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

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"The kids I was watching had neck injuries."

Prof. Christos Georgalas

"About 70% of the patients that we are seeing are women and children."

Dr. Mimi Syed

"This kid was 6 years old."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"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

"I remember their faces, their earrings, their two little first teeth. I remember how carefully they had been dressed for sleep in their cold tents, the delicateness with which their hair was braided. "

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

"The driver who brought us out on the last day said to me, ‘Anyone left in Gaza now is either dead or will be dead very soon.’"

Dr. Morgan McMonagle

"There were children with 70% to 80% body burns."

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

Dr. Razan al-Nahhas

"There’s a designated area for children to die, alongside other dying children, where their families can stay with them and pray."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"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

"A war zone generates injuries that need soft tissue reconstruction, which is our specialty. So every time we go we make such a huge impact on the population, on the injured population"

Dr. Tom Potokar

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"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

"A seven-month-old baby lies in our paediatric intensive care unit, so tiny and malnourished that I initially mistook her for a newborn."

Dr. Nick Maynard

"Leaving to seek treatment for your child [...] versus leaving your family behind and knowing that you may never see them again."

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

"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

"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

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"The hemoglobin levels that are needed in order to donate blood safely are just not there. "

Anneliese Stephenson-Wenn

"Another day of devastation here in Gaza. "

Dr. Tom Potokar

"I pronounced more people dead there than I usually do in a year at my work as a trauma surgeon in California."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

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

Dr. Nada Al Hadithy

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

Dr. Nick Maynard

"Her father was there, crying and asking me, ‘Can you save her? She’s my only child.’"

Dr. Fozia Alvi

Dr. Irfan Galaria

Dr. Thaer Ahmad

Dr. Vanita Gupta

Dr. Osaid Alser

Prof. Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi

"The surgeon across from me just, a very stoic, unemotional, strong, resilient surgeon just broke down in tears."

Dr. Samer Attar

"This Gaza doctor refused to abandon his patients. Israel tortured him to death"

Rozan al-Bursh

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh

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

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

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

Nabila Masaoud

"I did not see a ceasefire."

Dr. Irfan Galaria

"Eight paramedics and one doctor were killed in the previous three days."

Dr. Khamis Elessi

"Do we really call this a ceasefire?"

Dr. Morten Rostrup

"I stood there helpless - not because I didn’t know how to treat her, but because we had nothing to treat her with."

Dr. Hussam Hammouda

"On Saturday evening, four young teenage boys came in, all shot in their testicles. It appeared like a game of target practice."

Dr. Nick Maynard