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 pronounced more people dead there than I usually do in a year at my work as a trauma surgeon in California."

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

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

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"I didn't do much, I just held his hand and I wiped his head."

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

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

Dr. Mimi Syed

"Every single person I encountered was malnourished. "

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"This kid was 6 years old."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"They ordered him to abandon the patient who he was closing the wound on. He refused to do so. So, he was shot in the knee."

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"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

"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

"I went in about a week after the cease fire started. And it was, you know, it was, it was such a low bar to clear. It’s just to stop dropping bombs on, on everyone."

Dr. Adam Hamawy

"Incredibly powerful explosives ripped apart rock, floors, and walls and threw them through human bodies, penetrating skin with waves of dirt and debris. "

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

"The situation is catastrophic. Really, I'm very tired. I'm very tired. "

Dr. James Smith

Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi

"I remember the anesthesia doctor on the phone begging the blood bank for blood."

Dr. Samer Attar

"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

"The kids I was watching had neck injuries."

Prof. Christos Georgalas

"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

"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 is worse than anything I’ve ever seen. The scale of destruction is something that I couldn’t even comprehend before I got here. "

Dr. Kathleen Gallagher

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

Dr. Mohammed Tahir

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"The scale of violence directed at Gaza’s civilians is unlike anything any of us has ever seen."

152 American Medical Professionals

"She was asking me to help her."

Dr. Mohammed Mostafa

"Do we really call this a ceasefire?"

Dr. Morten Rostrup

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

Dr. Victoria Rose

"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

"They look at me with eyes that ask for comfort, not medicine."

Dr. Ahmed Seyam

"I've seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life combined. "

Dr. Mark Perlmutter

"Enough is enough. We ask for a ceasefire. Stop killing."

Mohammad Hawajreh

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

Dr. Nick Maynard

"I saw [men] who had cigarette burns on their arms, it was very clear. One had a dog bite on his stomach."

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh

Dr. Osama Tushtash

Dr. iyad Abed

Khader Abu Nada

Walid Khalili

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

Dr. Khaled Dawas

"Please, please stop this war against us"

Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi

"Just imagine the healthcare workers doing these procedures without anesthetic"