‘What they’re going through is much worse than I’d expected’ | DW News
well as those negotiations continue the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire even as more Aid enters the besieged territory in recent days AIDS continuing to trickle into the strip via air drops while on Wednesday Israel reopened the only Border Crossing into Northern Gaza for Aid now humanitarian groups have been urging Israeli authorities to let supplies enter via the ARs Crossing for months the UN has warned repeatedly that gazans are desperately short of food and other essential supplies with Northern Gaza in particular on the brink of famine British surgeon Mr khad dawas has just returned from his second visit to Gaza since the war started he’s been working with emergency medical teams from the International Rescue committee and Medical Aid for Palestinians welcome to uh DW we’ll come to what you saw and experience in a moment first though tell us please what made you decide to leave your your practice in London and head to a war zone the pictures that we all saw the I think the suffering that we see on TV and that we’d heard stories about uh where a great pull I I’ve been going to Gaza for a number of years as a chair of an educational charity that works with the medical schools in in Palestine overall and the this when this happened clearly there was a big draw I took my annual leave from work and decided to go for a couple of weeks in uh December January and then went again back in ail I think when you go there you realize what the need is it’s huge and and anything that I can do and many of my colleagues feel the same way we would be more than happy to provide and so you said that you were obviously you’ve been watching and monitoring events closely did what you’d seen on the television uh prepare you for what you actually experienced no not at all uh you I think the pictures are always a little bit sanitized um the real picture is very difficult to see live or recorded uh we saw a lot of social media posts about this but also more than anything else it’s actually what people tell you when you go there and the stories you get from talking to the patients that we had to deal with and their relatives as to what they’re going through is is certainly much worse than I’d expected and what did they tell you give us uh give us draw us into this this this picture so the stories particularly from patients I spoke to and their relatives were stories for example of uh trying to to regain some dignity it was all about really regaining some dignity people wanted to go back to their homes that are inevitably in many cases destroyed one of the cases is of a of a of a young man who worked with us when I was there in April uh he was our helper he was he would look after our things in our room in the hospital because we stayed in the hospital for 24 well the whole the whole time for 12 days he went back to find his home in Kan yunes after the Israeli forces left and was distraught one morning coming in to say that his house which he bought only just before October was completely destroyed stories of people traveling to pick up their belongings and trying to find out what’s left of their homes and then being uh targeted and killed on their way Journey on their way to to the to their homes and we therefore receive them as patients people who are Sheltering in schools who happen to be in the school and it was hit and we receive the whole family as as as casualties either dead or injured I talked to people like the ones who looked who were wrapping bodies in the hospital of the Dead I spoke to the man who wrapped the bodies of the world Central Kitchen staff who were killed only two days before we arrived so these stories are are a myriad of really tragedy and and and stuff that you really don’t come across in your normal life according to the International Rescue committee only 12 of gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning how did you decide where to go and how you could most make yourself useful it’s it’s a it was a very important point for us when we went in particularly initially in January but also back in April as to where we would end up going now it’s a complex equation the our our entry into Gaza is determined by the Israeli authorities but also by Egypt um and then the Palestinian Health ministry will tell us where the most need is but again it’s very much our movement is very much controlled by Kat Israeli authorities as to where we can go and where we can how we can move so our our aim was to go to hospital which was in need of of medical attention Emergency Medical Teams the alaa hospital that we went to in Del in the center had that need there are teams that go to the other major Hospital the European hospital and I would just add that though the numbers we talk about they’re being you know maybe 10 Hospital which are still functioning these are not really hospitals these are what we would call in the UK clinics or perhaps glorified general practice hos surgeries these don’t work as hospitals the only real hospitals that have a unit are two and so how do you carry out medical procedures in a war zone what happens when the bombs start dropping do you have enough medical supplies to actually do your job properly you adapt you have to adapt and I think like any War situation one has to be very adapting and also learn from the local teams who tell us how they’ve been working for the last six or seven months so no I I did not have all the equipment that I would normally have in my practice in the UK uh but I’m I’m a surgeon who deals with the abdomen the guts the chest and I can make do with things I have enough experience to be make do with things but is it ideal no it’s not as a consequence all the patients that we had had chest in had sorry wound infections after the surgery without exception and these wound infections are awful uh they can affect your survival but also we were reusing equipment that was designed for single use equipment that was donated in some cases by uh by other other teams that come in and we were using them 10 20 times these are designed for single use uh and they were not being sterilized because the sterilization facilities are not up to scratch and not working in the way they should do and so will you go back I I hope I do I my my aim and as I said this to my colleagues as I was leaving and I I left with a heavy heart really because I felt a lot of guilt leaving knowing that I can leave uh and leaving them I said I would come back of course but I really hope that I come back at in the time when the ceasefire a permanent ceasefire is in place thank you for sharing your insights uh with us British surgeon a Khaled daas a recent return from Gaza thank you so much thank you
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire, even as more aid has entered the besieged territory in recent days. Aid is continuing to trickle into the territory via air drops, while on Wednesday Israel reopened the only border crossing into northern Gaza for aid. Humanitarian groups had been urging Israeli authorities to let supplies enter via the Erez crossing for months. The UN has warned repeatedly that Gazans are desperately short of food and other essential supplies, with northern Gaza in particular on the brink of famine.
DW speaks to British surgeon Dr. Khaled Dawas, who has just returned from his second visit to Gaza since the war started. He has been working with emergency medical teams from the International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestinians.
#gaza #hospital #humanitariancrisis
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27 comments
Pakistan 🇵🇰 support Palestine 🇵🇸
India 🇮🇳 support Israel 🇮🇱
Respect Pakistan 🇵🇰
Shame on India 🇮🇳
Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Hamas is as much worse like IDF
shame on you people after all of that there is people who still suports the genocide in gaza and in the west bank that insane
Look at Jadon here so small!
statehood for Palestinian
Ukraine
All this is Hamas' fault
It's hard to know how millions of people did not see where he hostages are and let the authorities know where. Perhaps they really are Hamas collaborators.
Where are the hostages?
Phil Gayle is the best anchor at DW! Thank you for this interview.
Both Israel and Palestinians received loads of Aid. Hamas used it to make tunnels and Rocket launching sites whereas Israelis used it for development and betterment of it's people. Difference is clear.
DW is complicit in the German governments involvement in the Genocide.
Wow, it is almost like this comment section has been curated.
That man is a living angel. Thank you, sir.
With approximately 80% of "palestinians" voting for a Hamas government, this is a classic case of getting exactly what you voted for. Zero sympathy!
The number of Israelis here posting in one way or another in defense of genocide shows that what Masha Gessen wrote in The New Yorker is right: we have reached the point where we must make historical comparisons.
Anyone who can listen to this, endless death and maining of innocent families and children, and post comments like "boo hoo, too bad" has descended into the darkest of humanity. We have reached the point where, morally, historically, we must compare what is going on with much of Israeli society today with the 1930s in the countries their grandparents came from into this land.
Did this doctor look at the Israeli children murderd by the Palestinians oct7
Netanyahu you will end up in the same place where is no 18 !
Thank you !
DW News censors ligament critism that's within YouTube rules. Taking lessons from Putin?
Whose fault? Israel? They nrought it upon themselves.
The ramifications of the Oct 7 atrocity have only just began.
I'm from Israel. I can appreciate anyone who goes into a war zone to help others. I don't understand the call for "permeant ceasefire". a ceasefire can't be permanent. Example is before the massacre of Oct 7 when no Palestinians as he described it had to "regain their dignity" and 40,000 of Gazans came to Israel for work.
Un should relocate gaza to eu 😂😂 problem solved
❤Palestine 🇵🇸 ♥️ ❤️ 💖
Doctors have been speaking up on this since the beginning…where were you DW?
Why do the defenders of the genocide watch this, just to post silly comments? Thank you doctor for caring.❤