Physicians who provided aid in Gaza share stories on a medical panel

Mariam Abaza
Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:13:50 +0000
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Dr. Ihab Halaweish speaks at a medical panel hosted by Ohio State’s PCRF chapter on Thursday. Credit: Courtesy of the PCRF

The room fell silent and every gaze fixed on the screen as images flashed by.

Various photos of children lying in hospital beds and sprawled across the floors of overcrowded emergency rooms shuffled in the background as the panelists spoke.

Four physicians discussed their past medical mission trips to Gaza and the West Bank on a medical panel hosted by the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, or PCRF, chapter at Ohio State on Thursday.?

PCRF is a nonprofit, non-religious and non-political humanitarian aid organization that provides aid and medical relief to children in Palestine, said Reem Abulaban, co-president of the chapter and fourth-year in health sciences.?

Mariam Oueis, medical coordinator of the organization and a fourth-year in neuroscience said during the event, attendees witnessed the physical and mental difficulty of serving as a healthcare professional in a war-torn area.?

The panel opened with Nour Sharaf, an emergency medicine physician based in Dallas, Texas. Sharaf went to Gaza twice for a medical mission in July 2025 and January 2026.?

Jomana Al-Hinti, a neurologist from Toledo who went on a medical mission to Gaza in May 2024 and Ihab Halaweish, a pediatric surgeon in Columbus who went to the West Bank for medical mission trips in 2017, 2018 and 2022 and Gaza in January and September of 2025, shared their experiences too.?

The panel ended with Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina who traveled to Gaza in March 2024 and March 2025.?

Entry into Gaza is an unpredictable journey for physicians, Sharaf said.?

“I actually ended up being the only person on my medical trip who was approved to enter into Gaza,” Sharaf said. “Entry into Gaza is not an easy process. It’s very complicated and requires approval from multiple different entities, including an Israeli entity that has historically denied several doctors.”

In August 2025, a month after Sharaf’s first mission, National Public Radio released an article estimating that over 50% of doctors that PAMA, the Palestinian American Medical Association, recruits for aid in Gaza are rejected by the Israeli government.?

Al-Hinti said she was barred from entering Gaza from the Jordanian border four times.?

“The thing is, you will go to Jordan,” Al-Hinti said. “You will prepare yourself physically and mentally and I was extremely excited to go back, and the night before at like 8 p.m. or sometimes at midnight, they would send out a list that says you’re denied. And that just breaks your heart. It’s extremely depressing.”?

Doctors who were able to enter Gaza brought medical resources with them across the border to treat their patients, she said.?

“Before the Rafah Crossing was closed, we had the luxury of taking whatever we wanted,” Al-Hinti said. “So we procured many medications and medical supplies. We were able to take more than 400 suitcases with us.”

As conflict continued, restrictions on entry of medical personnel and supplies have grown more stringent, Sharaf said.?

“You’re only allowed two bags per person,” Sharaf said. “If they notice that you have more baggage than that, they will turn you back. If they open your bags and see that you have any type of equipment, including medical equipment that you could bring in to potentially save some patients, they will also confiscate that and potentially turn you back.”?

Some doctors were blocked from entry at the border because they carried additional medical supplies, Sharaf said.?

“There have been many doctors that have been turned back at these checkpoints because they’ve been found to have as little as an extra stethoscope or even baby formula,” she said.?

Halaweish said there is limited capacity to provide healthcare due to a lack of functioning hospitals.

The World Health Organization said that less than 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional.?

The hospitals that are still partially functioning in Gaza have been repurposed to meet the extreme healthcare needs of the population, yet they lack the proper resources to function completely, Sharaf said.?

“A lot of what happened to these hospitals is that some of these hospitals that were smaller, like Aqsa and even Nasser Hospital, were forced to become these larger facilities and operate at the capacity of these larger facilities when they never even had the resources to begin with,” Sharaf said.?

However, these materials used often fail to meet the demand necessary, Sharaf said.?

“The emergency department that I was working in was never actually an emergency department to begin with,” Sharaf said. “Shifa Hospital converted this outpatient clinic that maybe could hold 13 beds and then a total capacity, if we had to really really really stretch it out, maybe like 60 patients. Ultimately, we would end up getting 300-400 patients at a time.”

With limited space, there was a shortage in time and resources and doctors had to make decisions on who might get left behind. Halaweish said this decision making was necessary on a daily basis to save as many lives as possible.

“Your job as a surgeon is to work with your colleagues and figure out which patients have a survivable injury and which patients, unfortunately, won’t survive their injuries,” Halaweish said.?

The majority of patients that seek treatment in Gaza are children, Perlmutter said. Though many children arrived for treatment, their injuries were often impossible to treat, Perlmutter said.?

“Ninety percent of the casualties we treated were children. When the bombs fell, most of the children never made it to the hospital. They died at the scene,” Perlmutter said. “An adult may be able to fall from a two story building. A child can’t. Those that made it to the hospital were brought to the hospital alive. They didn’t stay alive.”

Many children are caught in the crossfires of violence, leading to mass juvenile casualty, Sharaf said.?

“Children were not spared from this, and that is probably one of the most unfortunate things we see out of this is that they have to grow up in this setting where there is nothing normal in their life,” Sharaf said.?

Halaweish said he conducted hundreds of surgeries on children who had suffered direct and indirect harm from bombing, gunshot wounds and collapsed buildings.?

“In a place like Gaza with a very young population, this has been one of the essential areas of medicine,” he said.??

Though Halaweish performed surgeries on many children, the lack of disinfectants, anesthesia and general medical resources significantly damaged their survival rates, he said.?

“They get injured, they have surgery, they have this trauma, but these kids don’t heal. They have infections,” Halaweish said. “It’s a constant battle trying to keep these kids alive.”?

As the healthcare landscape in Palestine grows more dire, it is more necessary than ever to highlight these perspectives yet, many doctors have experienced difficulty in sharing their diverse experiences, Oueis said.?

Perlmutter agreed with this and shared his experience.

Perlmutter said he has also experienced personal difficulty as a result of his work in Gaza, including broken relationships and his Jewish heritage.?

“Half of my family disowned me. Friends who have been dear friends of mine for 30 years have disowned me,” Perlmutter said. “They are calling me the most disgusting form of life they’ve ever seen because I’ve supported some notion against the righteous state of Israel.”?

He said he receives death threats weekly, often in the form of threatening calls to his operating room during surgical procedures.?

Last March, the College of Medicine decided to cancel the annual Global Health Symposium, a decision which Oueis said partially inspired this panel..?

The event was cancelled due to “the dynamic nature of the environment.” Many students and faculty were angered by this decision, according to prior Lantern reporting.?

“That event being cancelled last year really shocked me, but it inspired me to work even harder this year,” Oueis said. “Silencing one doctor who literally went to Gaza and has seen everything there that doesn’t make it to headlines, it’s infuriating.”

Other physicians who have served in Gaza and the West Bank have faced similar censorship, Oueis said.?

“A lot of these doctors are not allowed to give speeches at certain institutions and that’s because of the work that they do,” Oueis said. “So it’s important that we look towards that and make sure we give platforms to people that are doing great work.”?

As conflict continues and injuries and casualties continue to progress, it is important to look beyond political beliefs to serve children, Oueis said.?

“In wars, people will take sides. And for us, we’re taking the children’s side,” Oueis said. “We are non-political, non-partisan, and non-religious. We believe, our entire belief, is that we need to get humanitarian aid to children that need it. Children deserve healthcare, and children deserve to live in peace and not have to worry about whether or not they’re dying from disease or from a bomb.”?

These panels offer medical and pre-medical students examples of actionable ways to create change, said Sara Khattab, co-president of the chapter and fourth-year in biology.

“It’s very inspiring,” Khattab said. “As someone who is pre-med, seeing these doctors who don’t really have to volunteer their time and their efforts to go back home, but they do it regardless because they see their privilege here in the United States.”?

The organization aims to inspire students while advocating for children’s health and safety in the Middle East, Abulaban said.?

“That’s the reason why people go into medicine in the first place – to help people. So they really take that initiative and it really does inspire students, and that’s why we hold the panel,” Abulaban said.