'It's hard to see so many kids die'

U.S. medical workers bear witness to Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe

- Kate LINTHICUM

TRAUMA nurse Andee Vaughan, bottom right, worked at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, where “survival mode” became the norm.

When Texas neurologist Hamid Kadiwala told his parents he was heading to Gaza to volunteer at a hospital there, they begged him to reconsider.

"Why would you take that risk?" they asked. What about his Fort Worth medical practice? His wife? His four children?

But Kadiwala, 42, had been deeply shaken by images from Gaza of mass death and destruction and felt a responsibility to act. Israel's siege on the small, densely populated Gaza Strip was "a history-shaking event," Kadiwala said. "I want my kids to be able to say that their father was one of those who tried to help."

Kadiwala is one of dozens of American doctors and nurses who have worked in the Gaza Strip since 2023, when Israel began bombing the enclave in retaliation for the deadly Hamas attacks of Oct. 7.

The volunteers - men and women of all ages, agnostics as well as Muslims, Christians and Jews - have labored under the constant threat of violence, amid raging disease and with little access to food and medicine they need to save lives.

Many are hopeful that the new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that took effect Friday will halt the violence. But even with new aid rolling in, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains daunting.

With foreign journalists largely barred from Gaza and more than 200 Palestinian media workers killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, on-the-ground testimony from doctors and nurses has been critical to helping the world understand the horrors unfolding.

But bearing witness comes at a steep personal cost.

As Kadiwala drove into the enclave in a United Nations convoy late last year, he saw an endless expanse of gray rubble.

Emaciated young men swarmed his vehicle. The sky buzzed with drones. Bombs sounded like rolling thunder.