I understand why all of these children come into the emergency department shivering."

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

Arwa Damon

"Every night, after hard work, I can’t sleep, due to what I saw during the day. The vision of martyrs and injuries."

Dr. Mohammed Harara

"Every single person I encountered was malnourished. "

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"Up until now we have recorded 11 infants who died due to hypothermia"