What a British surgeon sees in Gaza: NPR

Publisher’s note: This conversation includes the sound of gunshots and graphic descriptions of violence against children and adolescents.

Dr. Nick Maynard spent 15 years traveling from Oxford, England, Gaza, mentoring of young doctors and training surgeons. One of her former students, a Palestinian woman who later became a doctor in the United Kingdom, is now considered to be part of her family.

But since the war between Israel and Gaza began in October 2023, Maynard’s mission changed. During his current trip, he performs emergency surgeries under fire, dealing with children in malnutricity and helps take care of traumatized patients with catastrophic injuries.

Addressing the NPR of Nasser Hospital, the main medical establishment in Khan Younis, Maynard describes a collapse system in collapse. Firing resounds just outside when he describes what he says is a systematic effort of Israel to dismantle the civil infrastructure of Gaza: hospitals stripped of supplies, infants dying of hunger and children drawn while trying to reach food.

The shots, he said, are not random.

“They are particularly common among young male adolescents, generally in a way (ages) 11, 12, 13, 14, who are slaughtered at the distribution points of food. And we have seen it very frequently in the last weeks that I have gone there,” he said Morning edition.

The Israeli army intentionally targets civilians. But aid groups and health officials report That these deadly meetings have become common, especially since May, as famine deepens through the Gaza Strip and the food lines are increasingly civilian in direct contact with Israeli troops.

After our conversation, NPR asked for comments from FDI. The FDI replied that it “categorically rejects the allegations of intentional damage to individuals and that binding orders prohibit forces to intentionally shoot minors and that the victims of the aid distribution sites are for exam”.

Maynard says that he and other doctors have observed clusters of similar injury – head injuries one day, the abdominal injuries the next – raising the questions on the intention behind the shots. “It is beyond coincidence,” he said.

“The regrouping of symptoms is what makes it so dramatic. And it is something that we, at all levels – doctors ER, surgeons general, urology surgeons, neurosurgeons – have all recognized this grouping of injuries.”

The UK-based surgeon says most of his patients are seriously suffering from malnutrition, which makes them more difficult to recover, even injuries that would normally be survivable.

He thinks that destruction is not guaranteed, but calculated.

“I think what we are witnessing is a very deliberate plan to erase the Gaza population of this land,” he told NPR.

NPR asked for comments from the Israeli defense forces on what the doctor describes as “deliberate destruction of the whole infrastructure of life in Gaza, in the very clear goal of ethnic cleaning”. The FDI referred the investigation to the Israeli government, which then returned NPR to the FDI.

This conversation is modified for length and clarity.

Strengths of the interview

Sacha Pfeiffer: What can you tell us about access to food according to what you saw there?

Dr Nick Maynard: Access to food is extremely difficult. There were many, many food products where food was distributed by UNRWA until several months ago, and the so-called Gaza humanitarian foundation. Food distribution sites are full of Gaza. And it is nothing more to provide food to the Gaza population to create chaos and riots.

Pfeiffer: The shooting we heard earlier that happens so close to your hospital, do we hear the fights? Do we hear the defense? What happens so audible in the background?

Maynard: It is by fighting almost certainly between gangs or families who fight for food. We have seen it several times. It is not the Israeli army and it is not Hamas, we are told in a very reliable way. It is to fight gangs or fight families who try to get food and it does not despair food because they are all hungry.

Pfeiffer: Have you also seen this during your last two trips, or did it get worse every time you came?

Maynard: I’m doing well. Whenever I came, I saw the signs of malnutrition during the two previous trips on December 23, January 24, then later that year. But malnutrition is now good, much worse.

Pfeiffer: Could you give us more pictures of what you see in your hospital, on your operating table? What kind of volume of people? What kind of people? What kind of injuries?

Maynard: The Israelis commonly use these fragmentation bombs, which release many thousands of very small pieces of metal, which then tear the body. I mainly operated on abdominal injuries and certain thoracic injuries. And bursts of shells cause the most appalling internal damage, destroying many internal organs. Thus, very major surgery is needed to repair them. And We see a particular scheme of wounds by which particular parts of the body are targeted for special days. One day, we will mainly see abdominal ball wounds. Another day, we will see ball injury to the head, another day, we will see ball wounds on the neck. There is therefore a very clear scheme that all not only me, but we have all seen in this hospital where particular parts of the body are targeted from special days

Pfeiffer: I mean, it is clearly a shocking statement. You do not think that it may be a coincidence that you see certain parts of the body injured on certain days?

Maynard: I think that seeing four young adolescents entering an hour with ball injuries to their testicles, which we have never seen before, is beyond coincidence. Seeing as one of my doctors ER, seeing 12 young adolescents or more patients with ball injuries, head and neck, all at the same time. It is beyond coincidence. The grouping of symptoms is what makes it so dramatic. And this is something that we, at all levels, doctors and general surgeons, urology surgeons, neurosurgeons all recognized this grouping of injuries.

Pfeiffer: Dr Maynard, I read that you have described what is going on, in your words, as a collective punishment of the population of Gaza. What do you think is the final goal?

Maynard: I think what we are witnessing is a very deliberate plan to erase the population of Gaza from this land. I don’t believe a minute, it’s just about destroying Hamas. They deliberately kill a lot, a lot, several thousand innocent civilians by refusing help and medication and food. They destroy all the infrastructure of life here, they destroy all hospitals. It’s not just bombing hospitals. They enter and distland all laboratories, dismantle all dialysis machines. They destroyed the agricultural system. They destroyed the fishing industry. They target water sanitation factories. There is therefore no doubt in my mind what we are witnessing is a deliberate destruction of all the infrastructure of life in Gaza with the very clear purpose of ethnic cleaning and to remove the whole population from this land.

Pfeiffer: It is obviously a very difficult job to do in the whole way. Why do you continue to come back?

Maynard: I have been coming to Gaza since 2010. I love the country. I made a lot of friends and people I considered family. I think what is done to them is so unfair, terribly bad and unfair. And I am ashamed that my government, your government is an accomplice. And I have the ability to give help and therefore feel this overwhelming need to come here and help as much as possible.

Kity Kline produced the radio version of this interview.