‘It’s what happens when you drop a bomb on a hospital’

Surgeon Feroze Sidhwa tells Bel Trew about the teenager he operated on who was killed in his bed by an Israeli airstrike

- Bel Trew

A surgeon who operated on a boy recovering from Israeli airstrikes has recounted the devastating moment he found his young patient killed in his hospital bed after a bomb hit surgical wards in Gaza.

Feroze Sidhwa told The Independent of the destruction the bomb wrought on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Sunday, describing the overpowering smell of smoke “like a barbecue” throughout the building and everyone being covered in soot, with the surgical ward completely destroyed, including windows blown out and rubble everywhere.

The attack came after Israel launched fresh waves of airstrikes as it resumed its war with Hamas last week, with Palestinian health authorities saying Israeli strikes have killed at least 65 people in the enclave in the past 24 hours – although officials do say Egypt has introduced a new proposal to try to get peace back on track.

Mr Sidhwa, who is working with the medical charity MedGlobal, said he was in the intensive care unit and was making his way over to the ward to change a patient’s dressing at the time of the attack.

The Californian surgeon said Nasser Hospital was put on lockdown for around an hour after the bombing, but he made his way down to the emergency room, where a patient who had been injured in the bombing was brought down wrapped in a blanket and placed on a stretcher by his family.