Among all the horrors of war, it’s the injured and traumatized children that devastate doctors working in Gaza. Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, a physician with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), shared his harrowing experiences after returning from two months of duty at Nasser Hospital in Gaza.
“The first child I saw was a 3-year-old girl with her thigh peeled off her bone,” Dr. Abdelmoneim recounted. “The last patient I saw that day was a girl we had to leave for dead. She was unaccompanied, with no family, breathing but with a severe head injury. The system was overwhelmed. We didn’t have enough blood or beds.”
Dr. Abdelmoneim, along with other doctors and human rights workers, described their experiences in Gaza over the past few months. Dr. Ahmad Yousaf, an Arkansas pediatrician who volunteered at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, shared similar stories. “We stood between bodies on the floor of children in different stages of death and dying and realized there was nothing we could do. There was only so much gauze and so many hands to place on bleeding limbs.”
The doctors travelled to Gaza after Israel cut supplies of water, electricity, and fuel following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. “The system is on its knees,” Dr. Abdelmoneim said. “Nowhere is safe.”
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Widespread Illnesses
Gazan healthcare workers have not been spared from the conflict. Their homes have been destroyed, and family members have been killed. They also face widespread illnesses due to poor sanitation and lack of water. Alexandra Saieh, head of humanitarian advocacy and policy at Save the Children International, highlighted that the aid workers are also becoming sick, further crippling the aid response.
Saieh reported that more than 14,000 Palestinian children have been killed since October, and over 20,000 are missing. “This includes children separated from their families, trapped under rubble, presumed dead, and buried in unmarked mass graves.”
A staggering number of children in Gaza are losing their limbs and facing life-altering injuries due to explosive weapons. They do not have access to prosthetics or physiotherapy, and they can’t flee when Israeli forces issue evacuation orders. The World Health Organization recently warned that polio might be spreading undetected in Gaza after wastewater samples tested positive for the virus. This is just one of many health problems facing doctors in Gaza.
“The top diagnoses in our primary health centers are all water- and sanitation-related: diarrhea, scabies infestation, skin infections, and eye infections,” Dr. Abdelmoneim said. “We have children dying from hepatitis A, which can be spread through contaminated water.”
Children are Left Traumatized
The children who survive are often deeply traumatized. Dr. Yousaf described children as young as 3 years old, “wide-eyed, clinging to their parents, or what’s left of them,” as they watched their loved ones die from traumatic injuries. He expressed concern about the long-term psychological impact on these children. “What will that do to that child for the rest of their lives? Who will they be 20 years from now, when they’ve lost all ability to cope because of the prolonged, persistent trauma and assault on their pediatric brains? That’s something that will live with me.”
The situation in Gaza remains dire, with doctors and aid workers continuing to face overwhelming challenges as they strive to provide care in an environment of ongoing conflict and devastation.
This news was reported by NBC.
