US doctor describes dire conditions, dangers for health workers in war-torn Gaza

​​​​​​​By Mucahit Oktay

An American doctor who volunteered in the Gaza Strip described the dire conditions, significant dangers and "severe" risks facing health care workers because of Israel's onslaught against the territory.

Talal Ali Khan, who treated patients in the war-torn enclave from July 16 to Aug. 7, recounted to Anadolu his experiences and observations while in Gaza, highlighting the perils for doctors and the overwhelming destruction in the region.

Khan said he traveled to Gaza under UN protection, but he and health workers remained vulnerable to attacks.

The nephrologist, who is a clinical associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Oklahoma, visited three hospitals, including Gaza’s largest, Al-Shifa Hospital, which was heavily damaged. He documented the destruction of the dialysis unit at the Al-Shifa, which had served nearly 450 patients and had 60 machines, before the war.

“Now, this is all ruins,” he said,

Despite assurances of safety under UN protection, Khan said he felt "constantly at risk" throughout his mission.

-Gaza ‘means resilience, determination’

“Gaza to me, it means resilience, determination,” he said, “These are special people.”

Khan said his perspective of life changed after returning from Gaza.

“Things happen, stresses happen in your life, anxiety happens in your life. You get preoccupied with those difficulties or anxieties but after seeing the people of Gaza, what they are going through, you feel that everything is so small in front of what disaster they are going through,” said Khan.

One patient moved him deeply. The man, displaced and with little to his name, insisted on sharing a cup of tea with Khan. “These people, in spite of having so little, their hearts are so big.”

-‘Schools are the deadliest places in Gaza’

He believes places like schools, mosques and libraries as key targets for Israeli attacks.

“In my opinion, what I have seen, schools are the deadliest places in Gaza right now,” he said, adding that schools were targeted 16 times in August.

The destruction is "beyond comprehension,” with entire neighborhoods flattened. “I have not seen even a single mosque that was intact,” he said.

Despite the widespread destruction, Khan said Gazans remain resilient.

“I have seen kids in the tents going to small makeshift schools where the women in Gaza, they were teaching them Quran as well as the regular education. It was so heartwarming to see that these people are still very resilient, very determined to move on to do what they can do on their part,” said Khan.

He criticized the global community for its inaction in the face of the devastation in Gaza, arguing that the world shares responsibility for the tragedy.

Israel has launched a genocidal war against Gaza following an attack last year by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas. The ensuing onslaught has so far killed nearly 44,000 people, most of them women and children, and injured more than 104,000.

International recognition of the genocide in Gaza has grown in the second year of the deadly Israeli onslaught, as organizations and leaders have labeled the events as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan