Resilience and dignity of Palestinian doctors in Gaza amid genocide moved me: US medic

An American doctor who volunteered at a hospital in southern Gaza says he was moved by the resilience and dignity shown by Palestinian healthcare workers amid the genocidal war. 

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma, critical care, and acute care surgeon based in California, volunteered for two weeks at the European Hospital in Khan Younis city along with some other American medics.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Dr. Sidhwa said the Palestinian healthcare workers had accepted the reality that they may not survive, hoping only for a swift death rather than a prolonged one.

He said these healthcare workers understood they were the targets in the Israeli attacks that have continued since October 7 of last year, resulting in nearly 43,000 fatalities, including a significant number of Palestinian medics and paramedics.

“According to international law, healthcare facilities are supposed to be protected spaces. However, this law has been disregarded by Israel, while the US, Europe, Canada, and Australia have condoned these actions,” he stated.

“In contrast, the rest of the world—particularly the Global South, led by South Africa—has called for accountability.”

Dr. Sidhwa noted that many Palestinian healthcare workers were living in hospitals because their families had been killed and their homes destroyed in indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes.

Those who still had homes intact found it too dangerous to travel through the city amid incessant airstrikes and deadly military raids.

Describing his experience working in a Gaza hospital amid the war as “challenging,” Dr. Sidhwa highlighted the lack of essential medical supplies and equipment.

“As a surgeon, I rely on supplies—operating rooms and anesthetics. You can’t perform surgery on sheer willpower. My hands are trained, but they don’t suture without sutures, and they don’t cut without scalpels,” he said in a freewheeling conversation with the Press TV website.

“I knew the European Hospital would be a difficult place to work, but experiencing the chaos firsthand was beyond words. What struck me was that, despite this chaos, it was still the best hospital in Gaza at the time.”

He noted that around 10,000 to 15,000 people took shelter on the hospital grounds—not as patients, but as families seeking safety in the face of the ongoing violence.

Inside the hospital corridors, families occupied every inch of space except for narrow pathways where gurneys could pass, making it nearly impossible to maintain cleanliness and sterility for patients.

Dr. Sidhwa observed that most patients arriving at the hospital were malnourished due to inadequate nutrition, underscoring the fact that the Israeli regime has employed starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

“Surgery relies on the body’s ability to heal. For those who are too malnourished to heal, surgery is not a viable solution. Most patients were malnourished to some degree, with some appearing skeletal. While they weren’t actively starving to death, any additional trauma from injury or surgery could prove fatal due to their malnutrition,” he stated.

While the official death toll reported by the Palestinian health ministry is nearly 43,000, Dr. Sidhwa, in a letter co-signed by 99 other healthcare workers to the Biden administration (available at gazahealthcareletters.org), documented an estimated minimum of 118,000 dead as of October 2.

A study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Lancet in July indicated that the cumulative effects of the war on Gaza could mean the actual death toll is around 186,000.

Dr. Sidhwa said every case he encountered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis deeply moved him.

“Mark Perlmutter and I discussed one such case in Politico, a Washington, DC-based magazine aimed at American political elites. In that article, we wrote about Jury, a nine-year-old girl injured in an explosion,” he recalled.

The little girl’s family had relocated to Rafah city in southern Gaza for safety, leaving her and her siblings with their grandparents while their parents went shopping for groceries.

Upon returning, they found their home destroyed and the children scattered across various hospitals. Jury was brought to the European Hospital, where Dr. Sidhwa treated her.

“Her injuries were severe—deep wounds with maggots emerging, which had actually slowed the infection by consuming dead tissue. Her malnutrition, the hospital’s lack of cleanliness, and the initial treatment she received from medical students with little oversight all worsened her condition,” he explained.

Dr. Sidhwa’s team, comprising six surgeons and two anesthesiologists, worked around the clock for ten days, providing the necessary care that allowed her to survive long enough to be evacuated to Egypt.

“I recently received a video message from her—a small thank you in Arabic. She’s safe in Egypt now, but thousands of other children like her are not as fortunate,” he said.

“Many have died simply because Gaza’s healthcare system has been systematically destroyed. If the infrastructure and population hadn’t been starved and shattered, Jury wouldn’t have required such intensive intervention. She would have received the appropriate surgery and care from the start.”

Dr. Sidhwa and his colleagues compiled observations from 65 American healthcare workers who volunteered in various Gaza hospitals during the ongoing genocidal war.

“Their collective experiences reveal that what I witnessed was not an isolated incident. Almost everyone encountered widespread starvation, children regularly shot in the head, and children with such profound psychiatric trauma that even young ones expressed suicidal thoughts,” he noted.

“Consider this—how often do we see suicidal toddlers? These children have been driven to such extremes by witnessing their families’ destruction before their eyes.”

Regarding his country’s involvement in the Israeli war against Gaza, Dr. Sidhwa, who works at San Joaquin General Hospital in California, stated that the US has not only failed to pressure Israel into a ceasefire but has actively supported its genocidal actions.

“Just as the US once supported Iraq against Iran, it now backs Israel’s operations in Gaza. The Biden administration, despite numerous appeals—including letters signed by healthcare professionals—has endorsed Israel’s objectives and methods,” he asserted.

“Recently, 150 Israeli doctors wrote to the US government, supporting our calls for an arms blockade on Israel. Despite these protests, the US continues to support Israel, effectively condoning what is happening in Gaza. As an American, it is clear that we have a moral responsibility to speak out, work for change, and acknowledge the consequences of our government’s actions.”