Doctors in Gaza describe the horror of caring for children affected by war

Among all of the atrocities of war, it’s the broken and bloodied children that devastate doctors working in Gaza.

Among all of the atrocities of war, it’s the broken and bloodied children that devastate doctors working in Gaza.

“The first child I saw was a 3-year-old girl with her thigh peeled off her bone,” said Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, a physician with Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, who returned Wednesday after two months of duty at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. “The last patient I saw that day was a girl who we had to leave for dead. She was unaccompanied. She had no family. She was breathing. She had a head injury, but the system was overwhelmed. We didn’t have enough blood, and there were no beds.”

Abdelmoneim fought back tears at a news briefing Thursday on Zoom, along with other doctors from nongovernmental organizations and human rights workers who described their experiences in Gaza over the last several months.

“We stood between bodies on the floor of children in different stages of death and dying and realized there was nothing we could do,” said Dr. Ahmad Yousaf, an Arkansas pediatrician who volunteered at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza as part of a medical mission organized by the international humanitarian NGO MedGlobal. “There was only so much gauze and so many hands to place on bleeding limbs.”

The doctors went to the Gaza Strip after Israel cut supplies of water, electricity and fuel to the area after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/gaza-israel-war-doctors-horror-caring-children-rcna164712

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