British doctor warns Gaza aid restrictions amount to bogus excuses

Prof Nizam Mamode urges UK government to act on Israel's blocking of medical aid into war zone

British transplant surgeon Prof Nizam Mamode at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Photo: MAP

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Israel's reasons for restricting medical aid into Gaza have been dismissed as “bogus” by a UK surgeon, who called on the British government to take more assertive action to end the military onslaught.

Prof Nizam Mamode worked for a month across August and September at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, where the vast majority of casualties he treated were women and children. He experienced “one to two mass casualty events” a day, in which between 10 to 20 people were killed and up to 40 injured. “If this isn’t a genocide, then I don’t know what is,” he told The National, adding that Israel was “deliberately killing civilians”.

Basic hygiene products like soap and shampoo are not allowed in. For what reason, I don’t know

Prof Nizam Mamode

“There is no escape for people. They can’t really leave. There is a deliberate targeting of medical infrastructure and healthcare workers,” he said.

Prof Mamode served for years as the clinical lead for transplant surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, a major NHS hospital in London. He met MPs from the International Development Committee on Tuesday to tell them of the dire hospital conditions in Gaza.

Britain faces pressure from UK-based charities and legal organisations to impose a full arms embargo on Israel, as well as on the sale of components for F-35 fighter jets, which are made in the US and then sold to Israel.

The government has also been criticised for abstaining from September's UN General Assembly vote seeking to enforce an International Court of Justice opinion, which deemed Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories illegal.

Prof Mamode urged the government to take concrete measures to stop Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “We really can’t keep saying 'this is terrible'. We have to do something about it,” he told The National. “It’s mind-boggling to me that those in power can’t see or don’t want to see what’s going in Gaza.”

The UK would regret its support for Israel in the future if it continued. “If the UK government doesn’t do something soon, it’s going to be ashamed of itself when it looks back,” he said.

Prof Nizam Mamode, pictured working in Gaza, said: 'There is no excuse for saying medical aid workers can’t bring in supplies.' Photo: MAP

Medical aid

The committee scrutinises the UK government’s international aid spending. It held its first hearing on Gaza since the Labour government came into power in early July.

It comes as a US-imposed 30-day deadline for Israel to “surge” more aid into Gaza after more than a year of war expires on Tuesday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says progress on letting aid in had been “insufficient”.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said Israeli restrictions on aid were “impossible to justify”. He condemned Israel's move to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which risked “jeopardising the entire international humanitarian response in Gaza”.

Prof Mamode said the shortages of medical equipment, which he witnessed before the 30-day deadline was imposed, were “phenomenal”. “We ran out of swabs, sterile gowns, catheters, all the devices you need are all gone. You can’t do many investigations because they don’t have the reagents,” he said.

He has served as a doctor in many other conflicts, including at the time of the Rwandan genocide but has never seen anything like Gaza. “It’s astonishing,” he said. “I’ve never come across a conflict zone where there are deliberate restrictions on medical supplies and medical aid for healthcare workers trying to deal with civilian casualties.”

Suspected use of autonomous drones

At the hearing, Prof Mamode regularly cried as he told MPs of casualties being brought in donkey carts. Children were being attacked by drones and he regularly removed “small cuboid pellets”, including from the neck of an injured child who was about three years old, he added. She died days later.

Prof Nizam Mamode broke down as he told UK MPs of casualties being brought in to Gaza hospitals on donkey carts. Photo: UK Parliament

He suggested there was new evidence that autonomous drones were being used in attacks that left people with several wounds in the shoulders and groin. “We thought it was prima facie evidence of an autonomous or semi-autonomous drone because a human drone operator would not be able to fire with that degree of accuracy that quickly,” he said.

Drone shots were “more destructive” than ordinary gunfire. “If you're shot in the chest with a bullet, if it misses your heart and goes out the other side, you'll probably survive,” he added. “With the drone pellets, what I found is that they would go in and they would bounce around, and it would cause multiple injuries.”

After hearing evidence about Israeli snipers shooting medics, including one through her Palestinian Red Crescent badge, MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the committee, criticised the failures of the outside world to contain the war.

“I am personally ashamed the international community has not done more to stop what you are describing Any attack on medical workers is a despicable, horrifying act.”

Worsening access

Access to medical aid when he went into Gaza in August was worse than at the beginning of the year, Prof Mamode said. “In January, [medical] people were bringing in external fixators to fix fractures, and other bits and pieces,” he told The National.

But he was unable even to carry thyroid medication for a patient as part of an aid convoy. “If those were found on you, and they [the Israeli military] realise this isn’t for you [because] you don’t have a thyroid condition, not only do you get sent back but the whole convoy gets sent back,” he said.

“Their excuses for not letting the aid in are bogus excuses. There is no excuse for saying medical aid workers can’t bring in supplies.”

Prof Nizam Mamode at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, where he said poor hygiene had led to many deaths. Photo: MAP

Among Prof Mamode’s patients was seven-year-old boy Amir, who was shot at by a drone after being hit by a bomb.

“They dropped a bomb and he was lying on the ground afterwards,” the doctor said. “He heard a drone, turned his head and saw it hanging above him, and it shot him. He ended up with his stomach lying out of his chest.”

Amir sustained other injuries to his liver, spleen and bowel. But Prof Mamode and his team were able to treat him successfully and he returned home within a week.

But Amir is one of a handful of lucky ones. One girl had “both legs and one arm blown off, left eye was in pieces, severe abdominal injuries”, Prof Mamode recalled. “She almost died on the table. We operated on her and she survived for 12 hours … and died.”

Many of his patients didn’t survive and those who did often succumbed to disease due to poor hygiene in the hospital. “The risk of infection in the wards was huge. Basic hygiene products like soap and shampoo are not allowed in. For what reason, I don’t know,” he said.

Lethal disregard

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields” by conducting operations from residential areas and building “command and control” centres in hospitals. The accusation was echoed by Mr Starmer last October when he was in opposition.

Prof Mamode described the claims as “nonsense”, adding that most of his casualties came from densely populated areas where civilians were sheltering in tents or buildings.

“There’s no front line,” he told The National. “In a conventional war, you have two groups of soldiers battling each other, and civilians will get caught up in that. In this situation, the Israelis will destroy a whole apartment building and say there were Hamas fighters there.”

Instead, Israel was attacking tents and buildings simply on the suspicion that a Hamas member could have been there, he added. An aid convoy was shot at five times while Prof Mamode was in Gaza.