A surgeon returning from a mission in the Gaza Strip said that the injuries she saw there as a result of the Israeli war were large, indicating that she had seen many amputation cases “unparalleled in any other war.”
Doctor Victoria Rose explained – in her interview with Tel Aviv Tribune – that the number of children injured in the Gaza Strip shocked her, revealing that 80% of her patients were between the ages of five and 16, and she said that the injuries of most of them changed their lives.
Yesterday, Saturday, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the toll from the Israeli war had risen to 42,924 martyrs and 100,833 wounded, the majority of whom were children and women, since October 7, 2023.
She pointed out that her first visit to the Gaza Strip was after the return marches in 2018, adding that the injuries were a 16-year-old boy due to “gunshots that did not threaten their lives.”
The marches of return and breaking the siege began on March 30, 2018, and thousands participated in them every week near the separation fence with Israel, and the occupation army confronted them by firing gunshots at the participants.
But Rose’s last visit to Gaza was a comprehensive and different devastation of civilians that she had never seen before, speaking of many injuries and cases of amputation of limbs.
She added that most of the children’s injuries in the current war were due to explosions, as shrapnel contributes to quickly injuring people and fatal injuries, “the likes of which we have not seen in any other war.”
The Gaza Ministry of Health says, “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.”
Rose – who was on assignment at the European Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis (south of the Gaza Strip) – explained that the children she examined suffered gunshot wounds to the extremities, and that she was unable to treat some of the children due to a lack of medical supplies.
Victoria Rose said that Israel restricts the number of doctors allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, warning of the death of a large number of injured people due to the lack of supplies and preventing the removal of injured people outside Gaza.
During the war, Israel launched a major attack on the hospitals of the Gaza Strip, putting most of them out of service due to their exposure to bombing, destruction and burning, the most prominent of which was the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, in addition to storming the Kamal Adwan and Indonesian Hospitals in the north and the Nasser Medical Complex in the south.
It also killed and arrested hundreds of medical personnel in the Gaza Strip, and also targeted ambulances and prevented the supply of fuel and medical supplies to hospitals and medical centers.