'Unforgiveable': Diary of a Gaza doctor dealing with mass child casualties after ceasefire ends
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Canadian paediatrician, returned to Gaza for the second time after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire was declared - and was there as it ended
Since the ceasefire ended in Gaza on March 18, 322 children have been killed by Israeli missiles, according to the United Nations. A further 609 have been injured.
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Canadian paediatric intensive care doctor, returned to Gaza for a second stint on what’s left of its hospital wards in February.
Based at Nasser hospital, one of a handful of hospitals still functioning, she was there as the bombs began to fall again.
In between the harrowing shifts alongside her Palestinian colleagues she recorded a video diary on her phone.
These are some of her entries as she documented six weeks of hell.
Late February 2025
“It’s hard to know where to start.
"When we first came, there was almost a level of joy at seeing everybody who had survived the last 16 months of massacres, relieved by the cessation of the aerial bombardment.
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan told ITV News that after an initial feeling of "joy" at seeing everyone who had survived 16 months of bombardment, "you realised that actually every single person has lost so much"
"But then I think after we had a chance to sit down and speak to them, you realised that actually every single person has lost so much. You realise almost every single person you've met has lost siblings, parents, children.
"Almost every single person you've met has lived in a tent at one point, has been very hungry at various points in the last 16 months, has been terrified in the last 16 months.
"As one of the directors said when we first arrived, what we went through defies human imagination. And I think that's true”
20 March 2025
“At around 1:30am the night before last, we were woken up to the entire building shaking and just roaring. The sound of jet planes and explosions.
"The curtains were flying open and the windows were shaking, so we changed into scrubs and rushed down to to the ER, and we started making space for all of these kids.
"We started moving them from the operating theatre where they had received whatever life saving surgery they needed. There were so many casualties.
"There was the most adorable looking little girl with two little front teeth and these earrings, she'd just had her ears pierced.“
Dr Haj-Hassan describes the moment they were woken up to Israeli airstrikes which ended the two month ceasefire
21 March 2025
“That little girl: she did really well, and as soon as we extubated her she was awake and sobbing. Each time she cried you could see her two little teeth.
"She started saying ‘Mama, Mama’ and it was so sad because I was sitting there comforting her, but how do you tell a one year old you will never see your Mama again? Your mum is dead.
"It happens to be Mother’s Day here in the Arab world. The other mothers of the other two traumatically injured children are injured. One of the mothers came to visit her little girl.
"She was limping with injuries to her face and she said ‘Please, please tell me if she is going to be ok. I need to know the truth; I have already lost my two little daughters in the same attack.’
"How do you tell her that her third daughter is paralysed on the right side of her body and hasn’t spoken or opened her eyes since we extubated her?”
"How do you tell a one year old you will never see your Mama again?" Dr Haj-Hassan asked
23 March 2025
“At about 9pm this evening, I was in the emergency department when we heard this blast that shook the entire building. It was closer than anything I've experienced before.
"The Gazan staff in the emergency department said ‘It's the hospital, it hit us.’ It turns out they bombed the second floor, the inpatient units for the post op patients. It seems at least two people were killed.
"One of them was a 16 years old, who was injured on Tuesday morning. His twin was killed and he was admitted to the surgical department here, and he was killed today with his cannula still in his hand. This is a hospital, It's a hospital!
"My question is what crime is enough for us to say no more impunity for Israel. Every crime has been committed. What crime is enough?”
Dr Haj-Hassan said what's happening in Gaza will be a 'a source of shame in our lifetime'
Later that night
“Around 3:30 or so this morning we heard heavy bombardment. I eventually went down to the ER when I started hearing the ambulances and they were in the midst of resuscitating a man.
"They said he was a relative of one of the anesthetists, that I am friends with here, and it turns out their home had been struck. Our colleague was injured but with minor injuries. But unfortunately his brother who lives above him and his parents, his wife and his two daughters were all propelled about eight metres from the house.
"My friend the anesthetist could hear his niece crying under the rubble, and so was able to extract her with difficulty. They were taken to a field hospital.
"He said his brother's wife and his other niece were very clearly dead, but his brother was still alive and critically injured. His niece who he pulled from under the rubble, who's about one year of age, was brought here to Nasser Hospital. His brother is not doing well. I'm really worried he won't survive.
"His niece I think is going to be okay. Motherless and maybe fatherless, and she lost her only sibling, but I'm hoping she's going to be okay.
"We took her to the ICU just because there's nowhere for her to go. I just want to make sure she's going to be okay.
"I washed her hair. She was covered in soot. Her eyelashes are singed, her eyebrows are singed. She smells like gunpowder, weapons. And she just kept clinging onto me. I couldn't put her down.
"Every time I tried to put her down, she'd scream. How do you even start to articulate the rage that comes from something like this?”
In a statement to ITV News the Israeli military said “In response to Hamas' barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization's military capabilities. A central feature of Hamas’ strategy is the exploitation of civilian structures for terror purposes.
"Specifically, it has been well documented that Hamas uses hospitals for its terror activities by building military networks within and beneath hospitals, launching attacks and storing weapons within the confines of hospitals, and using hospital infrastructure and staff for terror activities.
"It should be clear that it is absolutely prohibited to misuse hospitals for military purposes, and turn patients into human shields. If not stopped, under certain conditions, this illegal military use can make the hospital lose its protection from attack.”
Dr Tanya is now safely back at home, but remains in close touch with her fellow medics at Nasser. With the Israeli military still bombing Gaza, she is haunted by the fate of both the hospital and her young patients and still struggling to process all that she witnessed.
“I do think this will be the source of shame of our lifetime” she angrily concluded.
“The thing we look back on - our generation and the generation who have lived through this. How did this happen? There will be history books written about this.”
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