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

"This is again an urgent plea to stop this and an urgent plea for help."

Dr. Mimi Syed

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

Dr Andrew Ferguson

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

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

Dr. Razan al-Nahhas

"Bones are not reknitting back together, wounds are just not healing here because you need to have protein. you have to have stable nutrition."

Andee Clark Vaughan

"People feel that their humanity is not recognized. People feel that they're abandoned and left to the slaughter."

Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim

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

Dr. James Smith

"The last thing I wanted to do was take his hope away. So I said, 'No, Inshallah, we're trying everything.'"

Dr. Irtaza Khan

"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

"If there's any chaos, then, you know, they just start opening fire. And then we see it in our facility, you know, 20, 30 minutes later."

Dr. Mark Brauner

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

Dr. Ben Thompson

"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

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"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

"It can't be viewed as anything else because 50% of the population are children. So it is a war on children. Whether or not it is intended to be a war on children is irrelevant. It is a war on children."

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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."

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

"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

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"I did not see a ceasefire."

Dr. Irfan Galaria

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

Dr. James Smith

"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

"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

"I just want the killing to stop, and I want these kids to grow up with a chance in the future."

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

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

Dr. Nada Al Hadithy

"It’s not a coincidence, they mean to attack the houses of the people who can treat the wounded people."

Dr. Khaled Alser

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh

Dr. Osaid Alser

Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi

Ahmed Abu Aqel

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

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

"I have chosen to resist in a different way—through academic action."

Dr. Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain

"The elderly was where my heart really sank."

Dr. Ana Jeelani

"We are in a system collapse"

Dr. Yousef

"Mothers can't even breastfeed because they are so malnourished."

Dr. Nick Maynard

"Childbirth isn’t a joyous welcoming of new life any more."

Nour Mwanis