‘Doctors in Gaza are Heroes’: American Nurse Describes Her Experience in War-Torn Gaza

Emily Callahan, an American nurse with Doctors Without Borders who just left Gaza. (Photo: video grab)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Emily Callahan, an American nurse with Doctors Without Borders, lauded her colleagues in Gaza as “heroes” and recounted the difficult conditions of severely injured Palestinians.

An American nurse who was recently evacuated from the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip has lauded her colleagues who stayed behind as “heroes” while recounting the difficult conditions of severely injured Palestinians.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Emily Callahan, a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, said children in Gaza were being sent to refugee camps with no access to running water.

“There were children with massive burns down their faces, their necks, all over their limbs. And because the hospitals are so overwhelmed, they are being discharged immediately after… to these camps with no access to running water,” Callahan said.

The nurse added there were about 50,000 internally displaced people at the UN-run Khan Younis Training Center camp in the south and four toilets.

“They’re given two hours of water every twelve hours.”

Despite the situation, Callahan said she would return to Gaza “in a heartbeat”.

“My heart is in Gaza. It will stay in Gaza. The Palestinian people that I worked with were some of the most incredible people I’ve met in my life.”

She said the staff at the Indonesian hospital vowed that “if they’re going to kill us, we’re going to die saving as many people as we can.”

“And I said if I can ever have an ounce of the heart you have, I will die a happy person.”

Callahan said she and her team were relocated about five times in 26 days due to security concerns and eventually evacuated last week.

Israel has, thus far, killed over 10,569 – including 4,324 children and 2,823 women – and wounded 26,475. Palestinian Ministry of Health reports and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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