A Liverpool surgeon is stuck in Gaza after travelling there to perform life saving transplants.
Dr Abdel Hammad, a surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, is awaiting evacuation from the Gaza Strip after war ignited over the weekend. The surgeon had travelled to the region as part of a hospital project, which began in 2012, that sends medics to the conflict-hit Gaza strip.
The recent violence, which began with a bloody and wide-ranging Hamas attack into Israel, has already claimed at least 2,400 lives on both sides after Israel responded with air strikes and a blockade of the Gaza Strip. After arriving in Gaza on Friday, October 6, Dr Hammad has been sheltering since the crisis began.
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A spokesperson for Liverpool University Hospital said: "Our thoughts are with our colleague Mr Abdel Hammad currently awaiting evacuation from Gaza, and with his family waiting on his safe return home. Abdel arrived in Gaza on Friday, October 6, to perform kidney transplant operations as a charity volunteer with Liverpool International Transplant Initiative.
"This is humanitarian work he has been involved in for decades. We are in contact with his family and are working with Margaret Greenwood MP (for Wirral West) in her efforts with the Foreign Office to secure Abdel's safe return to his family."
On X, formerly known as Twitter, one person posted: "So sad, thought and prayers for his safe return." Another commented: "Get the scouser home." A third said: "Hope he is home soon."
Speaking with ITV News reporter Rachel Townsend, Dr Abdel Hammad said: "I was talking to the guys here with us, I said when I come here my ambition is to save three, four, five lives by doing the transplants, and then you find that in a couple of days 2,000 are killed.
"It has sent me to despair really." This isn't the first time Dr Hammad has travelled to Gaza to perform surgery but he described it as being "the most serious" situation he has been in for some time.
He added: "This is the first time I have been in this situation...I think probably it is the most serious situation it has been in Gaza for a long long time. It has been like this [air strikes] all afternoon, imagine where they have hit, how that will be."
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