A British plastic surgeon has returned from Gaza with harrowing testimony that challenges official narratives and paints a chilling picture of a region in humanitarian free fall, reported by Arab News.
Dr. Victoria Rose, who worked with UK-Med in the southern Gaza Strip earlier this year, told Sky News and other outlets that during her time treating patients at hospitals including Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, she never once saw armed Palestinians inside medical facilities. “I’ve never treated or seen anyone—in any of the hospitals that I’ve worked in—in military uniform or with a weapon,” she said. “The only people I’ve ever seen in Gaza with military uniforms and weapons are the IDF.” Her account casts doubt on Israeli assertions that Hamas fighters routinely use hospitals as military bases.
Dr. Rose described the situation in Gaza’s hospitals as beyond crisis. More than 90 percent of the enclave’s medical infrastructure has been severely damaged since the Israeli military campaign intensified in late 2023. With only a few hospitals partially operational and others functioning as makeshift field units, the region’s doctors are practicing what many call “war medicine”—operating without anesthesia, rationing antibiotics, and often relying on unsterile tools. Fuel shortages have crippled life-support systems, sterilization units, and basic hygiene services. Doctors have had to amputate limbs of children who, under normal circumstances, could have recovered. Many patients die not from their wounds but from preventable infections due to malnutrition and a lack of basic post-operative care.
Children form the majority of victims. Dr. Rose reported an alarming rate of cases involving children under the age of six with shrapnel injuries, burns, and bullet wounds. Malnutrition exacerbates every case; without the calories and protein needed for healing, even routine infections quickly turn fatal. The UN and other international agencies estimate that over 2,700 children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza—a threefold increase from earlier in the year. The combination of malnutrition and sepsis has led to a tragic wave of “entirely avoidable deaths,” Rose said, underlining the devastating impact of the ongoing blockade and war.
Access to humanitarian aid has been limited to nonexistent for months. From March until late May 2025, all aid convoys into Gaza were blocked by Israeli forces. Although a few distribution centers have reopened under international pressure, the supplies reaching hospitals and shelters remain grossly insufficient. The World Health Organization has described Gaza’s healthcare system as “beyond collapse,” and recent strikes on facilities like the European Hospital in Khan Younis have only worsened the situation. That hospital was hit in May, killing at least 26 people and reportedly damaging surgical theaters and emergency wards. Israel claimed the operation targeted Hamas leadership thought to be hiding in subterranean tunnels, including Mohammed Sinwar. Yet for front-line medics like Dr. Rose, the consequences were immediate and human—more dead civilians, more chaos, and fewer resources to treat the survivors.
The toll on medical staff is immeasurable. Many of Dr. Rose’s Palestinian colleagues, she said, have told her they would rather die than continue under such hopeless conditions. Some surgeons have gone days without food or rest, operating in torn scrubs, often on the floor of overcrowded ER rooms. International volunteers, too, have expressed despair. “It’s like working in the Middle Ages,” one British medic told reporters, describing the absence of gloves, painkillers, and even clean water.
Dr. Rose’s return from Gaza has reinvigorated calls for a renewed international response to what she and other aid workers describe as an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. As the war stretches into its ninth month, and with a ceasefire still elusive, the urgency to protect medical facilities, restore aid routes, and hold accountable those targeting civilians grows ever more pressing.
