They broke the door of the hospital. They bombed thousands of people around, thousands of people, thousands.

Hello.

Hi. Dr. Ahmed, this is Sabrina Tavernise from “The New York Times.” Hello Dr. Marwan Abusada?

Ah, yes, yes, please.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The attacks are continuous. They bombed a building, and then we get a gush of casualties coming, at least 40 or 50 at one time.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] You hear the bombing now? You hear the bombing?

Yes, I do.

We work hard. We work more than 18 hours per day.

Where are you sleeping? Are you going home?

In the hospital. Sometimes in the office. Sometimes in the OR.

I will show you just for one minute with the camera to see how many patients are waiting in the waiting room, just one minute, please.

OK.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

You see?

I see so many patients.

Its catastrophic situation, madam. You have to watch by yourself to see what I talk about.

He’s actually operating at the moment. Would you be able to call back in half an hour?

Of course. Of course. So you need to go to a surgery right now?

Yeah. Yes, I must go. Excuse me. Yeah

OK. Thank you. It’s Monday, November 13.

[PHONE RINGS]

Hello.

Hello, Dr. Abu-Sittah?

Yes, speaking.

Hi, how are you?

I’m good. How are you doing?

Exhausted. But otherwise intact.

Can you tell me a little bit about where you are right now?

I’m in the operating room of Shifa Hospital.

It sounds like a child is in pain.

She needs an amputation, part of her shot. She’s six, taken from underneath the rubble.

[CHILD CRYING]

How many patients are at the hospital right now?

Around 1,600 to 1,700. But the hospital capacity is 600. So you can only imagine.

If you walk through the hospital, it’s turned into a tented city. On the floors at the entrance, there are families sitting. There are patients on the corridors, patients on mattresses in the floors of the — patients on trolleys, there are patients in the emergency room. It’s just — it’s surreal. It’s surreal how awful it is.

Across the hallway from my operating room door, there is a whole three generational family, grandmother, and parents, and siblings. And they have a little girl whose oxygen dependent. She’s like four and needs continuous oxygen. So they’re sitting next to an electric socket on the floor. There are some patients on mattresses with their injuries. It’s miserably grim. And the smell, it’s a public health catastrophe waiting to happen. This is cholera or typhus waiting to happen.

Um-hmm. And are you sleeping in the hospital?

In the operating room. Each operating room has a small area called recovery, where we put patients right after the surgery just to monitor them until the anesthetic wears out. And that recovery area is where I sleep.

Are colleagues, they’re also sleeping there?

Everybody’s sleeping here. And some people have brought their families.

And where are they sleeping?

Every available office, cupboard, storage room, corridor, whatever you can imagine.

And how many patients have you been able to see today? What have you done today?

I’ve just been operating all day. So burns, we brought in major burns patients. So patients with over 40 percent burns. We had a mother, her 11-year-old son, who has full thickness burns to his face and his arms. We had a mother with burns to her legs and to his arms.

We had a seven-month-old with burns to his legs and arms. But we also had this child with facial burns yesterday, who doesn’t look like he’s going to do well.

What happened to him?

He’s got over 60 percent burns. Burns to his face, to his hands, to his legs. He’s 13, 12, 13. He was just whimpering.

Whimpering. Do you try to calm them? Do you try to talk them through?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What do you usually say to them?

Everything is going to be all right even though it’s not going to be all right. You tell them that once the surgery is done, their parents will give them the best meal that they like or get them some ice cream or whatever.

But these kids have been pulled from underneath the rubble. A lot of them have seen family being killed.

There’s very little that effectively you can say to them. And they’re absolutely petrified.

This six-year-old girl needs an amputation to her foot. We’ll be taking her next to the operating room. It’s just been like that.

This is carnage on an unfathomable scale.

I need to go. I need to go because the dad of the girl is here, and we need to tell him that we need to do the amputation.

Absolutely Thank you.

So I need to go.

OK, good luck.

Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Last night was horrendous. The bombing was just and very close.

Are you worried about the Israeli military coming inside Gaza? There are forces coming closer to Gaza City now.

This is actually awful. We don’t want this to happen.

I mean, for me, it’s just a narrative to justify targeting the hospital. I mean, think about it is that under international law, it’s still a crime to attack a hospital regardless of who you say is underneath the ground.

I only deal with patients. I don’t know.

The sick children now, they don’t have clean water to drink. I received like water with yellow color.

Some patients may die because of infection in the wound. Why there is infection in the wound? Because there is lack of antibiotics.

One of the scenes I have witnessed is seeing chloride using in the wiping the floors or wiping the windows. We use it for the cleaning of wound infections. Other example I have seen, nurses and doctors using vinegar to treat wound infections. And I am sure it is not enough. It will not treat anything.

MSF released a photo. It was an amputation of the foot of a little boy on the ground with no general anesthesia. So he was just given some sedative to fall asleep. Part of what we do as doctors is relieve suffering. And if you can’t treat patients with pain control, it’s —

I mean, it’s intolerable.

The wards are dark. The corridors are dark. The communal areas, the lobby, the stairwells, they’re dark. And so it’s a nightmare because you don’t know who you’re stepping on while you’re walking.

Do you use light from your phone? How do you see?

Yeah, yeah. That’s basically it. That’s the trick. You use light from your phone.

A hospital without fuel, this hospital without fuel and electricity will turn from a hospital into a mass grave.

I’m trying to find fuel for ambulances and electricity.

I spent my days since 6:00 AM trying to call everyone, call the Norway, call international — I call the minister of health. I called — I’m trying to find other hospitals if they can help me. I will stop my service here. The patients will die.

How many calls did you make about fuel today for your hospital?

Lots of calls. Yes, that’s where I spent my day just looking for water, for food, for fuel for my medical staff here. We don’t have even a bread for the last two days for the medical staff.

You don’t have bread for the staff?

That’s what happened here. But we have no options. We cannot leave our patient. We cannot leave our hospital here.

And what about Hamas, doctor? You mentioned you’re calling the Ministry of Health. Does Hamas help you with fuel?

Madam, you cannot ask me about Hamas. I am a doctor. I am associate professor here. I am the head of surgery department in the faculty of medicine.

I understand.

You cannot ask me about Hamas, about Jihad, about — you should ask me the medical — you can ask Israel what they are doing here. They are killed lots of honest people. I won’t answer. Anyone, you ask me about the political situation here. You talk about humanity. You talk about catastrophic situation here in Gaza, madam.

One thing that we have heard, doctor —

You should deal with that. You should —

One thing that we have —

You should face that.

One thing that we have heard doctor is that there are reports that Hamas had been sitting on a stockpile of fuel in the underground tunnels. Is that something that you’ve heard about? Does that —

I didn’t hear about that. I hear from the Israeli occupation. I didn’t hear about that except from the Israeli occupation. You hear that lots of doctor of professors, consultants, and medical students were killed here. Do you hear about the ambulances that were destroyed by the Israeli occupation? Do you hear about the hospitals that were destroyed the patient?

Do you hear about the lots of children, and women, and pregnant women, and honest citizens that were killed by the Israeli occupation and the whole world the whole world that they call them the democracy, the democracy world just watch us? Nothing. Do nothing, just support Israel, support Israel. This is genocide here. I wonder how they can do this. They stole our life. They stole our life. We have dreams. We have children. We have our own dreams. They stole everything. They destroyed everything.

I can hear you’re angry.

I’m angry. I am exhausted. This is a bad dream. I hope I worked from it. Just today, we received about 12 children and women, pregnant women. Two of them are pregnant. Where is the hospital dead. They were killed.

And we tried — after they killed, we try to do cesarean section after they are killed, the ER, trying to save their babies. But we cannot do that. Unfortunately, the fetus was killed also. We tried to save it. We tried.

What was it like for you when you discovered you couldn’t save the babies inside the mothers?

Just I cried. The only thing I can do just to cry. Cry when I fall asleep, crying when I’m working. Just I cried. Nothing to be done for them. Nothing to be done. Nothing to be spoken. Of the children, one of them was nine year daughters. She lost her mother.

She lost all of her family. And she was shocked. She was shocked. No exhibition. Just was silent.

One of the nurses just stay with here until the morning. And after that, it went with one of her families, one of her cousin.

I hope that her cousin will take care of her.

The hospital is full of children.

Two days ago, we got a patient with no one of her family alive.

She came alone. 11-year-old. She was disoriented. No one knows the name. And she was in the recovery with no beds. The general manager of the hospital called me and said, I know this is not your case, but please can you take care of this little girl? She has no one here.

Every day, we had a lot of cases like this. Lots of children lost their mothers, their fathers without families.

Even there is a new medical term that we are having. It must be added to medical books. WCNSF.

Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.

Wounded Child, No Surviving Family, WCNSF.

Yes. And it happens every hour. I have seen dozens or even hundreds of WCNSF.

And what happens to these children? Where do they go? Who cares for them after they get better?

Who cares for them, actually there is no answer for this question. We don’t even know their names sometimes. So who will care for them? So far, no one. I have seen two kids who are severely injured.

Those two kids do not know that their father and mother and all their siblings have died. They were unconscious at the time of the bombing. And now, they are conscious. They are receiving treatment. But simply, they do not know. And all the people around them did not tell them in order they are kids and they cannot handle the pain of the injury or the psychological pain of the grief.

How old are the kids?

The first is 13-year-old female who is having a severe comminuted fracture. The other, her brother, is a 14-year-old who is having a severe head trauma and a brain hemorrhage. But now, they are both conscious and receiving treatment. And they do not know that their family, father, and mother, siblings, house, all are destroyed.

Just we tell them that, you are going to see them soon. Just in order not to make them feel sad. It is painful, hiding the truth. It is to some sort of deceiving. But sometimes, you may do things that are not appropriate at that moment and may be appropriate later.

Yeah. That must be so hard Dr. Matar.

Yes, it is. Pain is too intense here.

This is an ambulance is coming.

Oh, what is that in the background?

Now, it is a new casualty. And many paramedics are doing CPR. And it is for a child. Yes, it is for a child.

What are you looking at?

Many paramedics are rushing the child into the emergency department, and they are doing CPR. It is a wounded child. And it seems there is no surviving family.

WCNSF.

Yes.

How old is the child?

It looks like 10 years old.

What’s happening now?

People, doctors and paramedics in the hospital are speaking about a new bombing. And there is dozens of new casualties are in the —

some time, and they will reach the hospital. And new cases, we are now waiting new cases.

How are you feeling?

I did not go home since the start of the conflict. So I feel tired emotionally, physically, mentally, and on all aspects. I did not see my family since 7 October.

Where is your family?

They are in the North of Gaza Strip. They did not leave the North.

Are they OK?

Thankfully, yes. They are OK. So far, I don’t know what is happening later. And I feel very anxious about them. And every time in the hospital, I think of them, and I hope they are fine.

Dr. Matar, is the child OK? What is happening with that child?

I may enter the department and ask about them. Just give me a few seconds.

OK.

Stay on the line.

[INDISTINCT CHATTERS]

Hello.

Hi.

Yes, I’ve seen the kid. The one who is being brought by the ambulance.

Is he OK?

No, he’s not OK. He’s having a severe head trauma. We could see the brain matter through the wound.

You could see his brain through the wound?

She’s still alive. But she’s having what doctors say brain death. He’s unconscious. He’s having a large crack in his head. So we are now, as doctors in the ER department, are thinking of giving him assisted mechanical ventilation or not.

So the IC doctors in charge may not intubate him because they may think this is a hopeless case. Because if they did, there will no any good result. So this is now a situation of choosing between which cases will benefit from treatment or not.

Your colleagues are deciding whether to try to save him?

Yes.

And that must be such a difficult choice.

It is.

What is your biggest fear at this moment?

In this conflict, the first thing is that I don’t want to die in cold blood. I am an innocent person. The second thing is I’m afraid on my family. I don’t want my family to get injured or to die. Because they are also innocent. We are afraid on our families more than we are afraid on ourselves. And we don’t just want to die in cold blood.

What do you mean we don’t want to die in cold blood?

I mean that we are not targets. We are not targets. We, as normal civilian, humans, we need a ceasefire. We need the conflict to end and to have a normal life.

A normal life that includes staying safe at home, drinking clean water, seeing my friends, doing picnics, sleep in a calm room, sleep without the sounds of bombings, going to work, returning back from work, playing football or soccer with my friends, going to the beach.

Every day, I used to go there and smell a breeze of the beach and listen to the sounds of waves, listen to music. I missed listening to music. I’m a music lover. And I love poetry. I miss writing about love, about dreams. I was going to the gym before the conflict started. I miss going to the gym. Actually, the gym I go to has been destroyed today. I don’t know why. So I’m just going to the gym.

How old are you, Dr. Matar?

I am 27 years old. I’m still a young doctor.

You are.

Just I need normal life back.

Now, I can see the child who I told you about is being taken to the place of dead people.

You see the child being taken where?

Into the place of dead people.

Oh. They took the child you told me about to the morgue?

Yes. My friend who was working with him, he is giving me a sign that he’s dead.

It is sad. It is very sad.

Because a young child.

Yeah. A young child.

What is your friend doing now?

He returned to the ER department to see new casualties. There is no time to get sad over every case.

Thank you for giving me the chance to listen to me.

Thank you for sharing yourself.

You’re welcome, my friend. It’s my privilege. Good night and wish a good night for me also.

Be safe tonight.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I hope. Bye, bye.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We’ve lost all contact with Shifa. I have no idea what’s happening there.

And we’ve run out of ketamine here. I’m having to do major, major wound dressing changes with nothing with the patients screaming. But because they’ve been so neglected, some of them are beginning to get infected and rot. The situation is so bleak. Everything is collapsed.