US doctor describes seeing people starving in northern Gaza

Sam Attar, a US doctor in his 40s, reckons he left part of his soul in Gaza. It was the part of him that saw suffering and could not turn away. The part which now cannot be forgotten.

Born and raised in Chicago, Sam works as a surgeon at Northwestern hospital in the city. While in Gaza he kept video diaries and filmed his experiences, reports BBC.

For two weeks in March and April - on behalf of the NGO Palestinian American Bridge - he worked in Gaza hospitals that were desperately short of everything except badly-wounded patients. On the day he entered Gaza this time around he was immediately confronted with the hunger crisis.

"We were just swarmed by people banging on the cars, some people trying to jump on the cars. The drivers… they just got it. They don't stop because if they stopped then people jump on the cars. They're not trying to harm us. They're just begging for food. They're starving."

Sam recounts his experiences calmly, as you might expect of a man trained to put patients at ease. Every day there was the relentless pressure of carrying out triage, deciding who could be saved, who was beyond hope. Patients lying on hospital floors surrounded by blood and discarded bandages, the air filled with the cries of pain and of grieving relatives.

There is no erasing such horrors. Even if you are a highly trained doctor with past experience of war zones like Ukraine, Syria and Iraq.

"I still think of all the patients I took care of," he says, "all the doctors that are still there. There's a little bit of guilt and shame at leaving because there's so much that needs to be done. The needs are overwhelming. And you walk away from people that are still there and still suffering."

The last trip - his third into Gaza since the war began - saw him join the first team of international medics to be embedded in a hospital in northern Gaza where malnutrition is at its most acute.

The mission was organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has warned of looming famine. 

Some 30% of children below the age of two are reported to be acutely malnourished, and 70% of the population in northern Gaza is facing what the UN calls "catastrophic hunger."

Last month the UN Human Rights chief, Volker Turk, accused Israel of a potential war crime because of the food crisis in Gaza.

"The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war," he said.

Israel denies this and has blamed the UN and aid agencies for any slow or inadequate delivery of aid.