In the past two years, Manchester GP Dr Shahana Moitra has been out to Gaza three times – and she plans to return next year
When Dr Shahana Moitra, a GP in Greater Manchester, told her family she wanted to go and help the emergency response in Gaza last April they pleaded with her not to go.
The humanitarian situation was worsening and the risks were increasing. She arrived just days after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli air strike. The victims were British, Polish, Australian, Palestinian and also included a dual US-Canadian citizen.
“It happens in war,” said Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after admitting that the Israeli military hit “innocent people”, describing it as tragic and unintentional.
Drones and bombings were constant
“Naturally, my husband and daughter didn’t want me to go,” laughs Dr Moitra from her home in Altrincham.
“The drones were constant, the bombings were constant… one night we all left our building as the sound of the bomb was so close. When we got outside the whole sky was lit up.
“Each time I’ve gone no one has wanted me to, but I think why I want to and why I’m doing it. When you witness the resilience people in Gaza are going through you just want to stand with them and be there. The local doctors have not had a break in the last two years.”
Part of a small team od medics with UK-Med
The 54-year-old GP, who came to the UK from India with her mother as a 13-year-old in 1988, has been working as part of a small international team of medics with UK-Med.
The Manchester-based humanitarian medical NGO is a neutral, impartial humanitarian organisation whose “first and only goal is to save lives in emergencies,” according to its mission statement. It runs two field hospitals in Al Mawasi and Al Zawayda respectively, both funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
700,000 consultations and 700 newborn deliveries in Gaza
It has been working in the Gaza Strip since January 2024. So far during the conflict UK Med has provided almost 700,000 consultations, conducted more than 4,200 surgeries and delivered more than 700 newborns in Gaza.
Having served at the NHS Nightingale North West Hospital, Manchester, for three months at the height of the pandemic and contributed to the Afghan Crisis Response at Manchester Airport in August 2021, Dr Moitra joined UK-Med in October 2022.
Three deployments to Gaza and a fourth planned for 2026
The charity has agreements with NHS trusts so employees can deploy for three to six weeks, which has allowed Dr Moitra to have gone on multiple international deployments, including the Turkey-Syria earthquake in March 2023 as well as the Libya flood disaster that October. But it is Gaza that keeps drawing her back, having completed three humanitarian missions in April 2024, March 2025, and August 2025. A fourth is set for the new year.
“I arrived at Al Mawasi as the primary healthcare doctor working out of little rooms. My role was to work with our Palestinian colleagues, GPs, pharmacists, community engagement staff – basically outreach who go out to camps to advise and get feedback – so I was kind of in charge of all of them,” Dr Moitra says.
UK Med CEO, David Wightwick, who was also the Team Lead on the ground, recognised a growing need further north, so began scouting for a new location for a health facility, accompanied by an interpreter and logistician, and soon joined by Dr Moitra.
After securing permission from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, a field hospital at Zuwaida, near Jabalya – about 45 minutes to an hour drive from Al Mawasi along al-Rashid street, the coastal road running along the Gaza’s western edge – was built over the course of a weekend, much to Dr Moitra’s astonishment.
‘Pre-fab tent erected Saturday – patients treated Sunday’
“We went up on the Friday, put a pre-fabricated tent up on Saturday and started seeing patients by Sunday. Within three days our patient numbers tripled and in two weeks we had a fully-functioning hospital.
“You wouldn’t get that in the UK! The triage area was done, the GP consultation tent, the nurses tent, the pharmacy tent, and we had a few toilets for the patients. I even had to learn about septic tanks.
‘Palestinian staff work so hard’
“I got them to put in somewhere private for the mothers who were all hiding while trying to breast feed. We built a shade area to ensure the patients were not waiting in the sun… I’ve never seen [the Palestinian staff] work so hard. They were hot, sweating, and everything was done in two weeks. It was the most rewarding work that I did.”
Seeing 300 patients a day – some walking 20 miles
The sheer numbers of people living in crowded tents with very limited sanitation gave rise to so many preventable diseases at the hospital, including gastroenteritis, scabies and respiratory infections. Dealing with pregnancy care, infections and psychological distress became increasingly common. By the end of her first stint finished Dr Moitra and her team were seeing around 300 patients a day with many walking up to 20 miles to be seen.
“On one occasion there was just me and two colleagues at the hospital and we saw 388 patients that day. They called me the ‘problem solver.’ “I did try,” Dr Moitra laughs.
Babies with burns due to mothers nursing while cooking over boiling water
There was also an odd rise in burns in burns among babies, which she discovered was due to mothers nursing their babies and young children while trying to cook over a boiling pot of water in their packed tents.
Dr Moitra instructed UK Med’s Risk Communication and Community Engagement team to go out and warn mothers of the dangers.
The situation seemed to have calmed down during her second visit in March this year, shortly after a temporary ceasefire had been agreed. Families had moved north to Gaza City so the number of patients the team saw at Zuwaida dropped to around 70-80 a day.
Then the ceasefire broke and the impact was “immediate”, Dr Moitra said.
After the ceasefire broke, a lot of local staff were no longer able to help
“Aid stopped coming in. The drones and bombings came closer again. We had travel restrictions because it wasn’t safe, so a lot of the local staff weren’t able to come to the hospital. Around 13 or 14 international staff basically took over running the hospital. One day, I was the only GP there, with my Jordanian translator, and we just didn’t stop all day.
“I often saw children arrive, not as patients, but as companions waiting with parents or siblings. Their silence spoke volumes. With guardians’ permission, we created a small colouring corner: a place where children could draw, play, and just be children again.
‘A fleeting moment of joy and dignity’
“One photo stays with me, a girl proudly holding up her picture, her face hidden behind the paper. A fleeting moment of joy and dignity. It reminded me that in places of crisis, a crayon can be as powerful as a cure.”
The team soon started running out of medicine so were forced to ration supplies. Patients were limited to a maximum of eight paracetamol – a sub-therapeutic dose – and antibiotics were also running low.
“We were struggling,” Dr Moitra says.
Imetigo outbreak – as well as bronchitis and scabies
Then impetigo broke out. The highly contagious bacterial skin infection, which is more common among young children and presents as blisters on the face and hands, is not usually serious but in Gaza only the worst cases received an antibiotic cream. All the other children had to make do with an antiseptic cream. Cases of scabies and bronchiolitis, a common chest infection that affects babies and children under the age of two, increased.
“The health system is broken, the resources so scarce. At times in Gaza it’s just about being there and listening… then the food supplies started going down. By the time I went back in August, for the third time, it was just heart-breaking. I remember Mohammed, one of my national colleagues looking so thin… it was so visible. Our patients were losing so much weight too.
‘A three-year-old child with cerebral palsy … You felt helpless at times’
“I remember one day at our clinic I saw a three-year-old child with cerebral palsy who was so severely malnourished, just watching the mother wanting to do anything for her child, pleading for help, but we were so limited in what we could do. You felt helpless at times.”
By this time the Israeli government had ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza meaning patient numbers fluctuated wildly again – up to 500 a day filled the field hospital as the population was forced to march again. Dr Moitra’s daily commute increased from 45 minutes to two hours as roads filled with displaced families and children, oblivious to the dangers of traffic, became a constant hazard for drivers fleeing to the south.
Children scavenging through the rubbish
“I’d see young children queuing up for drinking water early in the morning. Some as young as four or five, maybe even younger, would scavenge through the rubbish, all running wild on the roads. Kids would just emerge from nowhere. The drivers were so skilful, weaving between the children and donkey carts, missing them by inches.
“I’d see kids selling drinking water in small plastic bags. They’d carry trays on their heads with goods to sell, whatever they could get find. Seeing such young children being forced into survival was hard. Yet that’s the new normal for them.”
‘Palestians would rather work than give in to their grief’
A Palestinian doctor who dropped everything after being told his father had just been killed while out collecting firewood was back at work three days later.
“They’d rather work than give in to their grief.”
One particularly tragic incident which preys on her mind involved a family evacuating the north with their six-month-old baby who was poorly with gastroenteritis. By the time they reached the hospital their baby had died due to dehydration.
“She was basically dead on arrival. It must have happened about 30 minutes before they got the hospital, so we did try to revive the baby but there was nothing we could do,” Dr Moitra says.
Shortage of supplies and medicines made it more difficult
“There was a two-week old baby with severe impetigo who came in with huge blisters all over her skin. The child needed dressings, but we didn’t have paraffin gauzes, which you need so the dressing doesn’t stick to the wound and you can change it easily. We’d try to go round other organisations, like MSF, to see if others have things we need but… There’s also medication being sold on the street. Sometimes you just had to send unwell patients to Nasser Hospital, where there is a paediatric unit and hope they can help.”
Cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves, leading to muscle weakness, numbness, and potentially paralysis, also emerged over the summer – mostly in children. The paralysis usually starts in the legs working its way up to the lungs.
Medics discovered the outbreak was due to the campylobacter virus, a type of bacteria that is the leading cause of bacterial food poisoning worldwide, primarily transmitted through undercooked poultry and contaminated water.
“One lady asked me if we had any treatment for her eight-year-old nephew, who was on a ventilator in Nasser Hospital, and the treatment he needed is immunotherapy, which we don’t have, so nothing could be done. There were 15 cases of Guillain-Barré in August. In the UK that child would have been given immunotherapy immediately and started to improve. The equipment at the hospitals in Gaza is decades old. It needs changing.”
Winter brings new challenges for public health in Gaza
As winter approaches, Gaza faces growing public health challenges as malnutrition, particularly among children, compounds vulnerability to disease.
“Rehabilitation needs will increase, with thousands living with fractures, amputations, burns, and other injuries requiring physiotherapy, prosthetics, and long-term care. Mental health support is urgently needed for both patients and healthcare staff.”
King Charles gave Dr Moitra the Humanitarian Medal
Dr Moitra credits her “amazingly supportive” practice at Withnell Health Centre in Brinscall, Chorley, where she works as a sessional General Practitioner, to allow her to join the UK Med team wherever they are most needed.
She was one of 14 frontline medical responders awarded the nation’s new Humanitarian Medal for her contribution towards the Gaza response by King Charles at a Buckingham Palace ceremony in February 2025.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” says Dr Moitra.
“I thought we were just going to the Foreign Office when we received the email but then the Palace got in touch. It was a very special day.”
UK Med had asked her to come back in January but Dr Moitra has delayed her return to Gaza until March to be at home helping her Chorley colleagues during the annual NHS ‘winter crisis’.
‘You are not forgotten’
When asked what draws her back to Gaza, Dr Moitra says: “You just want to stand with the rest of the Palestinians, to say you have not forgotten them. They always look forward to seeing familiar faces back and smile when they see you, because they feel that we’re all standing together. They are not alone. Once you see their suffering and resilience you just can’t turn away.”
