Peter Stickland

Children wanted to die to be reunited with their families. Dr Mahmooda “Mimi” Syed returned from Gaza with blood on her shoes. She's an American ER physician, mother of three who volunteered in Gaza twice in 2024. Some of the horror she saw: 1. Eighteen children, most under twelve, with gunshot wounds to the head or chest. That was how many Dr Mimi Syed managed to document during her first month in Gaza. She encountered more. Many arrived dead or died shortly afterwards. 2. Four-year-old Mira had a bullet lodged in her brain. Her chances of survival were considered almost nonexistent. Syed refused to give up, secured her airway and rushed her to surgery. Against the odds, Mira survived. 3. A child arrived with a single bullet wound through the heart. There were no other reported injuries. The child was already dead when Syed examined the body. 4. A four-year-old girl had suffered terrible burns. She sat trembling, staring into space, softly humming a lullaby to herself. She wasn't crying. Syed described her as profoundly dissociated. 5. Children playing football or flying kites arrived with devastating shrapnel wounds. Some had tiny external injuries concealing catastrophic internal bleeding. Syed described repeatedly encountering this pattern. 6. Children told her they wanted to die. Some had lost their families. One wished to be killed by a bomb so that death might reunite them with loved ones, food and school. 7. Mothers were too malnourished to breastfeed their babies. Syed encountered women whose bodies could no longer provide the nourishment their newborns needed. She learned that some parents were feeding infants sugar water because they had nothing else. 8. The hospital ran out of running water. Equipment intended for single use was reused. Antibiotics were scarce or unavailable. Sometimes the electricity failed. Doctors could not even wash their hands properly. 9. Children living in makeshift shelters around the hospital befriended her. She brought them sweets and balloons. One morning, she discovered that someone had written in the dust on a car window: “Mimi, I love you.” 10. When she finally left Gaza, she still had Palestinian blood on her shoes. In Jordan, a colleague took her to a beautiful restaurant. There was warmth, clean water and delicious food. She couldn't swallow a bite. She cried as she recorded a message about the children and colleagues she had left behind. And she pledged to continue documenting what she had witnessed and speaking about it for the rest of her life. In August 2025, she attempted to return to Gaza for a third medical mission. Israeli authorities denied her entry without providing an explanation. Her luggage contained baby formula and equipment intended to save lives.