Dr. Adam Hamawy and his colleagues perform a surgical operation on a patient while volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, following the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

In May 2024, Dr. Adam Hamawy began his first medical aid mission in Gaza, joining scores of humanitarians desperately trying to save as many Palestinian lives as possible amid an Israeli bombardment tantamount to an assault on the health care system.

The New Jersey plastic surgeon was no stranger to providing medical assistance in conflict zones. Hamawy delivered aid during the Bosnian genocide on behalf of the United Nations as a medical student, treated the initial casualties at a burn center on 9/11 as a resident in New York City and helped save Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Ill.) life more than a decade ago, while both were deployed by the Army during the Iraq War.

None of those missions prepared the doctor for what he would see in Gaza.

Hamawy and his team arrived six days before Israel closed the vital Rafah crossing to the south, temporarily trapping them inside the territory, while the United States continued to supply the bombs raining above what Israeli officials had deemed a “safe zone.”

To HuffPost, he described his time at European Hospital in Gaza, where most of his patients were children: “There was a wide variety of wounds, very typical combat wounds that were a combination of explosive injuries — which are both burns, traumatic amputations and penetrating injuries — as well as internal injuries from the trauma that occurs with large explosives.

“You know, bombs falling on patients, and all the shrapnel and debris that goes into their bodies,” he said.

A view of what's left of southern Gaza, taken by Dr. Adam Hamawy during his humanitarian trip to the Palestinian territory that followed the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement.

Israel began its military offensive in Gaza after Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 200 in an October 2023 attack on southern Israel. As of Tuesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office says that Israeli forces have killed more than 61,700 people, saying thousands of missing Palestinians buried under rubble are presumed dead. Some international organizations now describe Israel’s actionsas genocide.

After 15 months, Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause in fighting to exchange hostages and allow surviving Palestinians in Gaza some semblance of peace. But the territory’s health care system has been decimated, and rebuilding it will be a long-term project — one international medical workers like Hamawy hope they can help.

“There’s really been a call for plastic surgeons, there’s a call for orthopedic surgeons, there’s a call for trauma surgeons,” he said. “And when you see that call going on and no one is answering, what other choice do you have? How do you sleep at night and know that you’ve not answered that call? What excuse could I give when you compare yourself to the Palestinians and what they’re going through? So that’s my reasoning. I have no excuse.”

Hamawy spoke exclusively with HuffPost for this story — once in January before his post-ceasefire mission, and once this week, after he returned to New Jersey — to give an eyewitness account of what providing medical aid was like during the offensive, and how it compared with conditions there after the ceasefire went into effect.

“One of the loudest voices against this [war] has been the doctors and the nurses coming back and speaking out, because we have witnessed it, we did see it with our own eyes,” he said. “And unlike most of the outside journalists who aren’t allowed to be there, it’s really the humanitarian aid workers that have experienced this and survived it. So we’re coming and saying, this isn’t fake news.”

Dr. Adam Hamawy, an American plastic surgeon volunteering at European Hospital, checks on an injured Palestinian child in Khan Younis, Gaza on May 17, 2024.

Israel’s decimation of Gaza’s health care

During the offensive, Gaza’s hospitals were frequently subjected to Israeli raids that detained or sometimes killed Palestinian health care workers and patients. Photos and testimony depict Israeli soldiers forcing health workers and patients to line up and kneel while stripped, bound and........

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