Meet the British doctors treating Gaza's wounded

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Mayasra Abu Madi, 24, lies in a bed at al-Shifa hospital. She was pregnant when her home was hit.

At 74, John Beavis could be taking it easy, perhaps pottering around in the garden, playing with his seven grandchildren or taking up a hobby that he never had time for during his career as an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in the National Health Service. After a coronary bypass 20 years ago, and a recent torn ligament which causes him to hobble around with a stick, he might have welcomed a more restful period in his life, focusing on his much-loved family.

Instead here he is in Gaza, driving under watching drones past neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, to help hard-pressed doctors and their wounded, distressed patients at overburdened hospitals on the medical frontline of the war between Israel and Hamas.

There is much to do. Since Operation Protective Edge began on 8 July, almost 2,000 people have been killed and around 10,000 injured. Gaza's hospitals have been overwhelmed, with medics working all hours, sometimes treating patients on floors and stairwells, sometimes operating on two or three people virtually simultaneously, as bombing and shelling has continued around them. During one of the most intense attacks, in Shujai'iya on 20 July, 250 badly injured people were carried or brought in ambulances and cars to al-Shifa – Gaza's biggest public hospital – within a few minutes. Thirty-three hospitals and clinics have been damaged, according to the UN; 21 medical staff have been killed and 83 injured, says the Gaza ministry of health.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/gaza-british-doctors-treat-wounded-israel-john-beavis-terence-english