'We thought maybe this is it. This is when it ends. Then we got up the next day and we continued.'
Ana Jeelani travelled to Rafah refugee camp with a group of volunteers from Medical Aid for Palestinians on March 8, where she spent two weeks carrying out more than 100 serious operations on both adults and children injured by Israeli army airstrikes. According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 35,000 people have been killed and 80,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip in the past seven months.
"The bombs are constant, the drones are constant. Everyone is exhausted. There's only so much people can take. Now with Rafah being invaded, there's nowhere for people to go.Ana spent two days in Cairo undergoing security training before being driven across the border into Rafah in the dead of night. She and the other volunteers were taken to a safehouse before travelling to the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital, where they lived for the duration of their stay.
"These are bad injuries, but injuries are made worse because of the lack of resources. You see patients struggling after having operations done; they've had to leave hospital because that hospital has been bombed." "I don't think I'll know how I truly feel until it's all over. Every day I see the news stories and I feel my heart is still there with them. I have people there who I care about, who looked after me while I was there. A lot of people ask me how it was, and it's hard to say.
In total, Ana and her team carried out 132 operations and 181 consultations before leaving Gaza on March 28. One patient, a 37-year-old dad-of-three, lost three limbs in a bomb blast while on his way to pick up nappies from an aid point. Another man suffered severe injuries to his right hand, and had to undergo an amputation while still awake.
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