Gaza and Lebanon: doctor bears witness to horror and fights for awareness
I often think that wielding a scalpel in Gaza was simpler than facing the borders of Europe. On the battlefield, my mission was clear: to save lives. Yet, in France and Germany, I discovered that speaking up for war victims could be as perilous as operating in a war zone.
- 1 month ago
December 4, 2024
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta and his team perform surgery under extreme conditions in a conflict-zone. | Photo courtesy of Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — I arrived in Gaza on October 9, 2023, just days after the war began and hours before the Rafah crossing closed. For 43 days, I witnessed unimaginable suffering at al-Shifa Hospital. I saw children undergoing amputations without anesthesia, entire families burned, and bodies crushed under rubble. A year later, in Lebanon, I faced the same devastating realities. As the world looks away, physicians in conflict zones become more than healers. We stand as witnesses to humanity’s enduring spirit.
Discover more stories from Gaza at Orato World Media.
A reality of displacement and occupation: In life there are no guarantees
Born in Kuwait, I lived in a city caught between the desert and the sea where the heat ruled everything, and the air carried the lingering scent of salt. The bustling markets acted like a constant backdrop to my childhood, alive with the sounds of vendors calling out. They offered spices, fabrics, and an endless array of goods. At home, my family of Palestinian refugees clung to stories of a homeland I never saw. They spoke of olive groves, villages that no longer existed, and the unyielding struggle to preserve identity in the face of loss.
From an early age, I understood life offers no guarantees. Everything can change in an instant. Growing up amid the realities of displacement and occupation meant living in a world fractured by invisible wounds and deep divisions. That sense of instability shaped me, but also awakened my purpose.
My mother, with her calm yet resolute voice, often reminded me that the smallest act of kindness can ease someone else’s suffering. Her words stayed with me, planting the seed of desire to help others. As I grew up, I realized I wanted to be part of a healing process. This conviction led me to pursue medicine.
In 1982, my family and I arrived in Lebanon, driven by war. The Israeli invasion further inflamed tensions in the region, and Lebanon became a fragile refuge, offering safety but no peace. My mother, as always, anchored us. She kept the family together, while my father focused on protecting and providing for us. We joined a wave of Palestinians trying to rebuild our lives in another land.
My heart remained tied to refugee camps and conflict zone
Lebanon greeted us in a state of open conflict. Survival required constant adaptation to war and the looming presence of soldiers. Yet, our community shared a collective determination to endure. Those years shaped my identity, reinforcing my sense of belonging.
My education eventually took me to Cairo and the United Kingdom, but my heart remained tied to refugee camps and conflict zones. Studying in Scotland strengthened my resolve, and I returned to Lebanon as a surgeon, determined to mend the damage inflicted by war. Each operation became a battle to restore shattered lives.
Field hospitals in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza became my battlegrounds, but Gaza always pulled me back. From 2008 to 2023, I worked through every major conflict in the area. The faces of the wounded and their families remain etched in my memory. Their stories fueled my determination to keep going, to stand against the devastation, and to find hope.
I arrived in Gaza again on October 9, 2023, just two days after Hamas attacked Israel and hours before the Rafah crossing closed. The city became a wounded body, its scars etched into the buildings and reflected in the haunted eyes of its people. At al-Shifa Hospital, an avalanche of suffering awaited: children amputated without anesthesia, entire families burned, and bodies crushed under collapsed buildings. In Gaza, death became a weapon wielded to dismantle communities.
One of the most harrowing moments came when they brought in a nine-year-old girl on a makeshift stretcher. Dust and blood covered her frail body, and her fearful eyes pierced straight through me. The smell of burning flesh and blood created an unbearable experience. Her leg and arm were severely infected. We had no anesthesia left, and I had to explain the procedure knowing I could not shield her from the pain.
The night of October 17, 2023, was hell on earth
As I worked, her screams filled the room, gradually fading into a hoarse voice. Tears streamed down the faces and onto the masks of my colleagues. Despite the pain, her resilience shone through. When we finished the surgery, I met her gaze and gently squeezed her hand, knowing words meant little in Gaza. That night, as shelling shook the ground, I sat alone, trying to process what I witnessed. Her courage stayed with me, a testament to the unyielding human spirit even in the face of unimaginable cruelty. For weeks, we worked under relentless bombardment.
The night of October 17, 2023, felt like hell on earth. Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, a refuge for the wounded, became a mass grave. A massive explosion shattered the building as we treated critically ill patients, reducing it to rubble. Dust choked the air, blinding us, while monitors went dark and the acrid smell of smoke and burnt flesh overwhelmed every sense. I rushed to the remnants of an operating room, where bodies lay trapped beneath beams, and patients clung to life. A nurse struggled to free a child.
Outside, obliterated roads left ambulances unable to reach us. Families crowded the doors in desperation, searching for loved ones. We fought to save lives with no resources or space, feeling a crushing weight of helplessness. By dawn, the scale of the devastation became clear: at least 100 people died, including doctors and patients.
This was no accident—it was a deliberate act of destruction. To target a hospital is to obliterate hope, resilience, and dignity. That night marked a turning point for me. I was no longer just a doctor; I became a witness to calculated genocide. [French military intelligence’s assessment noted the Palestinian militant group Hamas carries explosive charges of about the correct weight, including an Iranian-made rocket and another that is Palestinian-made, and concluded a Palestinian rocket likely caused the explosion. Human Rights Watch said “further investigation is needed to determine who launched the apparent rocket…”]
Fighting for humanity in makeshift operating rooms
Days later, a three-year-old boy arrived at an overcrowded hospital in Gaza, cradled in his father’s arms. His mangled limbs left no choice but amputation. The makeshift operating room displayed the scarcity we faced, where every decision felt like a moral struggle. When the child awoke, I braced for tears, but instead, his gaze met mine with silent acceptance. At just three years old, he seemed to understand the incomprehensible: the absence of justice in a world that failed to protect him. His calm, more than the chaos or bombs, will haunt me forever.
In northern Gaza, only two operating theaters remained functional under relentless bombardment. We worked through the nights, often guided by the dim light of our phones as power outages plunged us into darkness. The hospital, now a shell of its former self, stood as a form of resilience, its walls trembling with every explosion. Medical teams, exhausted but undeterred, fought to save lives against impossible odds, clinging to the hope of offering even a sliver of relief.
Without anesthesia, amputations became acts of raw instinct and desperation, each procedure a harrowing reminder of the limits we faced. Infections spread rapidly, forcing wrenching decisions that no doctor should ever have to make. Supplies became scarce. When bandages ran out, we wrapped wounds with scraps of torn cloth, improvising with whatever was available.
Every moment became a battle. Beyond the shattered hospital walls, the shelling never ceased, each blast shaking the ground beneath us, amplifying the weight of the burden we bore. In that makeshift battlefield, where the operating rooms became trenches against despair, we fought to preserve the humanity that war sought to erase.
From Gaza’s frontlines to European bans: speaking truth met with resistance
Despite everything, life continues. I remember a couple who decided to marry in a refugee camp. Their laughter filled the air, while they celebrated. I sat across the room stitching the wound of a man who arrived that afternoon after a seizure. Life pressed forward, even here, even now. I paused briefly, watching the couple exchange glances—a promise of love and resilience, clinging to what remained of their humanity.
Leaving Gaza provided no relief. Every patient I left behind felt like a potential death, a life unfinished. At the airport, fragments of memories flooded my mind: muffled laughter, faces etched with pain, the eyes of those I would never see again. I often think that wielding a scalpel in Gaza was simpler than facing the borders of Europe. On the battlefield, my mission remained clear: to save lives. In France and Germany, I discovered that speaking up for war victims could prove as perilous as operating during war.
In April 2024, I went to Germany to attend a medical conference, determined to share the harsh realities I witnessed in Gaza. At Berlin’s airport, agents scrutinized my passport, exchanging cautious glances signaling trouble. They escorted me to a secluded room and informed me, without trial or warning, that Germany banned me from entering for a year. My supposed crime seemed obvious: speaking out against the atrocities I witnessed as a surgeon in a war zone. Sitting in that room, I thought of the families in Gaza, trapped with no escape. The same governments supplying the weapons that devastated my patients now sought to silence me, erasing the truth of the victims’ suffering.
Providing aid in southern Lebanon
Later that year, I received an invitation to speak at a humanitarian forum in the French Senate. Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport, authorities detained me again. The ban imposed by Germany extended across the entire Schengen zone. Despite my role as a surgeon and human rights advocate, they treated me like a threat. With the relentless efforts of my lawyers, we eventually succeeded in overturning the restriction. However, the message remained unmistakable: the truth I carried challenged powerful interests and made many uneasy.
Denouncing Gaza’s suffering is not heroic. It is essential. In Gaza, violence is systematic. The destruction of hospitals, the maiming of children, and the denial of basic resources like water and medicine become tactics of war meant to annihilate the Palestinian people. That is genocide—there is no other word for a campaign that turns homes into rubble and dreams into ashes.
In Europe, I shared stories of children amputated without anesthesia, families living in hospital corridors, and mothers cradling lifeless bodies as bombs fell. Some listened in silence; others avoided eye contact, as if acknowledging the truth made them complicit. Yet, silence is complicity. Every testimony I gave became a battle against forgetting—a defiant act of resistance against the attempt to erase Gaza’s suffering.
Then, I arrived in southern Lebanon on September 18, 2024. In the makeshift hospital, stretchers filled with children, men, and women covered in dust and blood. I remember a five-year-old girl, her glassy eyes reflecting shock and loss. She inhaled debris during a bombing that killed her entire family and was now struggling to breathe. Our tools were insufficient to save her. I felt helpless, knowing that the real enemy was not just a lack of resources but a system that allowed such barbarism.
During surgery, the hospital faced a missile strike
Each day unveiled new horrors: collapsed houses, bodies trapped under rubble, and injuries that told stories of explosions and crushing devastation. Systematic attacks on hospitals in southern Lebanon forced us to evacuate patients to Beirut. At the clinic, I treated countless children—some bearing severe burns, others losing limbs to the violence.
I cannot erase the memory of a 13-year-old boy burned over most of his body. Despite our desperate efforts in the operating room, he did not survive. Yet amidst the relentless suffering, people clung to hope, finding sparks of humanity in the chaos, no matter how faint. One week later, during surgery, the hospital faced a missile strike. The roar of the explosion shook the walls, freezing us in place.
The patient on the table remained anesthetized, but we felt every nerve sharpened with fear. Lights flickered, then failed, leaving us in near darkness illuminated only by the flashes of detonations outside. Instinct guided us. We covered the instruments with sheets and dropped to the floor, bracing for impact. Outside, smoke and cries of terror filled the air. Minutes stretched endlessly until the bombardment finally ceased.
We stood slowly, our uneven breaths breaking the silence, the sharp scent of gunpowder lingering in the room. Broken glass glinted under the dim emergency light, a stark reminder of the fragility of everything around us. Yet, the open wound in the patient’s chest pulled us back to reality. He still relied on us to complete the work we started, and we returned to the table with trembling hands that soon steadied, each movement a defiance against the chaos that sought to consume us.
After two months I left a destroyed Lebanon behind
We returned to the operating table, shaky at first but soon regaining precision. Each cut and each stitch became a refusal to let destruction claim yet another life. Outside, the hospital reverberated with detonations, but inside, we clung to our mission. Saving that patient felt like more than a duty; it symbolized the fragile yet unyielding beacon of hope that kept us human amidst relentless chaos.
One haunting image remains vivid: a mother and her son arriving at the hospital. Her left arm, torn off by a blast, bled profusely. Yet, she insisted we treat her son first. His body, covered in severe burns, spoke volumes about the brutality he endured. Exhausted but resolute, she whispered comfort to him while we worked to ease his pain. Her focus on his survival transcended her agony. As she gently placed him on a makeshift stretcher, her steady, unyielding voice pleaded.
“Please, him first,” she said. Her determination defied the destruction surrounding her, a testament to a love that physical pain could not break. As we treated the boy, she stayed at his side, ignoring her own missing arm. Stroking his forehead, she whispered soothing words, her voice a lullaby of reassurance. Her tears, mixed with ash and dust, mirrored her deeper fear—the anguish of failing to protect him. Her unwavering courage left an indelible mark on me.
When I left Lebanon after two months, the chaos and destruction lingered in my mind. Hospitals in the south sat in ruins, systematically bombed, leaving medical teams and patients in a hopeless battle against death. Yet that mother’s strength—a glimmer of humanity amid devastation—reminded me that even in the darkest times, resilience can shine.
Every day there becomes a race against time
Now, I am on the way back to Lebanon because even the smallest effort makes a difference. War does not pause, and neither do the wounded. Gaza, however, cuts deeper. It becomes a place where suffering knows no end. Despite restrictions that block Palestinian doctors like me from entering, I search for ways back. Gaza is more than a battlefield; it embodies resilience and despair.
Every day there becomes a race against time: Will supplies arrive? Will hospitals withstand another bombing? Will more lives be saved than lost? When the gates reopen, I will return, because in Gaza, every minute matters. Healing my wounds from Lebanon and Gaza often feels as insurmountable as saving the most critical patients. Endless days in makeshift operating rooms, where every decision carries life-or-death stakes, forces me to find solace in small rituals.
At night, I write in my journal, capturing not just medical procedures but the faces and stories that deeply moved me. Writing helps me process the horror, make sense of the cruelty, and remember why I was there. Even small differences matter in a world that often turns away. Yet, some days, even writing fails to quiet the echoes of children’s cries or mothers’ whispered pleas. In those moments, I seek comfort in my family’s words or the strength of my patients. Today, as the world often looks away, physicians in conflict zones become more than healers. We become witnesses to humanity’s unyielding spirit.
