A British doctor who travelled to Gaza to help save lives is now trapped there and desperate to be evacuated.
Liverpool-based Dr Abdel Hammad, a surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, travelled to the region three weeks ago to help patients.
His mission was to perform life-saving transplants on patients in the city.
Having travelled there as a charity volunteer as part of a hospital project known as the Liverpool International Transplant Initiative, Dr Hammad has said he is now awaiting evacuation.
A spokesperson for the LITI told the Liverpool Echo: “LITI is deeply horrified by the ongoing medical disaster in Gaza created by the lack of medical supplies and electricity, including to our project partners at Al Shifa Hospital.”
They added: “We are also very concerned about the safety of Dr Hammad and call for urgent steps to be taken to secure his evacuation.”
The Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust added: “For the time being the situation with Dr Hammad remains unchanged.”
Since his ordeal began, Dr Hammad has spoken to ITV about his situation.
He said: “I was talking to the guys here with us, I said when I come here my ambition is to save three, four, five lives by doing the transplants, and then you find that in a couple of days, 2,000 are killed. It has sent me to despair really.”
While this isn’t the first time Dr Hammad has been to Gaza, he said this was the first time he had been in this specific situation.
He explained: “This is the first time I have been in this situation…I think probably it is the most serious situation it has been in Gaza for a long long time.
“It has been like this [air strikes] all afternoon, imagine where they have hit, how that will be.”
Dr Hammad is one of thousands of people trying to leave Gaza as Israel’s bombardment of the area continues.
According to some experts, around 5,000 lives have been lost on both sides.
The United Nations has warned there is no ceasefire in sight as the world waits to see whether Israel will launch a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
