Norwegian doctor: What she saw in Gaza was more horrific than horror movies news

The Norwegian doctor of Turkish origin, Nell Ekes, said that the scenes she witnessed during her work in the Gaza Strip were more horrific than horror films, stressing that the humanitarian conditions there cannot be described in words, and that they will remain engraved in her memory forever.

Speaking to Anadolu, Ekiz explained that she worked at Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis last September, as part of a medical mission affiliated with a Norwegian organization, noting that she was able to enter Gaza with a medical team consisting of 4 people after long coordination.

She said: “As soon as we entered the Gaza Strip, we saw destroyed houses, smashed cars, and rubble everywhere. The children ran towards our car, pointing with their mouths, saying that they were hungry. There was no intact building, everything was destroyed.”

Patients sleeping on the floor

The doctor stated that Nasser Hospital was designed to accommodate about 340 beds, but it contained more than 800 patients.

She added: People were sleeping on the floor, in the corridors, in front of the elevators, and even on the stairs. Most of them were injured by bullets, shrapnel, or bombs, while patients with chronic diseases such as heart and diabetes were dying in their tents without treatment.

She reported that the shortage of medicines and medical supplies was very severe, explaining: There were not even basic medications for anesthesia, and simple painkillers such as paracetamol were rare. Patients were screaming in pain after surgeries.

She explained that medical staff were forced to remove some patients from the hospital due to overcrowding in the departments, and return them to their tents despite their need for continuous medical care.

A third of the victims are children

Ekiz said that she spoke with a forensic doctor in Gaza who confirmed to her that 30% of the martyrs were children.

She continued: “The youngest child I saw was a 6-day-old baby. She was hit by a bullet in her chest that reached her stomach. We operated on her, but she did not survive.”

She added that most of the wounded were those who went to food distribution points, noting that eyewitnesses confirmed that the Israeli forces deliberately targeted those points.

She went on to say: “In the intensive care rooms, I saw three-, five-, and seven-year-old children with head injuries, and young people with severe injuries. Many of the wounds were not healing due to malnutrition and the spread of infection, and we were forced to perform repeated operations.”

Doctors inject themselves with solutions

The Norwegian doctor explained that doctors and nurses live in tents near hospitals, and that most of them lost between 15 and 20 kilograms of weight due to hunger and lack of resources.

She added, “The medical teams are thirsty and hungry. They are injecting themselves with solutions so that they can continue working. Some of them have lost their families and children, yet they continue to provide assistance out of a purely humanitarian motive.”

She recounted a touching incident, saying: “The father of a 12-year-old boy with a head injury came to me and begged me to take him to Norway to save him, but he died days later. The feeling of helplessness in the face of these tragedies is indescribable.”

When asked whether Israel was deliberately targeting children, Ekiz said: “I did not see it with my own eyes, but when you see that about a third of the victims are children, you realize that it is not a coincidence. This does not happen in a normal war.”

She concluded her speech by saying: “I would like to return to Gaza after the beginning of next year to continue my humanitarian work there. It is our duty to tell what we saw so that what happened will not be forgotten.”

On October 7, 2023, Israel began committing genocide in the Gaza Strip with American support. It continued for two years, including killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, and left 68,643 Palestinian martyrs and 170,655 wounded, most of them children and women.