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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"Beyond dystopian. This is the most horrific thing that most of us have ever witnessed or followed in our lifetimes. "

Dr. James Smith

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

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim

"She was asking me to help her."

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"I did not see a ceasefire."

Dr. Irfan Galaria

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

Dr Andrew Ferguson

"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

"In the explosions the children would either get burnt, or shrapnel."

Dr. Victoria Rose

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"This was a bullet which was in the left upper thigh of a six-year-old child for the last few months. "

Dr. Junaid Sultan

"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

"The kids I was watching had neck injuries."

Prof. Christos Georgalas

"Trying to explain to a little boy that you are using a saw to cut through his bone."

Dr. Abdullah Ghali

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

Dr. Nada Al Hadithy

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

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

Dr. Saira Hussain

"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

"The Israelis shot a GPS-guided bomb on the house where a British charity medical team was staying. "

Dr. Amer Shoaib

"These kids are tiny, they are underweight and malnourished."

Dr. Victoria Rose

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

Dr. Samer Attar

"The one playground that I saw on the second day or third day that I was there got bombed, 15 kids came in that day Dead on arrival."

Dr. Aziz Bhimani

"There were no cardiac surgeons at the hospital, so it fell to me to lead the operation."

Dr. Khaled Dawas

"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

""They both just had terrible brain injuries. ... So I had to just tell their families, I just had to pick them up and say, 'You know, they're going to die, there's nothing I can do about that.'""

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"We go out searching for test strips and insulin, but they're nowhere to be found."

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra

Dr. Wael Hijazi

Anneliese Stephenson-Wenn

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

Dr. Samer Attar

"I have suffered a lot of punishment and beating from the soldiers there without any charge."

Dr. Khaled Alser

"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

"I was seeing my colleagues so exhausted and drained. Seeing that made me afraid. I did not want to be exposed to the same scenes."

Dr. Zena Alqudwa

"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

"It is unthinkable to lose nine of your ten children"

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra

"Every day I saw babies die."

99 American Medical Professionals

"The operating rooms were full, and we had to leave the patients there suffering"

Dr. Hussam Hammouda