I worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from March 25 to April 8. I’ve volunteered in Ukraine and Haiti, and I grew up in Flint, Mich. I’ve seen violence and worked in conflict zones. But of the many things that stood out about working in a hospital in Gaza, one got to me: Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest, virtually all of whom went on to die. Thirteen in total.
At the time, I assumed this had to be the work of a particularly sadistic soldier located nearby. But after returning home, I met an emergency medicine physician who had worked in a different hospital in Gaza two months before me. “I couldn’t believe the number of kids I saw shot in the head,” I told him. To my surprise, he responded: “Yeah, me, too. Every single day.” An enormous amount of information about the extent of the devastation in Gaza has been gleaned from satellite data <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/world/middleeast/gaza-strip-satellite-images-israel-invasion.html> , humanitarian organizations <https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/water-war-crimes-how-israel-has-weaponised-water-in-its-military-campaign-in-ga-621609/> and Gaza’s Ministry of Health <https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-25-september-2024>. However, Israel does not allow journalists <https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-says-israel-can-keep-barring-foreign-reporters-from-gaza/> or human rights investigators <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/04/gaza-discovery-of-mass-graves-highlights-urgent-need-to-grant-access-to-independent-human-rights-investigators/> into Gaza outside of a very small number of embedded reporting trips with the Israeli military, and stories from Palestinian journalists in Gaza have not been read widely enough, despite the incredible risks <https://cpj.org/full-coverage-israel-gaza-war/> they take in reporting there. But there is a group of independent observers who have seen this war from the ground, day after day: volunteer health care workers. *nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html <http://nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html>* -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#32801): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/32801 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/108912179/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
