Israel more and more bars international medical doctors from volunteering in Gaza : NPR

AMMAN, Jordan — Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency drugs doctor from Washington state, is in an Amman resort room, surrounded by toddler formulation and gadgets used for resuscitation that she had hoped to take into the Gaza Strip.

Syed, who had been planning her third volunteer mission to Gaza with a U.S. medical support group, was instructed by the group after she landed in Jordan for the journey that the Israeli navy had rejected her and had given no motive.

She believes the reason being due to what she has described publicly after her earlier missions. She has spoken — together with in testimony to a United Nations fee — about treating minors who’d been shot within the head, a rise in baby malnutrition and sufferers dying attributable to an absence of primary medical provides.

With an unprecedented variety of Gaza-based Palestinian journalists killed by Israel, which is barring virtually all international reporters from the enclave, medical doctors and nurses have been among the many final remaining worldwide witnesses to the conflict’s catastrophic toll on civilians.

Palestinians carry the physique of a journalist who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Aug. 26. Gaza’s civil protection company stated 5 journalists have been killed amongst at the least 20 different folks.

Abed Rahim Khatib/image alliance through Getty Photos

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Abed Rahim Khatib/image alliance through Getty Photos

“It simply looks as if this can be a focusing on of sure people who find themselves going to be exposing the reality of what is taking place in Gaza, one other strategy to forestall that,” says Syed, referring to Israel’s resolution to cease her and different international medical doctors from working in Gaza.

The U.N.’s World Well being Group says what it calls Israel’s “arbitrary denial” of emergency medical workers is resulting in extra deaths in Gaza — the place well being authorities say Israeli strikes have killed about 1,500 native medical workers for the reason that begin of the conflict in October 2023. Many others have been repeatedly displaced by Israeli assaults.

Organizations sending worldwide medical workers on volunteer missions to Gaza submit their functions weeks upfront to the WHO, which liaises with the help teams sending in emergency medical groups, confirms doctor {qualifications} and coordinates the missions to Gaza with the Israeli authorities, in accordance with medical support teams.

Israel requires medical doctors making use of for the missions to be bodily current in Israel or Jordan — a crossing level for a lot of to Israel and Gaza — simply earlier than the mission begins, however notifies them solely hours upfront if they’re authorised, says Syed.

Syed says a French physician attributable to go in together with her, who has additionally been vocal concerning the struggling in Gaza, was additionally rejected. A 3rd member of their staff, a nurse, was authorised — however as a result of she was required to go in with physicians, none have been in a position to go.

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and Dr. Mahmooda “Mimi” Syed (proper), medical medical doctors with critical-care expertise in Gaza Strip hospitals since Oct. 7, talk about instant priorities for rebuilding Gaza’s well being system throughout a press convention on Jan. 30, 2025 on the United Nations Headquarters in New York Metropolis.

Selcuk Acar/Anadolu through Getty Photos

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Selcuk Acar/Anadolu through Getty Photos

Syed stated being refused was notably heartbreaking as she had befriended on her earlier missions a sixth-year medical pupil in Gaza.

“I converse together with her each day. She is like my sister,” she says. “Once I needed to inform her the information I used to be denied, it was devastating.”

The medical pupil, who doesn’t need NPR to make use of her title as a result of she fears being focused by Israel, despatched again to her mentor a voice message that appeared like a goodbye.

“I now not have any hope, the whole lot feels over, Mimi,” she stated, the sound of drones within the background. “I do not even need something from life besides loss of life. As a result of I actually imagine I’ll discover peace in it.”

Syed was left in tears by the message. “I really feel hopeless that I can not present something for her,” she says. “She’s been displaced a number of instances. They’re exhausted. They do not have meals. There is no place to reside.”

The World Well being Group says denial charges have risen by 50% since March

It is unlikely Syed would have been in a position to take into Gaza the donated toddler formulation, laryngoscopes and different provides she’d crammed into an enormous suitcase. Israel bans medical personnel from taking in something however private remedy or provides and permits solely a small amount of money, in accordance with medical teams.

It additionally, in accordance with U.N. and nongovernmental support teams, severely restricts medical provides coming into Gaza by truck. In line with medical support teams and Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights, Israel argues that gadgets together with hospital beds, anesthesia and water disinfectant tablets might have navy use.

In response to NPR questions, Israel’s navy declined to offer a listing of banned gadgets and stated it facilitates entry of medical gear and provides whereas “taking each potential measure” to stop the militant group Hamas from seizing support and utilizing it for navy functions.

“I hear of individuals, like, hiding child formulation and stuff like that, making an attempt to smuggle it in generally, however we discourage our workers to take something in addition to their private gadgets,” says Dr. Mustafa Musleh, head of the Palestinian American Medical Affiliation (PAMA) within the U.S. “We do not need to threat them getting denied due to that.”

Musleh estimates that greater than 50% of the medical doctors for whom PAMA submits functions to Gaza are rejected by Israel, with rejections growing sharply beginning three months in the past.

He and others say that Israel by no means offers an evidence for the denials. Musleh has gone via the rejections looking for a sample, and located that medical doctors who had beforehand served on missions in Gaza have been extra prone to be rejected than first-timers.

“We’re going through a number of challenges to get folks in and get support in,” he says. ” there isn’t any rhyme or motive. You’ll be able to’t discover an evidence for it from a safety standpoint.”

Displaced Palestinians carry meals parcels as they raid vans carrying humanitarian support in Khan Younis within the southern Gaza Strip, on Aug. 9, 2025.

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The Israeli navy responded to NPR questions on why it was more and more rejecting certified medical doctors at brief discover and with no clarification by saying it coordinates entry of dozens of organizations every week in a course of topic to prior safety screening.

The World Well being Group, in a written response to NPR questions, stated “advanced entry necessities and the arbitrary denial of worldwide medical groups” have been resulting in extra Palestinian deaths. Since mid-March, denial charges have risen by about 50%, it stated, with 102 surgeons and different specialised medical workers denied entry into the Gaza Strip.

PAMA and different medical support organizations had beforehand been in a position to ship greater than a dozen medical doctors at a time via the Egyptian border, with a whole bunch of suitcases stuffed with medical provides they would want in Gaza’s shattered hospital system. Israel participated in these checks and approvals.

Egypt shut the Rafah crossing after the Israeli navy took management of the Gaza aspect of that border in an offensive on Rafah metropolis and environment in Could 2024. This has left border crossings with Israel, with occasional exceptions, as the only real entry to Gaza.

Docs who’re denied entry to Gaza attempt to assist in different methods

When international medical doctors do get into Gaza, the volunteer missions are grueling and require private sacrifice. Every physician has to take as much as 4 weeks off work from their observe, volunteer their time and pay for their very own airline tickets. Musleh says regardless of that, he has a whole bunch of medical doctors prepared and in a position to go, if Israel would permit in additional medical workers.

The last-minute rejections imply that seats on U.N.-run safety convoys for volunteer personnel go unfilled, he says, and sufferers are left untreated when desperately wanted specialists are rejected. Final week, an oncologist was amongst PAMA’s medical doctors rejected by the Israeli navy, he says.

“These are specialties which might be extremely wanted and if these medical doctors didn’t get in, these sufferers is not going to get handled,” he says. “It is so simple as that.”

The World Well being Group instructed NPR the entry denials of specialised international medical workers are placing in danger 4,500 consultations per week in Gaza.

A hospital orderly rests on a chair at at Nasser Medical Advanced in Khan Younis within the southern Gaza Strip on Aug. 9, 2025. Gaza’s hospitals have been experiencing shortages of meals and important provides, together with drugs and gasoline, attributable to Israeli restrictions on the entry of provides into the besieged Palestinian territory for the reason that begin of the conflict with Hamas in October 2023.

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Israel’s elevated rejections of medical doctors are along with restrictions it imposed final 12 months, which included banning any volunteer medical workers with a Palestinian grandparent.

Dr. Yassar Arain, a pediatrician and neonatologist in Texas, was among the many physicians rejected final week.

“I had clearly been planning for months on finish after which on my strategy to Jordan, I received a textual content message saying I used to be denied,” he says in Amman.

The message was from his medical support group, exhibiting a crimson line the Israeli navy drew via his title. A Jordanian physician attributable to go in on the similar time was additionally denied, he stated.

Arain determined he would go to go to Jerusalem as a vacationer after being rejected. He says he was detained for 3 hours on the border crossing of the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, as Israeli guards went via his cellphone and social media posts, studying his journal entries to at least one one other. They despatched him again to Jordan and gave no motive.

Arain says he was haunted by what he beforehand skilled in his time volunteering as a physician in Gaza. He and different medical doctors and nurses who had volunteered there shaped a bunch referred to as Healthcare Staff for Humanity to lift public consciousness about Gaza and different humanitarian crises.

“What helped me was realizing that, OK, I did a few weeks in Gaza and did what I might, however the true work was once I got here house,” he says. “As one of many few witnesses to what was occurring in Gaza from the West, it was now time to have interaction in advocacy and group constructing.”