Brussels, MINA – Norwegian doctor of Turkish origin, Nil Ekiz, has described the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as “beyond horror films,” saying that the scenes she witnessed during her medical mission will remain in her memory forever.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency on Friday, Ekiz said she worked at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis last September as part of a Norwegian medical mission. After lengthy and complex coordination efforts, she and a team of four doctors managed to enter Gaza.
“As soon as we entered Gaza, we saw destruction everywhere,” she said. “Houses were demolished, cars smashed, and children ran toward our vehicles pointing to their mouths in hunger. There was not a single intact building, everything was destroyed.”
Ekiz said that Nasser Hospital, with a capacity of around 340 beds, was hosting more than 800 patients. Many slept on the floor, in hallways, and on staircases—most of them injured by bullets, shrapnel, or bombs. Meanwhile, heart and diabetes patients were dying in their tents without access to treatment.
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She emphasized the extreme shortage of medicines and medical supplies, noting that even simple painkillers like paracetamol were scarce. “There were no anesthetics. Patients screamed in pain after surgeries,” she said.
Due to overcrowding, medical staff often had to discharge patients prematurely, sending them back to their tents despite their need for ongoing care.
Ekiz recounted that a forensic doctor in Gaza told her that about 30% of the martyrs were children. “The youngest child I saw was a six-day-old baby girl who was shot in the chest. The bullet reached her abdomen. We operated on her, but she didn’t survive,” she recalled.
Most of the wounded, Ekiz said, were hit while trying to collect food at distribution points, with eyewitnesses confirming that Israeli forces deliberately targeted those areas.
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“In the intensive care units, I saw children aged three, five, and seven with head injuries, and young men with severe wounds,” she said. “Many injuries wouldn’t heal due to malnutrition and infection, forcing us to perform repeated surgeries.”
Ekiz revealed that doctors and nurses were living in tents near hospitals, suffering from hunger and thirst, and losing between 15 and 20 kilograms in weight. “They inject themselves with IV fluids just to keep working,” she said. “Some have lost their families and children, yet they continue to work purely out of humanitarian duty.”
She shared a heartbreaking story of a father who brought his 12-year-old son with a head injury. “He begged me to take him to Norway to save his life, but the boy died a few days later. The feeling of helplessness is indescribable,” she said.
When asked about Israel’s targeting of children, Ekiz said, “I didn’t witness it directly, but when you see that about a third of the victims are children, you realize it’s not a coincidence—this doesn’t happen in a normal war.”
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Ekiz expressed her desire to return to Gaza next year to continue her humanitarian mission. “It’s our duty to tell the world what we saw so that what happened is never forgotten,” she concluded.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has waged a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip with U.S. support, resulting in more than 68,600 martyrs and 170,000 wounded, most of them women and children. Although a ceasefire was declared on October 10, it has been repeatedly violated by Israel.[]
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
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