Chicago – July 26, 2025
Dr. Mohammad Saqer is hungry. So ravenous that he sometimes struggles to keep upright while treating his desperately ill patients at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. On Thursday, he fainted while working at the ward. And then, moments after recovering, he returned to finish his 24-hour shift.
“My fellow doctors caught me before I collapsed and gave me IV fluids and (sugar). There was a foreign doctor who had a packet of Tango juice and prepared it for me. I drank it immediately,” Dr. Saqer told CNN. “I am not diabetic – this was hunger. There’s no sugar. There’s no food.”
As Gaza’s hunger crisis deepens, the very people who are trying to keep the gravely malnourished population alive are suffering along with their patients.
The firsthand testimonies of the two doctors tally with what a group of more than 100 international humanitarian organizationssaid earlier this week, when they warned that they were “witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”
Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, the director of Al-Tahrir Hospital for Pediatrics and Obstetrics at the Nasser Medical Complex said the hunger has affected the health of all doctors.
“Most of them are now suffering from depression, general weakness, inability to concentrate, and memory loss. Their energy levels are extremely low, nothing like before. Most have lost their passion for life,” he told CNN.
He said the hospital kitchen has run out of food and the international humanitarian kitchen that previously fed doctors, nurses and the families of patients has also shut down.
“Everyone working inside the hospital is without food. Doctors and nurses are working 24-hour shifts on empty stomachs,” he said.
