'These children are skin and bone', says surgeon in Gaza
Dr Victoria Rose said that the level of malnutrition is on a scale of what "we saw in the 80s during the Ethiopian famine".
"These children are skin and bone," she said.
The UK plastic surgeon is currently working in the Nasser hospital in southern Gaza.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Dr Rose said the lack of proper nutrition means doctors are seeing overwhelming sepsis in wounds that would easily heal if the right equipment and foods were available.
The right vitamins and minerals are essential for recovery and preventing infection from taking hold, Dr Rose said.
"There is the needless and preventable deaths of thousands of children going on."
The surgeon said she is seeing blast injuries and the bulk of them are burns and limb injuries caused by explosions.
She said children "are suffering malnutrition and are stunted in their growth".
"Children that you would be six or seven turn out to be 11 or 12," she said.
Dr Rose said the situation is the worst she has ever seen.
"Sometimes I wonder how and where this will end and whether our work here is futile," she said, adding that she cannot spend too long thinking about this.
Dr Rose said there really is not an external understanding of what is happening to children and civilians in Gaza.
"I don't think the Western world really has any understanding of what's happening here," she said.
"There is the needless and preventable deaths of thousands of children going on."
Dr Rose said the situation is very unique because there is no media access to Gaza and aid workers are afraid to speak out in case they are prevented from working in the territory.
"It's a very unique situation to have a warzone where the media has been completely excluded so you are relying on aid workers to give you all this information and we all know very well that the more public we go with our stories, the less likely we are to get back into Gaza and do our jobs," she said.
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