Dr. Yi-Chun Wu (far left), holding a skin grafting machine, collaborates with colleagues during a surgery at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. After completing his mission with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, Dr. Wu found himself with a powerful sense of “survivor’s guilt” while transiting through Dubai on his way back to Taiwan. “My colleagues there, along with their families, are still living in a war zone, while I’m heading to a comfortable place without any immediate danger. It felt surreal.”
At 41, Dr. Wu is a chief surgeon in the plastic surgery department at Shuang Ho Hospital in Taiwan. In July of this year, he was deployed by the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders to Gaza, spending three weeks focused on treating trauma and burn patients at Nasser Hospital.
The conflict between Hamas and the Israeli military began on October 7, 2022, marking nearly ten months of war. According to statistics from the Gaza health ministry as of the 24th of this month, the war has resulted in at least 40,000 deaths and left millions displaced. The UN Women’s Agency reports that women and children are the primary victims of this conflict.
Dr. Wu recalls that when the war broke out last October, Gaza was just a distant name in international news. It wasn’t until Doctors Without Borders reached out to him in June about the possibility of deployment that he felt a direct connection to the battlefield. While he initially felt nervous about going to a war-torn area, he decided to accept the mission with the support of his organization and family. “I wanted to use the skills I learned in plastic surgery in the places where medical resources are most needed,” he explained.
In a war zone, daily activities are strictly regulated. Dr. Wu typically arrived at the hospital by 7 AM and left by 3 PM. He lived about 30 minutes away from the hospital with other members of the Doctors Without Borders team. On busy days, he performed five to six surgeries, with a maximum of eleven in one day. One day in particular stood out to him: July 13.
On that day, an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza resulted in numerous casualties. Despite being in the middle of surgery, Dr. Wu rushed to the emergency room, where he was confronted by what he described as “a hell on earth.” The hospital was overwhelmed with ambulances and private cars, and it was filled with screams. Blood covered the floor, and severely injured individuals lay scattered everywhere, with many pale figures being carried away. Amid this chaos, Dr. Wu performed a limb amputation on a girl who had been critically injured after a bomb exploded near her. That day, 105 patients were brought to the hospital, of whom 153 were injured and many died.
In his medical career, Dr. Wu had never encountered such scenes. The high number of injured children particularly broke his heart. “On my first day, I saw that nearly half of the 20 patients scheduled for surgery were under eight years old, and many had severe wounds or burns.” Nasser Hospital was operating beyond capacity, with some beds accommodating up to three children at a time. Patients waiting for surgery often developed serious complications, such as infections.
As the only international doctor in the trauma unit, Dr. Wu felt the war’s profound impact on his local colleagues and their families. He remembers a moment in surgery when a nurse rushed out after receiving a call, collapsing in tears at the door. He later learned that her six-year-old child had been killed in an explosion. “The hospital allowed her to go home, but home was just a tent. She didn’t return to work for several days.”
Friday was Dr. Wu’s only day off, which he desperately needed to process the emotional toll of his work, unless hospital demands changed. One way he coped was through sketching, which allowed him to momentarily escape his worries.
On the last day of his mission, every colleague at Nasser Hospital came to say goodbye. “I shook so many hands that day,” he recalls. His colleagues welcomed the idea of him returning to Gaza, but they clarified that ‘returning’ meant experiencing Gaza’s beauty once the conflict was over.
For the first time, Dr. Wu learned about Gaza’s past as a beautiful coastal city from his colleagues. They shared images of shopping malls, coffee shops, mosques, beaches, and vibrant kites, all painting a picture of a peaceful, beautiful life that no longer exists. Despite their circumstances, his colleagues remained friendly and smiled, yet he recognized the pain hidden behind their expressions—loss of homes, chaos in their lives, and the trauma of losing loved ones. The casualty figures he had seen on the news became real, associated with actual people.
“Being on the ground made it clear why an immediate ceasefire is so crucial. Gaza is no longer a place humans should inhabit. From medical resources to the trauma inflicted on children, the situation has continued to deteriorate for nearly a year. Stopping the violence is what’s most important.”
Dr. Wu is the third Taiwanese physician deployed by Doctors Without Borders to Gaza in recent years, following Dr. Shang-Kai Hung from Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, who was sent to northern Gaza but evacuated back to Taiwan after the conflict escalated in October.
