EXCLUSIVE: UK medic fears Gaza's 'destruction' after returning home

A British medic says she fears the "probable destruction of an entire population" after returning from her third stint treating victims of the conflict in Gaza.

Consultant plastic surgeon Dr Victoria Rose told CGTN Europe the morale of Palestinians has collapsed and that malnutrition is hampering the recovery of patients with life-threatening injuries.

Rose, whose Instagram account of her daily life in Gaza reached thousands of followers, fears that an attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, from where she has just returned, will instantly kill hundreds of people as power fails.

Acknowledging that "Israel does have the right to defend itself from Hamas," Rose said the country's military campaign "feels more like an attack on the entire population."

She told CGTN's Michael Voss: "The bombing is more or less constant in the south. It does not really let up and the drones are constant as well. The state of the population is the worst I've ever seen as well.

"Everyone now has been displaced about 15 times. Everyone's living in tents. There's no sanitation. We're running out of clean water. And then there's been no aid since March 2, so you really notice the malnutrition."

Immune systems low

Rose said that the immune system of Palestinians was dangerously low and that children's wounds were healing slower than she saw during her previous stint last August. "Everyone seems to be taking a lot longer to recover and I think coupled with the fact that malnutrition affects your immune system and dampens that response we saw a huge rise in infection rates," she explained.

Rose said her recent patients were all victims of Israeli bombings - suffering "burns from the heat of the explosion" and shrapnel injuries. "If you get hit in a limb, it's often survivable and patients will come in with partial amputations, broken bones, skin loss. But this time we saw more devastational injuries as if people had been directly blown up, so children with knees missing or the whole side of one arm missing. We had a seven-year-old girl with half her hand missing."

The medic explained that half those seen in Nasser Hospital were children and that "we see as many women as we do men injured." She added: "It seems to be families that are hit, so it will be a whole family, and you will have the children and the parents in, and the grandparents in a single admission."

She believes the volume of serious injuries has increased because so many Palestinians are living in tents.

Healthcare professionals from around the world have this week increased calls for Israel to protect Nasser Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in southern Gaza. Israeli forces have imposed severe movement restrictions, effectively cutting off medical teams from the hospital.

According to Rose: "The hospital is now in the red zone, so it will slowly be forced out of action because the staff are unable to get into and out of it because all their journeys have to be de-conflicted."

She fears that the hospital will "gradually be strangled" and believes a strike on its infrastructure will be catastrophic.

Rose explained: "It will take a hit to its generator, its water supply or its sewage. When that happens hundreds of people will instantly die. There is no hospital that can cope with what Nasser is doing at the moment." 

Aid site deaths

In recent days, a series of fatal incidents have hampered aid distribution efforts by the controversial U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. 

Israeli gunfire and airstrikes killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, most of them near an aid site operated by the GHF in the centre of the enclave, local health officials said.

Medical officials at Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals said at least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded as they approached a food distribution centre near the former Jewish settlement of Netzarim before dawn.

Israel's military, which has been at war with Hamas militants since October 2023, said its forces fired warning shots overnight towards a group of suspects as they posed a threat to troops in the area of the Netzarim Corridor.

"This is despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone. The IDF is aware of reports regarding individuals injured; the details are under review," it said.

Later on Wednesday, health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip said at least 14 people had been killed by Israeli gunfire as they approached another GHF site in Rafah.

Rose says that Israel's attacks in Gaza feel increasingly "indiscriminate" and refutes Israel's suggestion that the region's hospitals have been used to shield Hamas fighters. 

"The death of civilians….wasn't Hamas shooting. There's also been a lot of attacks on Al Mawasi and previous humanitarian or evacuation zones, which again, feels very unlike hits on Hamas."

She added: "I always expect that the Palestinians wouldn't really be sheltering any militia because they would know that they would be targets if they were, so it's very difficult to square the circle. 

"I can understand that there's a job to be done to take out Hamas, but it's been 19 months and we still don't seem nearer to that objective and a vast number of people have been killed."

Balance

Rose paid tribute to local hospital workers who have continued to work despite some losing their own homes. 

She said: "Most doctors in Gaza are very highly considered and would have lived in two or three story houses with two cars. It was quite a profession to have and now these people are reduced to tents. Also most of my colleagues have lost significant family members."

Among her recent patients were 11-year-old Adam al-Najjar, the sole surviving child of Dr Alaa al-Najjar, whose nine other children and husband were killed by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis last month.

Rose recalled one colleague, a theater nurse who continued to work despite losing his eight-year-old-son. "It's incredible that they continue to turn up every day to do this work," she said. 

After working continuously in Gaza for the past four weeks, Rose returned to work at St Thomas's Hospital the next day. 

Despite her personal experience, Rose insisted it was important to be "balanced" when discussing the conflict.

She said: "My message right now would be to be very kind to our Jewish colleagues. I feel very upset for them and the way in which all of them are being labeled complicit in what's going on and I think that's very unfair.

"But at the same time we have to address this humanitarian crisis and the probable destruction of an entire population."

Interview by Michael Voss