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 say this as somebody who walked over the body of a dead child, while the mother was grieving, to treat another patient in Nasser hospital."

Dr. Thaer Ahmad

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

Dr. Nick Maynard

"I did not see a ceasefire."

Dr. Irfan Galaria

"He had been injured as a result of an Israeli air strike. "

Dr. James Smith

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

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

"This kid was 6 years old."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

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

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"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

"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

"They all came in dressed in their Id (holiday) clothing."

Dr. Razan al-Nahhas

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

Dr. Samer Attar

"As it got closer to their release, they reported increasing levels of physical attacks and abuse."

Dr. Mihir Chaudhary

"This man was so traumatized, I honestly can't imagine him ever practicing medicine again."

Dr. Ben Thompson

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"We operated in unsterile settings that would’ve been unthinkable in the United States. We had limited access to critical medical equipment."

Dr. Irfan Galaria

"There are children who I met also, who had lost all their families."

Dr. Khaled Dawas

"Another day of devastation here in Gaza. "

Dr. Tom Potokar

"As soon as her husband got home to be with the children while his wife was at work, on-call in the emergency department, the home was struck."

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

"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

"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

"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

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"The kids I was watching had neck injuries."

Prof. Christos Georgalas

"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

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

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"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

"The situation is very, very bad. We need help. No one hears us."

Dr. Mohammed Obeid

"I've done more amputations, and seen more traumatic amputations of children's, than I've seen during my entire career in the last two weeks."

Dr. Adam Hamawy

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

Dr. Khamis Elessi

Prof. Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Dr. Samah Jabr

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"We had dreams"

Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib

"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

"They were all crying that their boy was able to walk again."

Abed El Hameed Qaradaya

"The bottom line is this is a human rights issue and children are being murdered. It's got to stop. And we've got to stop supporting it."