British surgeon caught in Gaza conflict warns hundreds of kidney patients face death
A British surgeon caught up in the Israel-Hamas conflict has arrived back in the UK, warning that hundreds of patients needing dialysis in Gaza will die without proper care. “The smell of death” he said, hung heavily in the air.
Dr Abdul Hammad, 67, spent almost a month in UN shelters, fearing for his life as bombs exploded around him. He had arrived in Gaza on Oct 6, the day before Hamas terrorists launched their barbaric assault on southern Israel, in which 1,400 people were murdered and a further 240 abducted and taken hostage.
Dr Hammad had expected to be in Gaza for just three days to carry out four planned kidney transplants. Instead he remained in the warzone until Thursday when he, along with dozens of other foreigners, received permission to cross into Egypt. He questioned the failure of the British Government to get him out any earlier.
On Saturday, the doctor was reunited with his wife and children, relieved he was alive and deeply despondent at the patients he had left behind.
“I have mixed feelings,” he told The Telegraph. “I am happy that I am back with my family and relieved I made it safely here. But I am obviously sad about the situation in Gaza, the continuing loss of life of civilians, many of them women and children. There is no sign of it stopping.
“It was awful. Especially the first 10 days. We were in the centre of Gaza in a UN facility next to the Islamic University which was continuously hit by air strikes. Our building was hit by shrapnel, concrete pieces showering us. Our building was damaged, there was glass everywhere. We didn’t really have any sleep because of the noise of the air strikes.”
Dr Hammad, a surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, is chairman of a the Liverpool International Transplant Initiative, a charity that has carried out kidney transplants in Gaza for almost a decade. The situation, he said, was now so dire that out of 1,200 patients who needed regular dialysis, he estimated half would not survive the current crisis.
‘We couldn’t do anything for transplant patients’
“I was only supposed to be there three days,” said Dr Hammad. “I had four transplants and we planned to start on the Saturday. But it wasn’t safe and the hospital went straight into emergency mode anyway. We couldn’t do anything for the transplant patients.
“In fact we have in Gaza 1,200 patients on dialysis. They usually have dialysis for four hours, three times a week. But because of the situation now and the lack of equipment, they are getting one hour, twice a week. I am sure that a lot of them will die because of that.”
In a previous Gaza conflict in 2008-09, he said half the dialysis patients died. He expects the same this time. “They didn’t die from the bombing but because of the lack of treatment,” he said.
Dr Hammad said he was “so specialised”, he could offer no help in the emergency treatment of the wounded at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel has accused Hamas of using the hospital as a shield for its operational centres and tunnels. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people died in an Israeli air strike on an ambulance outside the hospital.
The Israeli military has confirmed it struck an ambulance “that was identified by [IDF] forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone”.
Dr Hammad insisted he had never seen any signs of Hamas militants operating from inside the hospital, nor evidence of tunnels beneath its grounds.
“I have been going there for 10 years doing operations,” he said, “The place was beautiful; it was on the Mediterranean. It is so sad to see it destroyed. It will take forever to rebuild it again. The scale of the destruction I saw there is unbelievable.
“If you just walk a short distance the smell of death is still there. There are a lot of people still buried in the rubble. The bodies haven’t been removed. Only once the bombardment stops will we see the scale of the situation.”
He had been woken by the sound of distant Israeli rockets on Oct 7 - unaware of the horrors committed in Israel by Hamas that morning - but was told by the hospital authorities not to worry. Within half an hour, the reality of the gravity of the situation had sunk in.
After 10 days under bombardment in central Gaza, he joined the exodus south, staying in another UN facility, sleeping in a warehouse on a mattress before being moved again when those offices were in danger of being overrun by Palestinians seeking refuge.
He was finally contacted last Wednesday and told the Rafah crossing was open and he was on an approved list giving him permission to leave. But when he arrived the scenes were chaotic and the surgeon remained stranded in Gaza for another night, finally leaving on Thursday, before making the journey to Cairo and then a flight on to Heathrow where he was met by his wife and children. Video footage shows him being hugged at the airport, relief etched on all their faces.
“I really thought our Government would make more efforts to bring us home early in that first week of bombing,” said Dr Hammad. “But it took them so long. I don’t know why they were willing to put our lives - the lives of their citizens - on the line when they should really have put pressure on Israel to get us out sooner.”
