Medical professionals stitching wounds of children with no numbing medication. Children covered with blood crying for their family members. A little boy just a few days old shot in the head while his mother was nursing him.
On the second floor of a Plano office building, these were just some of the accounts five Dallas-Fort Worth medical professionals described of the humanitarian and medical crisis in the Gaza Strip. They spoke at a news conference Friday afternoon organized by the North Texas Islamic Council and American Muslim Today, a digital media platform based in Dallas.
Gaza has been under constant bombardment since Oct. 9 when the Israeli government ordered a complete siege. The North Texas workers recently returned from the war-torn region following several medical missions.
Upwards of 20 doctors and medical workers went to Gaza in early May through the World Health Organization and were stranded after Israeli forces took control of the southern border crossing into Egypt May 7. They were scheduled to depart May 13 but were not evacuated until four days later to Jerusalem. The medical professionals at the news conference were in Gaza with different aid organizations but some of their stays overlapped.
Despite a few just returning, many hope to go back.
According to the Associated Press, Israeli officials have said they must take control of Rafah in the southern part of the region to achieve their goal of destroying the Hamas militant group and return all hostages. They view the city as Hamas’ last major stronghold, the outlet reported. U.S. officials have urged the Israeli government to not launch a major attack and have spoken about withholding military support if it does.
All the medical missions are cleared through the United Nations and the World Health Organization, said Dr. Syed Irfan Ali, a Dallas-based anesthesiologist. In addition to that, workers must get clearance from the Palestinian and Egyptian authorities and lastly Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
The current war started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage. In the months following the attack, Israel has bombarded Gaza, and the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 35,000 people, many of whom are women and children, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to evacuate as the fighting has raged on, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. He said there are “no safe zones” in a post on X and the situation is worsening due to a “lack of aid and basic humanitarian supplies. The Gaza Strip is about 139 square miles, which CIA officials say is slightly more than twice the size of Washington, D.C.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi have reached an agreement on aid delivery to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, an Egyptian presidency statement said, the AP reported.
The professionals spoke about the resiliency of the medical workers in Gaza, who work without pay only to serve the community. Hospitals are working with limited resources and constant overcrowding, they said, as the North Texas professionals pleaded for more aid for the region and called for a permanent cease-fire to save lives.
“Their accounts of the horror, deprivation and senseless loss of life they have witnessed must be heard, because they are not in the business of propaganda or politics,” said Rifat Malik, an editor for American Muslim Today. “Their sole purpose is saving lives and ending human suffering in this globally-recognized humanitarian crisis.”
Abeerah Muhammad, an emergency nurse in Dallas, said that while working at Gaza’s European Hospital in northern Rafah, she treated a 5-year-old boy wounded when a bomb exploded near his home. All four of his limbs had to be amputated, but he still gives the best hugs, she said.
“As I was talking to [his family] about their lives before the war, they insisted that I come into their tent for tea,” Muhammad said. “Imagine only having a liter of water allocated for your family for the entire day and inviting your guests inside for tea.”
While working inside the emergency room, Muhammad said she saw numerous traumatic injuries ranging from burns to blast and gunshot injuries, and saw people die from “preventable diseases due to lack of hygiene and clean water.”
While she was in Rafah, Muhammad said she experienced a siege and had to be evacuated.
Rafah, in the southern part of Gaza, has become a new front for the Israeli offensive. Muhammad and several medical workers were stranded when Israeli forces stormed into the region May 7. The government then shut down the southern border crossing into Egypt, blocking people from entering and exiting the Gaza Strip as well as preventing humanitarian aid from filtering into the area.
Muhammad went with the nonprofit, Fajr Scientific, earlier this month and did not leave Gaza until May 17. She said the group had planned to exit the way they entered the region, through Cairo. But they had to leave through the crossing at Kerem Shalom.
Muhammad and others described conditions for the locals there, who lack access to food and clean water.
Dr. Yassar Arain, a pediatric neonatal-perinatal specialist from Fort Worth, spoke about a boy just a few days old who “was shot in the head by a quadcopter while his mother was nursing him in her tent.” The bullet, he said, penetrated one side of his skull and exited near the back of it, but he “miraculously survived.” He said Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, located in the central part of the strip in Deir el-Balah, is running out of fuel since the border by Rafah has closed.
“I once again ask for what crime are these babies responsible for that they must pay with their life?” Arain asked.
Some like Ali have been to medical missions around the world but said the conditions in Gaza were “beyond anything I’ve ever seen. He recounted thousands of people being crammed into a hospital only fit for around 300, with the sheer lack of resources, pervasive malnutrition, starvation and increasing infections. He said it is unprecedented.
The constant threat of invasion loomed over people in the hospitals. One man, he said, had injuries to both his upper and local extremities that would typically require three separate surgeries. The man insisted they be treated all at the same time, Ali said, because he believed his only chance of survival was leaving. The physical damage, he added, is “basically the tip of the iceberg.”
“While we have addressed the physical damage, the emotional and psychological trauma endured by these families has not been discussed, and that is one thing too [that’s going] to last for a long time and their lifetime for sure,” Ali said. “We must act now provide the necessary medical aid and support rebuild Gaza, which is going to take decades, even if the war stops today.”
All the professionals spoke about the resiliency of the people working in the hospitals there, from the doctors to the nurses to staff and even medical students who lost their colleges.
“They were still standing firm to serve their community,” said Dr. Bilal Piracha, an emergency room physician from Coppell.
The comments from the professionals come as the U.N.’s International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to halt its offensive into Rafah. In late January, the court ordered Israel to do more to prevent acts of genocide but did not call for a cease-fire.
The professionals as well as local and national Muslim nonprofit leaders welcomed the ruling from the court along with recent news earlier this month of the International Criminal Court considering issuing arrest warrants for three prominent Hamas leaders as well as Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.
Mujeeb Kazi, president of the North Texas Islamic Council, pointed to how the conflict has had an impact locally as well, highlighting the protests occurring on college campuses nationwide and here in Texas. Students, faculty members and alumni of universities have been some of the people that have been arrested in protests on college campuses in the state.
Importantly, they aimed to echo the calls of Palestinians in Gaza. “They just say that please don’t forget us and please tell us their story,” Ali said.