On 26 September 2025, children stand outside a tent being used for medical services at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/James Elder
By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 29 2026 – “I’d never encountered anything like it before. I had no idea that there could be a place that needed humanitarian aid and that a government entity wouldn’t allow physicians or health workers into [that place],” says Jane.*
Jane, a nurse from a Western country, was part of a volunteer medical team that went into Gaza in early 2025 during a ceasefire that ran from January 19 to March 18 last year.
Gaza’s healthcare system had been devastated over the course of the Israeli offensive which had followed Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to UNICEF, 94 percent of hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.
Jane tells IPS her team had hoped that during the stop in fighting they would be able to help deliver vital treatment and services which were desperately needed by so many people in the country.
But she says that instead she and her colleagues, who set out for Gaza within weeks of the ceasefire coming into place, ran into seemingly arbitrary obstacles before they even set foot in the country.
Within hours of landing in Jordan, they found out that three physicians and one nurse in the team had been denied entry into Gaza. The following day there were more problems.
“We were at the border with many other NGOs and all of us had been approved to go in [to Gaza]. But then towards the end of the day, they decided that they were going to close the border and not allow anybody through that day. So we had to make our way back to Jordan,” Jane tells IPS.
She says her team lost a week of time when they could have been helping people before they managed to get in. And when they did, she was shocked at what she found.
“It was when we drove into Gaza that it really hit me. You see these kinds of dystopian places in movies or read about them in novels… a van came to pick us up and drove us to our hospital and on this drive I could see nothing but demolished buildings, rubble everywhere. I had to look away a few times because there were skeletons of animals. I’m not sure if there were skeletons of people because I had to look away once I saw the skeletons of animals,” she says.
Things did not improve when she got to the hospital.
“We got to the hospital and at first, although it was different from what I’m used to, it seemed like a functioning hospital… until I started work the next day.”
She describes the hospital, which is one of the largest in Gaza, as lacking even the most basic resources. “They didn’t have paper, they didn’t have gloves, they didn’t have hand sanitiser,” Jane says.
Life-saving equipment such as ventilators for patients struggling to breathe was unavailable, forcing physicians to perform emergency intubations in some cases.
Worst of all though, even when help could have been easily administered to relieve suffering, seemingly arbitrary decisions meant it was not.
“I had a patient – a little girl who had an infection that caused three out of four of her limbs to become gangrenous. All she needed to treat it was a simple medication. But, of course, we weren’t allowed to bring medications in – if [the authorities] found [those medicines on us], they could have either thrown them away or just completely denied us access in.
“This little girl had been in this hospital for at least more than a month – she’d been waiting for a medical evacuation to Jordan, but Israel continued to deny her medical evacuation. At the time I was there, she was supposed to be evacuated, but they denied it – twice while I was there. The first time they did not give a reason and then the second time they said it was because they wouldn’t allow her mother to go with her,” says Jane.
“This little girl was maybe two or three years old and for me, a paediatric and neonatal ICU nurse, this was unfathomable. To expect this toddler to go to another country, likely get her limbs amputated and then have rehabilitation in another country without her mother was ludicrous,” she adds.
Eventually, approval was given for the mother to go with her daughter. But, says Jane, the girl eventually had to have all three limbs amputated.
“It’s a tragedy in and of itself because this could have been remediated with a simple medication or an earlier evacuation. Her limbs became necrotic – they didn’t start out being necrotic. Her limbs being amputated was not something that needed to happen.”
Jane says that of all the patients she treated and all the suffering she saw in the hospital, the case of that girl stands out among her memories today.
Testimony from other doctors and healthcare workers shows that Jane’s experience was not unusual.
Two recent reports which detailed the almost complete destruction of maternal and reproductive healthcare in Gaza as a result of Israeli attacks were based on, or included, testimonies from physicians and healthcare workers, as well as affected women, which highlighted the appalling conditions in healthcare facilities.
Critics of Israel’s offensive in Gaza have variously described Israeli forces’ actions, including attacks on healthcare and other civilian infrastructure, as breaches of international humanitarian law, war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide.
Israel has repeatedly denied such charges and claimed that Hamas’s extensive use of the civilian environment for military purposes meant that large parts of urban Gaza had become legitimate military targets and accused the militant group of building a huge tunnel network under Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and other civilian buildings, housing its command centres and weapons stores.
But critics have also pointed to how the suffering caused by such attacks has been compounded by restrictions on aid coming into Gaza.
Jane, who is now back in her home country, says that these restrictions are continuing, despite a ceasefire having been in place since October.
Israeli authorities have banned certain items from being brought into Gaza over concerns they could be used by militants. But humanitarian and rights groups are critical of both the breadth and scope of ‘dual use’ restrictions imposed by Israel, a lack of clarity over what exactly constitutes a ‘dual use’ item, and seemingly ad hoc limitations on what can be brought in.
Jane said she knew of colleagues who were being refused entry to Gaza for carrying the most basic medical equipment.
“One doctor recently got denied entry because he was trying to bring his stethoscope in and when he said he needed it, the authorities said no, and they took his stethoscope from him and denied him entry,” she says.
Some rights groups say that continued restrictions appear to be irrational and could give rise to questions about their intent.
“Israeli officials, like Hamas officials, are being investigated for international crimes. Israel is being questioned as a state about its compliance with the Genocide Convention. There are provisional orders from the International Court of Justice about complying with the Genocide Convention, which demand that aid restrictions be lifted and that aid be provided, in particular medical aid. The refusal to follow those orders is legally significant,” Sam Zarifi, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), told IPS.
“In analysis of criminal intent, reckless or intentional disregard of foreseeable harm is, and can be, viewed as evidence of intent. The Israeli government has some of the best lawyers in the world, and I hope those lawyers are advising their clients that some of these policies raise very, very important questions about the intent behind them, because they do not seem to be otherwise rational,” he added.
Regardless of any intent, humanitarian groups say restrictions on aid are driving ongoing massive, widescale misery and suffering in Gaza.
This is despite the fact that vital aid is available and ready to be delivered quickly if allowed.
“We have hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving assistance ready outside Gaza. The supplies exist. What we need is more access,” Ricardo Pires, Communication Manager, Division of Global Communications and Advocacy at UNICEF, told IPS.
“We are still hearing about significant restrictions on medical supplies under the notion of being dual use. But we’re [also] looking at things like antibiotics, painkillers, specialised baby food. And these are all available. I mean, what’s very frustrating is that we know from the UN that there are trucks and warehouses full of the necessary supplies, and they can be, and they need to be, and they must be moved in as soon as possible. It is absolutely heartbreaking and mind-blowing and tragic that people in Gaza are still suffering from completely avoidable misery and harm,” added Zarifi.
It remains unclear when, or if, such restrictions will be eased, while a recent announcement by Israel of plans to ban 37 NGOs from operating in Gaza has also been criticised by rights groups who say it will further hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid in the country.
Jane, who would like to return to Gaza for further humanitarian work soon, says she is not hopeful of any improvement for the people there in the near future.
“This has gone on for almost two and a half years and we still don’t have [political] leaders who will stop sending arms to Israel, who will call for a ceasefire when a ceasefire was needed, and then who would actually make sure that the terms of the ceasefire are being are being honoured, because as we’ve seen recently, [Isreal is] continuing to drop bombs. But more than that, you can’t just create a ceasefire, then still not allow aid in. So, it’s hard to have hope for the future for Gaza,” she says.
*Jane’s name and country of origin have been excluded from this feature for her safety.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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