'Time is running out': Brit doctor speaks of 'chronically malnourished' children on return from Gaza

ITV News

2 days ago

Dr Victoria Rose sat down with ITV News International Affairs Analyst Rageh Omaar, in her first interview since landing back in London from Gaza
A British doctor has spoken of the "chronically malnourished" children of Gaza as she returned from her latest aid mission to the occupied territory.
Dr Victoria Rose says children are lacking the essential nutrients to fight off infections, following a months-long Israeli blockade, which halted the movement of food and aid.
Hospitals are also running out of antibiotics, and "time is running out" to help those living in the territory, she said.
The plastic and reconstructive surgeon spoke to ITV News as she returned from working at one of Gaza's last functioning hospitals, the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. It's her third time working at the hospital since the war began.
She described how an "incredible" number of five-year-olds were coming into the hospital with devastating blast injuries.
"The injuries that I see in five-year-old children are as if the bomb has been directed at them," she said. "It's not just bits of shrapnel wounds. This is coming in with your leg blown off or your arm blown off."
But Dr Rose explained it's not just the bombs and bullets that are causing harm, the lack of food and the dire living conditions are also having an impact.
She told ITV News she had treated trauma patients who were so malnourished she thought they were aged five or six, but they were actually 11 or 12.
"They are lacking the essential vitamins and nutrients that they need for adequate cell turnover, so they're not healing as quickly as we've seen before," she said.
She explained that minor infections would become "very out of control very quickly", adding: "We lost two children while we were there to overwhelming sepsis."
The living conditions in Gaza are adding to the problem, Dr Rose explained, coupled with the fact that hospitals are running out of resources to fight the infection.
According to the UN, at least 1.9 million people – or about 90% of the population - across the Gaza Strip have been displaced during the war. Many have been displaced repeatedly, some ten times or more.
"They're living in tents in the dirt with no sanitation, and the water is contaminated," said Dr Rose.
"You've got all of these filthy wounds, and then no resources to fight the infection... we're running out of antibiotics left, right and centre."
Meanwhile, the doctors who work day and night to treat patients are struggling, and many have even lost loved ones.
In August last year, Dr Rose's scrub nurse lost his eight-year-old son.
"That was really hard when he came to work," she explained. "We all knew what had happened, and it's just really tough. I don't know how they come in after that sort of thing."
She explained that morale among staff is low, adding: "They all tell you that they'd rather die than carry on. I think that good old Palestinian resistance is going. They're really sick of it now."
Israel has consistently said Hamas and other armed groups are operating from civilian infrastructure, including health facilities.
Dr Rose says she didn't know of any Hamas militia within the Nasser Hospital and said the constant bombardment of innocent children is indiscriminate.
"Everyone is getting hit all the time," she told ITV News. "The only way that this could be justified is if every single Palestinian was working for Hamas. I don't see any other way."
Pressed on whether there is any possibility, she replied: "I think it's unlikely, to be honest. I think most Palestinians are just trying to stay alive."
She also spoke about her "guilt" upon returning home to London and on leaving her patients behind.
"I feel a bit guilty that I can leave when they can't leave," she said. "But then I'm also quite anxious about the patients that I've left behind."
Aid distribution centres in Gaza were closed on Wednesday, a day after dozens of Palestinians were killed while queuing for food.
At least 80 people have been killed and hundreds injured in a spate of similar incidents over the past week, health officials in Gaza have said.
Witnesses say Israeli troops opened fire at crowds on Tuesday, but the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has denied the claims, instead saying it fired "warning shots" towards "suspects".
Dr Rose said she believes the UK needs to do more and called on the government to take in more child evacuees from Gaza.
She said the UK has a host of charities with the finances to help by treating them in private hospitals.
"The British medics are so well trained," she said. "I notice it when I'm out there that we are so much better trained than a lot of the other countries that are helping out."
Dr Rose is one of more than 2,000 UK health professionals who have now signed an open letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, calling for an urgent change in Labour's position on Gaza.
The letter, coordinated by Health Workers 4 Palestine (HW4P), demands that Labour end all forms of UK complicity, including arms transfers and diplomatic support.