He recently visited Gaza. British surgeon denies Israel's claims of resistance in hospitals

Maryam El Sayeh

British doctor Nick Maynard was able to visit Gaza recently, along with five others in an emergency relief convoy, despite restrictions on the entry of medical and relief teams by the Israeli occupation army.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Net, Maynard denied that there was any presence of Hamas or armed Palestinian factions in the hospitals where he worked, especially at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, where he served for the duration of his visit.

The British doctor said there was no evidence of Israeli claims that Hamas was using hospitals as military bases, as Israel has been promoting.

Dr. Maynard is preparing to testify as an eyewitness to the ICJP's investigative team and their file on war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Dr. Nick Maynard is one of the UK's leading surgeons, having worked as a consultant and professor at the prestigious Oxford University Hospitals, as well as head of the cancer department. He co-founded the Oxford Esophageal and Gastric Cancer Center in 1997.

Maynard has been visiting the Gaza Strip regularly since 2010, as part of academic trips to teach medical staff in Gaza the latest international surgical techniques. Many Gazan students from the Islamic University, Al-Azhar University, and several Gaza hospitals have participated in these activities.

How did your recent visit to Gaza differ from others, and were you harassed?
My first visit to Gaza was in 2010, and my most notable visit was in 2015 after the major war and bombing (which lasted 50 days in 2014), all my visits were for education and surgery. I know about the harassment of Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta and his family, but as for me, I was not subjected to anything, MAP took all possible precautions and we followed instructions.

But this time there wasn't a lot of entry, only me and five others were allowed in, but I personally didn't face any pressure.

We have several British medical teams that have gone to Gaza and Medical Relief for Palestine is keen to make sure that we don't make things difficult for these medical teams who want to go to Gaza in the future, and we are planning for larger teams, but that won't be enough.

What is happening now is a first aid and distress call response that pales in comparison to the scale of the devastation, and there will never be enough, until there is a ceasefire.

The number of medical teams allowed to enter is not sufficient in terms of the needs of hospitals and the number of wounded who need medical care, and there are patients other than the wounded, such as cancer, diabetes, heart, kidney and chronic diseases, who need medical care along with the wounded from the shelling.

I've been encouraging more medical professionals to go to Gaza through awareness campaigns, and I think Medical Relief has a great plan by supporting locals from Gaza to take care of and protect foreign staff.

There is no safe place in Gaza, but we were as safe as possible, and I plan to visit Gaza at least two weeks every two months after I retire.

My home will still be the UK, but I plan to visit frequently to make sure the health system in Gaza is built.

Unfortunately, with the unprecedented scale of destruction, I believe it will take years to rebuild Gaza back to what it was before October 7. With just a ceasefire, hospitals would need months to provide a minimum level of medical service.

What is the extent of the destruction in hospitals compared to previous visits?
I was there in 2015 after the bombing, and all my visits to Gaza have been during wars and after Israeli bombing, and I don't know what Gaza looks like without bombing.

In May 2023, I was on a week-long visit, 4 days of which were interspersed with heavy shelling, they closed the border and we were stuck in Gaza, in the meantime all the surgeries planned during our short week of visit were canceled, we couldn't perform any surgeries under heavy shelling, I worked for only one day, then we stopped and the UN asked us to evacuate, and although it was intense and terrifying then, it can never be compared to what is happening now.

I participated in 12 to 15 operations, but I saw hundreds of patients, and there was enough anesthesia for major surgeries, but there were no painkillers, especially the necessary strong painkillers, and no post-operative medications.

As for surgical instruments and medical supplies in the operating rooms, there is a severe shortage, forcing us to try to adapt to what is available, which has been a difficult challenge.

What challenges do medical and relief workers in Gaza now face?
In addition to the shortage of surgical instruments and many medicines, there is a high prevalence of infections of all kinds, and these rates increase as people are injured and waiting for treatment, and because of the overcrowding and crowding of people in small spaces, due to the repercussions of the war.

There are no buildings, just rubble, no sanitation, no clean drinking water, and people are being starved which exposes them to severe malnutrition, which weakens the immune system, which slows down any recovery process, and helps the contamination spread. And there we saw horrible contamination in the wounds.

Many doctors and surgeons have told me that they have worked on wounds that have been infected with worms. I have not personally worked on them, but I have worked myself to treat an alarming level of wound contamination, and this degree of contamination means a longer period of clinical confinement in a hospital that is already overcrowded with patients, who unfortunately experience severe weight loss due to infection, malnutrition and immunodeficiencies.

If a limb or part of the body needs to be amputated due to infection, a larger portion of the infected limb is removed to save the patient's life, and patients can lose their lives due to the infection that may spread in the blood.

Sometimes the patient does not need an amputation, yet the medical team is forced to do so because the wound is contaminated, a procedure that could have been avoided.

If the wounds extend to the chest and abdomen, which is the most common wounds I've worked on, it means longer than usual hospitalization, more health complications, and longer periods of time.

Source: Al Jazeera