During a typical day at Nasser hospital in the south of Gaza, Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, woke up before dawn.
“Because the bombing would start at four years,” she said, now returned to London, after finishing her third humanitarian mission in Gaza since the start of the War of Israel in October 2023.
Over four weeks in May, it generally operated on 12 or 13 patients per quarter of 2 p.m., unless there was a mass incident overnight, which means even longer changes and more patients.
In comparison, in London hospitals, it treats a maximum of three patients per day.
“It works constantly in Gaza,” she said.
Recalling some of her many patients, she treated Adam Al-Najjar, 11, the only surviving child of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, whose nine other children and husbands, also a doctor, were killed during an attack at Khan Younis last month.
She remembers very well with two brothers suffering from injuries to the lower limbs, Yakoob and Mohammed, who were the only survivors of their family, and an eight -year -old girl named Aziza who was an orphan.
“She had a burn on her face and shoulder, and someone found him walking in the streets and brought her,” said Rose, specializing in plastic and reconstruction surgery.
Rose and a team of doctors also worked tirelessly to save the leg of a seven -year -old girl who, after an explosion, “he lacked his knee … It was like looking at the back of her leg without the bone”.
After cleaning the area, withdrawn the dead skin and muscles and dressed the injury, the girl returned three times for subsequent treatment, but ultimately, her member was amputated.
Tel Aviv Tribune spoke with Dr. Rose of the growing intensity of the Israeli bombardment, the impact of malnutrition which was exacerbated by a blocking of three months, deaths and ball injuries that she saw among those who have desperately tried to make rations via a new mechanism in Palestinian suffering prevails.
Tel Aviv Tribune: How did you feel you entered Gaza this time?
Victoria Rose: Certainly once we entered, the bombing was much worse than ever, and it was good, much stronger, closer, more constant than ever. The drones – it was as if they were on me. They were constantly there and very noisy to the point that it was difficult to have a conversation if you were outside.
Tel Aviv Tribune: What are the types of injuries you have seen reveal on the current intensity of bombing?
Pink: This time, injuries seemed to come from the heart of an explosion. People had been exploded and pieces of them had been blown away.
Last summer, there were many more injuries with bursts of shells – a bomb was going nearby, and something had been whipped and hit them and did damage to their bodies. Many more survivable rebuildable injuries, when they seemed to be much more direct successes on people.
Tel Aviv Tribune: You volunteered three times during the genocide, including in March and August from last year. The number of deaths, now at around 55,000, continues to increase in a hurry. Was it the most difficult trip?
Pink: It is, without the shadow of a doubt, the worst. The volume of patients is more and the children are more. The number of children has increased exponentially. They have doubled since the trip to March (2024) – the number of children I saw.
During the first trip (in March 2024), I thought I saw a lot of children, but this trip exceeded this.
Tel Aviv Tribune: How would you describe the Nasser Hospital?
Pink: It is a very similar scenario, a very similar atmosphere to a hospital anywhere, but it is so crowded.
It’s everyone; It is as if the whole population was there.
(Doctors are generally) very selective with the people we hospitalize. They are normally older, or have cancer, or complications from diabetes or heart attacks – it is normally that obtain hospital beds in the United Kingdom. But there it could be everyone on your way. It’s just normal people who have been exploded. Healthy people who are otherwise really in good shape, and have now been exploded.
It is quite weird to hospitalize someone who was in good shape yesterday and, well, it is now missing an arm or part of an arm.
Tel Aviv Tribune: You were in Gaza when people were desperately trying to obtain food aid through the Gaza Humaninian Foundation (GHF), a new mechanism supported by Israel and the United States, have been attacked. Many have been killed. You did interviews with the media at the time. What were you witness and experienced?
Pink: Most of the victims were shot. They were slaughtered in the stomach, slaughtered in the leg, pulled in the arm.
After the GHF shooting, when (the victims) all entered, immediately the next journalist (I spoke) told me that “Israel denied having fired on anyone and you know, they say that it is the Palestinians who stand”. And then they said, “No one was killed”, and I was standing in the emergency service with 30 bags of body, thinking, you cannot lie like that. You can’t.
Tel Aviv Tribune: Many in Gaza are vulnerable to famine, and thousands of children suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations. How does that affect patients and hospital staff?
Pink: Everyone has lost weight. They will tell you: “I am now five or 10 kg of less weight.”
My medical students I was there in August, the girls are so thin. They are all in their twenties, and everyone really seemed to have lost significant amounts of weight.
But the children are really small. They are really thin.
Sixty children died at Nasser Hospital in Malnutrition.
It is mainly children who are lactose intolerant or who also have another disease, because none of the only formulas that spread is suitable for children with lactose intolerance. Then you have children who have other diseases in addition to this, which prevents them from taking normal milk. It was quite shocking.
The traumatized patients, who I saw, were also very small. No fat on them at all, a lot of muscle waste. And they don’t really heal very well. It seemed to take much more time this time in August for injuries to heal.
There were a lot of infections, a large number of infections; With malnutrition, you get a damping of the immune system. It is one of the areas that has affected the most. You cannot put a good immune response.
In addition to that, all the injuries were dirty anyway because everyone lives in a tent and there is no sanitation, no clean water. You start in a really difficult position, then you have no more antibiotics. We only had three types of antibiotics that we could use, and none of them would have been the first line choice if we had been in the United Kingdom.
Tel Aviv Tribune: How would you describe morale among the doctors with whom you worked?
Pink: Really bad now. Many of them said to me, “I prefer to die to continue.”
Many of them want a ceasefire, and I think I am ready to do everything you need to get a cease-fire now.
They are at the bottom. They all moved 15 times. They have all lost important family members – these guys have lost children. Their houses are completely destroyed. It’s really, really difficult for them.
Tel Aviv Tribune: What are your fears for Gaza?
Pink: It is an artificial humanitarian crisis, so it could be stopped, and that is what should happen.
This could be deactivated immediately if people exert enough pressure on good governments, good leaders.
I think that if we do not deactivate it soon, there will be no Gaza and there will certainly be no Palestinians in Gaza.
It is very difficult to have conversations with the Palestinians on the future because they cannot really see it.
Note: This interview was slightly modified for more clarity and brevity.