Dr. Amjad Musleh has watched many post-apocalyptic films, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he entered the Gaza Strip as a medical volunteer last month.
As he crossed a southern security border and drove into the besieged enclave in a United Nations armored vehicle, Musleh noticed the smell of munitions still hanging in the air. Then came the sounds of bombings and the scenes of destruction.
“As you're driving, you see all these destroyed buildings. It's just these shells or husks of buildings. It's every street you're on, every single street. It's rubble. It's pure rubble,” Musleh told St. Louis on the Air.
Musleh, an emergency medicine and intensive care physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, went with a small medical team through the nonprofit Palestine American Medical Association. He volunteered at Nasser Medical Complex, one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza’s south.
Israel's military began its bombardment in October following Hamas kidnappings and attacks that killed 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers. Since then, Israeli forces have destroyed entire hospitals, struck ambulances and killed and detained hundreds of health care workers.
Over roughly three weeks in Gaza, Musleh, who is of Palestinian origin, said he treated hundreds of patients, including many children with severe crush or burn injuries resulting from Israeli airstrikes. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,400 children, have been killed, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.
“Seeing a child scared and being a grown person and not being able to take away that fear, just there's something that chokes you up about that, not being able to alleviate someone's need because they're missing their mom [who] passed away,” Musleh said, recalling a 3-month-old who was pulled out of the rubble as the sole survivor of his family.
Even amid immense suffering of people trying to survive the war and a collapsing health care system, Musleh said he witnessed generosity and camaraderie from the Palestinian medical teams he worked with inside Gaza. Saying goodbye to his colleagues was heartbreaking.
“There's a survivor’s guilt almost, even though I've not seen 10% or 1% of what they've been through. There's this sense of shared humanity that you develop with people, and that was probably one of the saddest things to do, is to leave those people behind,” Musleh said.
Israel’s handling of the war over the last 10 months has raised international criticism. But Musleh said the people he met in Gaza showed him the goodness in humanity.
“There's some strong emotional sentiments and there's a lot of politics in the background. But forget all that. I just want to focus on moving things forward and coming to common ground and helping people,” Musleh said.
For more on what Musleh saw in Gaza and how he used what he learned about blood types in St. Louis to treat Palestinian patients, listen to the full St. Louis on the Air conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Ulaa Kuziez, Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
