Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Jordanian-American intensive care specialist, is among the many international doctors who traveled to Gaza to volunteer at the height of the Israel-Gaza war. Although she has worked in mass-casualty settings around the world, she says her missions in Gaza in March 2024 and again this past February were unlike any deployment she had undertaken.
“It felt like Armageddon. It was awful. I don’t remember caring for a single child that was brought in by their parents,” she says, recalling how neighbors, rather than family members, often carried injured children into the hospital.
In interviews with TIME, other volunteer doctors described similar scenes, detailing the lasting, psychological impact of what they witnessed and experienced in Gaza.
Dr. Sarmad Tamimy, a reconstructive surgeon from Nottingham, England, completed two stints in Gaza—first in December 2024, then again the following June—and says no part of his medical career spanning more than 25 years prepared him for what he encountered. Dr. Livia Tampellini, an Italian physician with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who worked in Gaza over the summer, describes struggling with the transition home.
