- An American nurse working with Doctors Without Borders has returned home after working in Gaza.
- Emily Callahan told CNN some of her colleagues chose to stay behind, knowing they may die there.
- “We’re going to die saving as many people as we can,” Callahan said her colleagues told her.
An American nurse who returned to the US last week after working in Gaza told CNN on Monday that some of her colleagues chose to stay in the region despite knowing they could be killed.
Emily Callahan, a nurse activity manager for Doctors Without Borders, had been in Gaza since August. She was evacuated on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNN, Callahan described thousands of Palestinians living in unsanitary conditions while grappling with attacks from Israel as the country wages war with Hamas.
“There were children with just massive burns down their faces, down their necks, all over their limbs, and because the hospitals are so overwhelmed, they are being discharged immediately after,” Callahan told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“And they’re being discharged to these camps with no access to running water. There’s 50,000 people at that camp now and four toilets, and they’re given two hours of water every 12 hours,” Callahan continued.
Callahan told CNN that one of her colleagues, a nurse, was killed in the first weekend of counter-strikes after Hamas launched a series of brutal terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7.
“He was killed when the ambulance outside the hospital was blown up,” Callahan said.
When the evacuation orders to leave Gaza came, Callahan said she immediately texted members of her hospital staff to see if they’d come with her.
“I said, ‘Did any of you move south? Did any of you get out like, are any of you coming down this way?'” Callahan said. “And the only answer I got was, ‘This is our community. This is our family. These are our friends. If they’re going to kill us, we’re going to die saving as many people as we can.'”
Now, she said she worries every day about the safety of her colleagues.
“I wake up every morning and I send out a text message and I ask, ‘Are you alive?'” Callahan told CNN. “And every night before I go to sleep I send another message that says, ‘Are you alive?'”
Israel has launched a devastating and ongoing series of airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip since it declared war on Hamas on October 8.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed aside calls for a ceasefire, saying it would not be possible “without the return of the hostages.”
Hamas has taken at least 242 hostages since it attacked Israel in October, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Four hostages have been released by Hamas, while another was rescued by the Israeli military.
“We say this to our friends and to our enemies. We will simply continue until we defeat them. We have no alternative,” Netanyahu told Israeli troops at an air force base in southern Israel on Sunday.
The ongoing war has resulted in civilian deaths and injuries on both sides. More than 1,400 Israelis have died, while Gaza officials say that over 10,000 Palestinians have died, with thousands more injured.
