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

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

Dr. Abdullah Ghali

"The staff are continuing to turn up to work. They are hungry. They are fainting on the job"

Dr. Saira Hussain

""They're hungry, they have no medication and they have no safe place""

Dr. Mimi Syed

"They end up drinking this water that's actually just meant for like washing and such."

Dr. Mimi Syed

"I was operating all day, I'm a surgeon, and there was an attack on the intensive care unit."

Dr. Nick Maynard

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

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

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

Dr. Adam Hamawy

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

""Almost every day, you find out that one of your surgical colleagues, a nurse or a pediatrician here has had a relative brought in after being hit.""

Dr. Tom Potokar

"I went in about a week after the cease fire started. And it was, you know, it was, it was such a low bar to clear. It’s just to stop dropping bombs on, on everyone."

Dr. Adam Hamawy

"This girl, Jenna, loved dancing before she had an amputation and this is a life-changing injury"

Dr. Nada Al Hadithy

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

152 American Medical Professionals

"There were no cardiac surgeons at the hospital, so it fell to me to lead the operation."

Dr. Khaled Dawas

"I said, okay, is there any way of retrieving the arm? And he was a bit shocked. I said, no, I mean, I'm serious. Is there a way of retrieving the arm? And he said, okay. "

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

"We're giving them Ibuprofen for an arm that's been blown off."

Monica Johnson

"I'm not sure that we're going to be able to save her arm. "

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"She was no fighter. She was a pregnant woman who was sitting in her home when a bomb dropped on her head. "

Dr. Ahmad Yousaf

"This kid was 6 years old."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"In an explosion when a blast goes off, everything around you gets weaponized."

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"His mother tells al-Farra that she tried to breastfeed him but didn't have enough milk. When formula became too expensive, she started to feed him starch dissolved in water."

Dr. Ahmad Al Farra

"Every single person I encountered was malnourished. "

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"I didn’t know what to do. Do I yell or cry or carry my daughter? "

Dr. Mimi Syed

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

Dr. Ayaz Pathan

Dr. Nabeel Rana

Dr. Mohammed Adeel Khaleel

Dr. Yassar Arain

Miranda Cleland

Charles Blaha

"These kids are tiny, they are underweight and malnourished."

Dr. Victoria Rose

"We go out searching for test strips and insulin, but they're nowhere to be found."

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra

Dr. Wael Hijazi

Anneliese Stephenson-Wenn

"Operating on children who would say, I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped, and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me."

Prof. Nizam Mamode

"We had dreams"

Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib

"This is worse than anything I’ve ever seen. The scale of destruction is something that I couldn’t even comprehend before I got here. "

Dr. Kathleen Gallagher

"To my shock, they hit inside the hospital’s compound."

Dr. Ali Tawil

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

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

"Midwives offer a ray of hope amid horror, as harsh winter grips Gaza."