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Palestinians receive treatment at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, last Friday.
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Palestinians receive treatment at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, last Friday.
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“Never in my career have I seen the level of atrocities and targeting of our medical colleagues as we have seen in Gaza,” said Dr. Adam Hamawy, an American physician and former U.S. Army combat physician currently in Gaza.
Hamawy told NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben that he and his colleagues were scheduled to leave Gaza earlier this week, but were unable to do so. She said: “We were told that there was no secure passage and that we were not to leave the compound. If we did so, we did so at our own risk and that we would become legitimate targets for the Israeli military.”
Hamawy was part of a team of medical experts from the American Medical Association in Palestine who traveled to Gaza on May 1 to assist at the European Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, one of the few remaining hospitals in the region. .
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According to NBC, 17 of the 20 American doctors trapped in Gaza left on Friday after U.S. and Israeli authorities allowed some doctors to withdraw.
Hamawy decided to stay. “I want to let the president know that we are not safe,” he said in a statement shared with NPR. When the call to evacuate came, I was asked to choose whether to evacuate and leave my team behind or stay with them. “Leave our team alone without any remorse.”
Hamawy did not specify nationalities or the number of remaining team members to NPR.
Hamawy told Kurtzleben that the situation in Gaza was different from other conflicts in which he had been involved. That's because he's primarily treating civilians, not combatants. “We are meeting people who have nothing to do with this war – mostly children, many women, the elderly – and we rarely see anyone old enough to fight.”
Hamawy also advocated for safer conditions for medical experts to assist in Gaza. “Anyone who provides health care should be allowed to do so safely,” he said. Instead, Hamawy said people are fearful of what will happen to European hospitals. “We have doctors here who have been consistently targeted. We have hospitals that have been consistently targeted.”
Hamawy said he was trying to return home to his family. “I just have to do the right thing. And we came in as a team, and it’s unfair for me to leave just because I’m American.”
NPR has spoken with doctors since October who described dire conditions in Gaza hospitals, including a shortage of medical supplies and fuel and many patient deaths.
Numerous hospital buildings in Gaza were destroyed in Israeli attacks. The Israeli military says Hamas is active in some of these hospitals, but doctors say the military's actions violate human rights laws.