Melanie Ward still remembers the terrified mother in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, who begged her to expose the plight of Palestinians trying to survive Israel’s bombardment in Gaza.
"How do you tell a mother of a child in hospital that the problem isn't that the world doesn't know what's being done to them? It's that the world has no will to stop it,” Ward, the CEO for the relief group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), told CNN by phone on Wednesday.
Scores of displaced patients and their relatives covered the grounds of Al-Aqsa hospital, said Ward, who visited the medical facility in central Gaza earlier this month.
Ward described scenes of injured children screaming in pain and overwhelmed doctors struggling to prevent infections among wounded patients.
Israel’s severe aid restrictions have drained water and medical supplies, Ward added.
“I saw someone who had an open wound with flies in it,” she recalled.
"Sometimes there's no running water on the wards... They're having to remove them (external fixators; pins and rods needed for orthopedic surgery) from limbs of dead people and try to clean them and then re-use them.”
Local staff displaced by Israel’s military offensive are facing the grief of relatives killed by bombardment, while others shelter in homes that have been partially destroyed by Israeli missiles, Ward told CNN.
Those in the north are struggling to find food, she said.
"Everybody is traumatized and terrified,” Ward added. “Palestinian colleagues are just trying to survive like everybody else... They’re terrified about the future for their children. How do you recover from this?”