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.

View testimonies About the project

"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

Ireland

Testimonies

About the archive of testimonies

Behind the Testimonies

International Doctors

Gaza Healthcare Workers

"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

"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

"These children would be laid on the floor, limp and lifeless, and we would declare them dead immediately. "

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

Anna Halford

Rohan Talbot

Shaina Low

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

Dr. Samer Attar

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

Dr. Saira Hussain

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"You can't get past these memories. "

Dr. Sanjay Adusumilli

Dr. Scarlett Wong

Dr. Modher Albeiruti

"Despite everything that had happened to him, he was so keen to tell his story"

Dr Andrew Ferguson

"A bomb landed, his daughter was in the bathroom, and he went back to find her remains,"

Dr. Samer Attar

"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

"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

"Every corridor in the hospital had half the width occupied by mattresses on the floor with IDPs sitting and lying – children, men and women of all ages."

Dr. Amer Shoaib

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

Dr. Ambereen Sleemi

"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

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

Dr. Nada Al Hadithy

"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

"The woman on the operating table is badly injured. Her husband and children were all killed. She doesn't know yet."

Dr. Tom Potokar

Dr. Victoria Rose

Dr. Graeme Groom

"A part of me just wanted him to die peacefully."

Dr. Sanjay Adusumilli

"This explosion felt close. You could feel it. It's not unusual. We carried on as usual. We carried on working."

Rachael Moses

"Do we really call this a ceasefire?"

Dr. Morten Rostrup

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"We have normalized a situation in which it's normal to kill doctors."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

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

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

"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

"Our anesthesiologist went to support the emergency room, and he discovered that his family were among the injured. He lost his nephew, and his daughters were injured."

Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib

Amy Kit-Mei Low

"What I see every day are people who are extremely thin. They have lost all their muscle mass. "

Dr. Milena Angelova-Chee

"We were amputating limbs because we didn't have the capacity to preserve the limbs, and that's how we get the patients to survive."

Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati

"Amid all this horror, there were moments of light. We took great joy seeing Juri’s personality resurface once her sepsis resolved."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"To have one session of renal dialysis is considered as a privilege"

Dr. Khamis Elessi

Prof. Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Dr. Samah Jabr

"There is very little that you can do as a medical or humanitarian worker under such conditions."

Dr. James Smith