Israel-Gaza war: Ex-NHS doctor stuck in Gaza says family are 'terrified' but 'he has to keep going'

This is a dangerous place to be a

doctor

. The European hospital is the only center still operating east of Rafa, with an Israeli military operation dangerously close to its doors. A few days earlier, three British

doctor

s began their stay here and we managed to speak to one. An orthopedic surgeon named Muhammad tells me a little about what the last few days have been like since the moment I arrived. I have been inundated with patients with various injuries, mainly complex injuries, but in recent days with the intensification of the bombing and Rafa uh we are suffering many explosion injuries here people literally with their limbs and their bodies destroyed children with mutilated faces uh eyes eviscerated um uh children whose limbs we had to amputate due to the complexity of their injuries when you arrived?

On what date did you enter Gaza? I'll be honest with you. I mean, right now, night, day, day of the week, it's evaporated. I work from morning to night every day, sometimes I finish at 4:00 a.m. m., so I have lost. I don't remember what day I arrived. It was about a week and a half ago. I continue to operate. I don't stop for lunch. I don't stop for dinner. um, I think. I have already lost a significant amount of weight, you know, that is echoed by all the Palestinians and observers I know who tell me that before the war I weighed 80 kilos, now I weigh 60 kilos, this is a great moment in this conflict that you have come to I will be honest with you um before coming here several friends warned me not to go now because Rafa's invasion is imminent and you are

going

at a very very dangerous moment I was anxious I was a little I was a little afraid to come, but then I thought to myself, if not me, then who hasn't Dr.

Tahir worked in a war zone? It's the first time we see him here after he amputated the legs of a husband and his wife, but he couldn't. to save them his children died at the scene of the explosion but this is the reality of his new existence he has tried 150 p patience in the last 10 days I think it was an air raid in which the parents were two small children one of whom we tried to die resuscitate but he was covered in burns from head to toe and we called him he died and his sister next to him was also covered in wounds massive wound on her forehead where her skull was exposed and she also had a skull fracture and I was there looking at These two kids asking me what they did.

Can you describe the hospital to me? Just take me, take me to walk through the hallways, this is a refugee camp, uh, it's a, it's a hospital inside a refugee camp uh you have people uh children uh women sleeping on the floor in the hallways on the stairs even with makeshift tents inside the tents outside there are also many families here seeking shelter because they know outside the perimeter of this In the hospital, they can die when they see us as people from foreign missions, they feel that in fact we are human shields for them against Israeli airstrikes because we are their protection and when they hear that we have to be evacuated. or that there is a whisper that the entire population in the hospital is gripped by fear and panic that they are about to die.

The Israelis say their operation in southern Gaza is limited. It is precise. It is an anti-terrorist operation. What I see on the ground. uh actually, in real life it's very different than that, the Rafa crossing, which is the main humanitarian corridor in and out of Gaza, is closed, it's closed, which means you can't, you can't leave, no. right now anyway. I wonder. How do you feel about that? I'm sorry for my

family

, not for me. I know you are

terrified

. I know my friends and

family

are really concerned about my well-being and I think it hurts them more than it hurts me, but the intensity of the feeling I have for the tragedies I'm seeing for the suffering I'm seeing just feels like it can't stop.

I have to go on and on and on and on there is no time to rest there is no time to sleep I don't have that luxury right now it is a calling and a commitment and it will be tested John Sparks Sky News in Jerusalem