NHS surgeon who volunteered at hospital in Gaza lays bare the horror of warzone’s devastating conditions – saying patients were coming in on ‘wooden pallets’ and being ‘dragged in their blood’

An NHS surgeon who volunteered at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital has laid bare the devastating conditions in the warzone, saying the ‘smell of the blood is unbelievable, intolerable’.

Speaking to Panorama, Dr Tawfik Omar, who in August travelled to Medical Aid for Palestinians, spoke of the horrors he witnessed.

The BBC documentary, which aired last night, looked into allegations that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – supported by the IDF and the US government, and set up as a way to bring aid into the strip – was behind the deaths of civilians.

Dr Omar was stationed just kilometers from two southern GHF sites, and said after they opened each day, medical facilities were overwhelmed with casualties.

Since the GHF began its operations in May, at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed at or around its sites, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).

The IDF says it’s ‘not aware of hundreds of fatalities caused by forces at distribution points’, calling the figures ‘inflated and false’.

‘Unfortunately even the dead people in Gaza don’t have rest and peace,’ Dr Omar told the outlet.

‘You can see literally, the patients just on the floor, everywhere, the blood is just covering all the floor.

‘Most of the time I experience very complicated, very devastating injuries being carried out from the GHF points miles away.’

The surgeon said there are patients coming in on ‘wooden pallets’ and being ‘dragged in their blood’. 

‘They are just bleeding all the way,’ he explained. ‘You can trace their way to the hospital through this bleeding most of the days you have like 10 – 12 vascular injuries.

‘I can say with confidence that more than 90 per cent of those injuries have been reported to be due to gunshots.

‘The local people coming from the GHF points are saying clearly, they can see the GHF security guards or the IDF personnel is shooting directly at the crowds.

‘Unfortunately every day the patient is asking you to save him. And you’d like to say to him, sorry, if you were in another war, I might be able to save you.

In June, despite Israeli outlets reporting that IDF soldiers ‘acknowledging that some Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid’, the country’s military branded the casualty figures ‘inaccurate’.

As shared by the BBC, they claimed there were ‘lessons learned’ and new instructions issued to forces.

The IDF has also, according to the outlet, several times claimed it fired ‘warning shots’ on ‘suspects’ who were ‘approaching troops’. 

It also said that ‘reports of incidents of harm were being examined’, with ‘any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives to be thoroughly examined and further action will be taken as necessary’.

In August, United Nations experts called for the ‘immediate dismantling of GHF’. 

‘The GHF, a non-governmental organisation created by Israel in February 2025, with US support, to allegedly distribute aid in Gaza, is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law,’ a statement said.

‘The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices.

‘Under any circumstances, when war crimes are overlooked in exchange for temporary relief, impunity can become normalised.

‘Yet, in this case, we are leaving a State accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in charge of feeding the population affected by the genocide without oversight and with impunity.

‘This overt hypocrisy is disturbing.’