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.

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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.

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"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

Canada

Feb - Mar 2025

"Any kind of disability in Gaza is a death sentence."

Dr. Yasser Khan

Testimonies

About the archive of testimonies

Behind the Testimonies

International Doctors

Gaza Healthcare Workers

"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

"Any kind of disability in Gaza is a death sentence."

Dr. Yasser Khan

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

Anneliese Stephenson-Wenn

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

Dr. Samer Attar

"These are not conditions for living."

Dr. Mimi Syed

" They have never seen with their own eyes what is going on, heard the screams, smelt the rotting flesh, shuddered from the constant bombardment. "

Dr. Tom Potokar

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

Rachael Moses

"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

"My patients were six-year-olds with shrapnels in their heart and bullets in their brains, and pregnant women."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"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

"There's nothing that you can do to replace the love of parents. You can bring their aunts, you can bring their uncles. There's absolutely nothing that we can do for them."

Dr. Aqsa Durrani

"You can't get past these memories. "

Dr. Sanjay Adusumilli

Dr. Scarlett Wong

Dr. Modher Albeiruti

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

Dr. Mihir Chaudhary

"The trauma doesn't just happen in the three or four year olds now, it happens in their children and their children after them."

Dr. Ahmad Yousaf

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"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

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"Her cries didn't seem like the usual cries of pain during labour. It turned out that her husband and five children all had been murdered in front of her."

Heba Al-Nashef (midwife)

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"I recall his vacant stare and his soft voice whispering into my ear. I wish I had died with them. "

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan

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

Dr. Milena Angelova-Chee

"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

"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

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

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"They took the employees, one by one, for investigation."

Dr. Ahmad al-Kahlout

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

Dr. Nick Maynard

"Mom, can we leave Gaza now? I really just want to live."

Dr. Ruba

"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

"In the midst of this hell, we still dream of life."

Dr. Hussam Hammouda

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"I can't leave if you're shooting at me."

Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib

Anonymous doctor

"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

"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

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

Dr Andrew Ferguson

"I have nightmares of what I witnessed when I sleep."