1 year of genocide: ‘I believed I had seen the worst, then I went to Gaza’

By Leila Nezirevic

LONDON (AA) — For those who have survived Israel's onslaught on the Gaza Strip, the past year has been a horror of Palestinian children killed, mutilated and bloodied.

To help Gaza's doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others deal with the deluge of victims of Israeli bombs and ground attacks, dozens of foreign medical personnel have flocked to the enclave, witnessing the devastation firsthand.

Among them is Dr. John Kahler, a pediatrician with more than 25 years of experience in crisis zones. Before arriving in the coastal territory, Kahler thought he had seen the worst the world had to offer, but his multiple deployments in Gaza with humanitarian aid group MedGlobal shattered that belief.

“So, I've been in a lot of bad places, including Haiti after the earthquake, Yemen during a cholera outbreak, Aleppo during the siege, and I thought I was going to be pretty prepared for Gaza, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I believed I had seen the worst. Then I went to Gaza,” he told Anadolu.

- 'Surrealistic' scenes

Kahler, who is MedGlobal's co-founder, first visited Gaza in 2019 to help develop the children's ward at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. When he returned in January, he was met with the nightmarish scenes of 1.2 million refugees crammed into Rafah, a tiny city on the Egyptian border, with no access to water or electricity.

“At night, driving in the dark past masses of displaced children and women filling every inch of space, it felt like the scene was surrealistic. I mean, it looked like a post-apocalyptic movie.”

When Kahler returned to Gaza in March, at that point Rafah’s population had increased to 1.6 million, with around 56,000 people per square kilometer.

He said the destruction was so severe he could scarcely recognize the places he had visited before.

“There used to be a nice road along the beach. It was now completely destroyed. When we got to the hospital, I had asked my driver when we were going to go past the university area, and he said, you went right past it. It was completely flat. So, all four universities that were there were completely flat.”

While in Rafah, Kahler and three other MedGlobal colleagues opened a makeshift health clinic, treating up to 700 patients a day under constant bombardment.

- 'I can still hear that crying at night'

In the primary healthcare center, there was a room set aside where Kahler and his team had to clean the wounds of patients — mainly children — without anesthesia.

“So, there was screaming and crying that went on from eight o'clock in the morning until five o'clock at night, and I can still hear that crying at night, I'll wake up listening to these kids crying, screaming,” he said.

Many of the children that Kahler treated in Rafah suffered from what was presumably hepatitis A, an infectious disease that can cause fever, vomiting, and, particularly dangerous, diarrhea.

“Virtually 100% had diarrhea, which is a leading cause of death among young children.”

For Kahler the total collapse of Gaza’s sanitation and healthcare system was highlighted by the recent detection of the polio virus in the enclave, necessitating a vaccination campaign led by the World Health Organization.

“While Gaza’s population is relatively well immunized against polio, outbreaks of diseases such as measles or cholera could result in mass deaths, as we saw in Haiti,” he warned.

Kahler pointed out that the devastation of the healthcare system, coupled with an estimated 90% of Gazans being displaced, has “already led to deaths going unnoticed.”

“Displaced pregnant women are dying quietly in their tents, unable to access the care they need to survive childbirth.

“People with treatable illnesses are dying because there’s no medicine, no hospital bed, no doctor to help them.”

When Kahler and his team tried to access Gaza for a third time in May, they were denied entry as the Israeli army moved into Rafah.

- Scars lasting generations

Kahler calls for a permanent cease-fire, however he also notes that this would only be the beginning of a lengthy healing process that could last many decades.

According to him, the destruction he witnessed in Gaza was not only physical but also systemic, targeting “the very fabric of life in Gaza: its health care, its infrastructure and, most tragically, its children.”

“No amount of sustaining care for these children can happen with a short pause, it needs a cease-fire in order to permanently begin to address some of the situations with these children and their families. They will only be able to begin to have their life repaired with a permanent cease-fire.”

Kahler points out that a permanent cease-fire would permit the opening of humanitarian corridors and thus the initiation of rebuilding efforts.

Since Israel started its genocidal war on Gaza, about 96% of its 2 million people have been on the brink of starvation, he said.

“I saw parents unable to feed their children, knowing that even if they could, the damage of malnutrition was already done.”

“This isn’t just about lack of calories,” he said, explaining that the war had destroyed an entire generation’s future. According to Kahler, children starved from birth “will bear the scars of this trauma for life, physically and mentally.”

“We can solve the malnutrition problem in six months, but it is more systemic problems that are going to have to be addressed, and right now, no one is addressing them. I mean, no one talks about what the real day after is going to be like.”

He believes that the true scale of the Palestinian tragedy will only become clear “the day after.”

“Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system, the starving children and the deep, lasting trauma inflicted on an entire generation are all part of the same, ongoing catastrophe,” Kahler added.

- Israel must ‘stop killing’

The pediatrician called on Israel to “stop killing” and “release the hostages from the jails in Israel.”

Since Israel launched the brutal war on Gaza on Oct. 7 more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 95,900 others injured, according to local health authorities.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, since last October, Israeli troops have killed over 1,000 healthcare professionals in Gaza. In addition to those killed, hundreds of medical workers remain imprisoned, where they face abuse and torture, according to rights groups.

Almost a year into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid Israeli airstrikes, a crippling blockade of food, power, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.