International doctors and nurses working in Gaza hospitals reported seeing injuries among Palestinians that were far more severe than those typically observed in civilians in other recent conflicts, according to a peer-reviewed study released Friday.
The research, published in the medical journal BMJ, surveyed 78 humanitarian healthcare workers – mostly from Europe and North America – who described the severity, location, and cause of wounds they encountered during deployments in the Gaza Strip.
Led by a British research team, the study provides the most comprehensive data yet on Palestinian injuries amid Israel’s nearly two-year offensive on the enclave, at a time when Gaza’s health facilities have been heavily damaged and international access remains severely restricted.
Two-thirds of the healthcare workers had previously deployed to other conflict zones, the vast majority of whom said the injuries in Gaza were “the worst thing they’ve ever seen,” the study’s lead author, British surgeon Omar El-Taji, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Up to three months after returning from Gaza, the doctors and nurses – using logbooks and shift records – completed a survey about the injuries they saw during deployments lasting two to 12 weeks between August 2024 and February 2025.
They cataloged more than 23,700 trauma injuries and nearly 7,000 weapon-related wounds, numbers that broadly echoed data from the World Health Organization, the study said.
It is difficult to gather data about injuries in any conflict, but the study described the wounds in Gaza as “unusually severe.”
In the territory, which has been relentlessly bombed and shelled by the Israeli military, more than two-thirds of weapon-related injuries were caused by explosions, according to the study.
That is more than double the rate of explosive injuries recorded among civilians in other modern conflicts. Instead, it resembled the rate suffered by U.S. soldiers during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the study added.
El-Taji emphasized this was a “really significant” difference because, unlike civilians, soldiers have training, protection, and awareness of the dangers they face.
“The volume, distribution, and military-grade severity of injuries indicate patterns of harm that exceed those reported in previous modern-day conflicts,” the study said.
El-Taji said patients also suffered an unusually high proportion of third- and fourth-degree burns, which penetrate through the skin. During his deployment to Gaza last year, he recalled seeing “an amount of children that came in with burns so severe that you could literally see their muscle and see their bone.”
Malnutrition and dehydration were the most commonly reported illnesses in the territory, where a U.N.-backed assessment declared famine in August.
Anthony Bull, a professor at Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies who was not involved in the research, told AFP, “This is a very important piece of work.” He noted the data only include wounded people who “survived to the point of seeing a healthcare worker.”
The survey also allowed healthcare workers to describe their experiences in their own words.
“The worst part was mothers begging us to save their already-dead children,” one physician said. Others described children “expressing suicidal intent” after watching family members die.
Many staff reported operating in dire circumstances with almost no supplies or support, forcing difficult decisions about rationing care to patients most likely to survive.
El-Taji arrived at Gaza European Hospital in May last year, just days before Israel launched a major invasion in the neighboring southern city of Rafah.
For nights on end, groups of up to 70 seriously wounded people arrived at the hospital, he said. On one occasion, El-Taji and other doctors and nurses donated blood to make up for dwindling supplies.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, incursion into southern Israel, which killed 1,219 people.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed more than 65,500 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the U.N. considers reliable.
More than 167,000 Gazans have been injured, the ministry said.
El-Taji lamented that international healthcare workers have increasingly been barred from Gaza.
In August, the World Health Organization’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, said this “arbitrary denial” was contributing to more preventable deaths.
