'Huge amount' of Gaza surgery on children, UK doctor says

Dr Victoria Rose and a colleague were at the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis in late March

A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza told the BBC how he was struck by the large number of injured children he operated on.

Dr Victoria Rose said a "vast amount" of her work was on children under 16, many of whom were as young as six. He said he has treated people with bullet wounds, burns and other injuries.

He added the lack of food available in Gaza means patients are not strong enough to heal properly. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 76,000 Gazans - mainly civilians - have been injured by Israel during the fighting, and 33,000 have been killed.

The war erupted last October when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages in Gaza.

Dr Rose, a consultant plastic surgeon, has spent two weeks since the end of March at the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

"The most shocking bit" was that during the trip he only operated on a man who was 53 years his senior, he told the BBC's Today programme.

"Everyone else was younger than me. A huge amount of my work was under-16. An alarming proportion of my work was six or less." Dr. Rose was performing reconstructive surgery on injured people.

"It was burns, shrapnel injuries, removing foreign bodies from tissues, reconstructing facial defects, removing bullets from jaws, that sort of thing," he said.

Food shortages in Gaza - where the United Nations has warned of impending famine - meant many sick and injured people were not strong enough to fight infections or heal properly from their wounds, he added.

"The people on my operating table were malnourished. Many of them were cachectic," he says, referring to those experiencing extreme weight loss and muscle wasting.

"When we were looking at some of our patients who weren't doing so well, there were a lot more infections than I've seen anywhere else. "A lot of people had their protein levels in their boots, their haemoglobin levels were down. They're just not getting any nutrients, any vitamins or minerals."

Dr Graeme Groome, another doctor at Khan Younis, said there was more noise from bombings, tank fire and small arms fire than on previous wartime tours.

While he and Dr. Rose were working there, the Israeli military was still in Khan Yunis. It withdrew most of its forces earlier this week.

"As [the bombings] got closer, it was only a matter of time before we saw the impact of the bombing," he said.

"Walking past the emergency department, for example, is a pick-up truck full of distraught people with a pile of dead bodies stuck to the door, followed by a line of cars with more bodies in their boots."

The European Hospital - one of the very few still operating in the region - is also home to a large number of displaced people, some of whom are camping in hospital corridors.

But those who have set up temporary tents in nearby open fields are being forced to move because of the need for space for fresh graves, Dr Groom said. "There is now a vast and sprawling cemetery in which the graves of the newly dead are now displacing the shelters of the barely living," he said.

Rick Peppercorn of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that three other hospitals in Khan Younis - Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Khair were completely non-functional after being at the centre of the fighting, while some basic services were being provided. -Amal Hospital despite "massive structural destruction".

Nasser, the main hospital in southern Gaza, has been out of use since Israeli forces raided it in February. Gaza's largest hospital, al-Shifa in Gaza City, was largely destroyed during a two-week Israeli military operation last month.

Speaking after a visit to Khan Younis following the Israeli withdrawal, Mr Peppercorn said the devastation of the city was "proportionate to anything one can imagine. There are no buildings or roads intact, just rubble and dirt".

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza following the Hamas attack, allowing access to the Strip with severe restrictions on food, water and other essentials. It has since allowed some aid to enter Gaza, but the UN says many children have died of malnutrition in northern Gaza, which is cut off from most aid, and that famine is imminent.

Israel has denied blocking the flow of aid to Gaza or the territory. After the Israeli military killed seven aid workers earlier this month, it agreed to open new routes and allow more aid into northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Friday that the first food trucks had entered northern Gaza through a new crossing point.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Israel is fulfilling its promise to open additional vehicle crossings into Gaza for aid, but it is not enough and The United States continues to press Israeli officials to do more.