'Children with lost limbs and bullet wounds': British doctors recall time in Gaza

Warning: This article contains distressing details

Two British doctors have described the "absolutely awful" injuries that they have witnessed over the past year in Gaza.

Despite having worked in conflict zones across the world, they said their time in Gaza, since Israel's bombardment of the Strip intensified following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel last year, was one of their “most difficult” and “surreal” experiences.

Children coming in with "lost limbs" and "single bullet wounds to the head" were just some of the difficult experiences they recalled. They said many patients had injuries which were so severe they ended up dying.

Dr Nizam Mamode and Dr Ammar Darwish were in Gaza as volunteers with a medical team organised by the charities Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), spending their time at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

'As though an atomic bomb had gone off'

Dr Mamode, 62, went to Gaza for a month from August 12, alongside three others, including Dr Darwish, told PA it was a “surreal world”.

The doctor, who practices general surgery, vascular surgery and transplantation and lives in Hampshire, said Gaza "looked as though an atomic bomb (has gone off)."

“There were around a million to a million and a half people packed into the small area and the conditions were appalling.

“You see tents everywhere and when I say tents, they’re usually bits of plastic and carpet tacked to sticks or posts.”

'Awful injuries' and lack of resources

“The injuries were absolutely awful,” he said.

“We would have children who’d been shot by drones, children who’d lost limbs from blast injuries, children with single bullet wounds to the head where they’d clearly been deliberately shot and this just happened day after day.

“Many patients didn’t survive and many of those we operated on subsequently died.”

A lack of resources and sanitation meant many wounds became infected fairly rapidly, with Dr Mamode saying he saw several wounds with maggots in them.

He added: “The targeting of aid and medical workers was absolutely astonishing – ambulances were being shot when they were going out to rescue people from a bombing.

“Medical aid is not being let in and there are bizarre restrictions like no soap and shampoo for a million and a half people crammed into this small area.

“I’ve never come across a conflict where people are just penned in and then bombed.

“What’s happened and is still happening in Gaza should not be visited on any other population in the world at all.”

'Lucky to be alive'

Dr Darwish, a general and major trauma surgeon from Manchester, who is also the clinical director at the David Nott Foundation, went to Gaza twice this year, from January 10 to 20 and a month from August 12.

He said he is “lucky” to be able to speak about what he witnessed after his expected two-and-a-half-week mission in January was cut to 10 days after a guest house he was staying at with other emergency medical personnel in Al-Mawasi, Rafah, was hit by an Israeli air strike on January 18.

“Thankfully, we got away with minor injuries, which was a miracle really,” he said.

“If that rocket was three or four metres closer, it would have hit inside the house where our rooms were and I most likely would not be speaking with you today.”

During both missions, Dr Darwish tended to injuries alongside supportive and “absolutely brilliant” local doctors, with roughly 70% of patients being women or children.

“You get crush injuries from buildings falling on people and many would come in with shrapnel-penetrating injuries to the head, chest and abdomen because of missiles and bombardment of these buildings and tents,” he said.

“These kinds of injuries don’t end with only one operation when they first come in – patients will often need further surgeries, reconstructive operations, rehabilitation and physiotherapy, and the problem is they simply don’t have any of these facilities in Gaza due to the collapsed health system.”

'Glimmers of hope'

Dr Darwish said even though he had to tend to the most critically injured young patients, there were glimmers of hope.

“On the second trip, I had a four-year-old girl who came with a bullet straight to the head that was embedded in her brain,” he said.

“Her level of consciousness started to drop when she arrived and our team put her to sleep, intubated her and we took her straight to theatre.

“We operated on her with the neurosurgeon – we made a hole in the skull to evacuate the haematoma that’s pressing on the brain to stop the brain from being compressed.

“We didn’t think she would survive, but then she started to breathe on her own, she opened her eyes, recognised her mum and called her name out.”

He added the girl was discharged from hospital two days before he left Gaza, but when he said she could go home, she replied: “I don’t have a home any more.”

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'It's just going to go on and on'

Dr Darwish said getting supplies was one of the hardest jobs as there were many shortages, from anaesthetic medicine and pain relief to antibiotics and antiseptics, and he added Gaza will see further casualties as violence escalates in the Middle East.

“It terrifies me when I see the news now,” he said.

“I’ve done more than 50 humanitarian missions and Gaza has been one of the most difficult ones.

“What we’re seeing in Gaza, this continued conflict, means we’ll see more civilian casualties and more injuries, more people that are suffering, more displaced people – it’s just going to go on and on and on.

“I don’t know how they can be expected to take any more of this war or this blockade on essentials.”

Israel’s offensive has already killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents and destroyed much of the territory.

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