Tears stream down the face of Palestinian paramedic Hassan Omran as he recalls the most harrowing days of the war. His hands tremble, his head shakes.

Haunted by the war he has endured, he fears the horrors may return once more.

With Israel cutting off humanitarian aid since March 2 and renewed threats of violence from Washington and Tel Aviv, panic is spreading across Gaza one more. The 42-day ceasefire that began on January 19 brought little respite for Omran, who spent those weeks reliving the trauma of ferrying the dead and wounded. He collapsed multiple times, fell to his knees in despair, and wept in the back of his ambulance.

“These situations were beyond human comprehension,” the 33-year-old tells TRT World, his voice breaking. “When we arrived at bombsites, it became normal to find martyrs in pieces—children and women in shreds.”

With the ceasefire hanging on tenterhooks and the prospect of war escalating, Omran dreads the return of horror.

“Sometimes, we couldn’t even tell if a severed limb belonged to a man or a woman; the remains were mixed together,” he says. “There were days when we had nothing—no bags, no shrouds, not even a blanket—to carry the bodies.”

A father of three, Omran recalls going three months without seeing his family, who were displaced four times and now live in a fragile tent in Al-Mawasi. “I once went a whole week without any communication with them. I didn’t know if they were dead or alive,” he says. “I was torn—should I abandon my duty to be with them or leave them behind to serve others?”

Even during the ceasefire, the nightmares didn’t stop. “In June 2024, Israeli warplanes bombed a car in Al-Mawasi. I was the first ambulance to arrive. The bodies were charred, dismembered—only burnt bones remained.” Another memory haunts him: “In August 2024, I transported children whose stomachs had been torn open in a bombing in southern Khan Younis.”

These images never fade. “I jolt awake at night, convinced a bomb has hit my family. I rush to my kids, touch them, make sure they’re breathing, then try to calm down.”

Almost half of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents are under 18. The UN estimates that over 70% of those killed in Israel’s war were women and children.

A healthcare system under siege

Even before the war, Gaza’s healthcare system was severely under-resourced due to Israel’s blockade since 2007. In 2019, Palestinian officials reported just 1.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people—150% fewer than in Israel.

Naseem Hassan, a 48-year-old paramedic, has worked in Gaza’s strained emergency sector since 1998. He recalls a mass casualty event in November 2023, when he transported 15 injured and dead people in a single ambulance. “We had to squeeze three wounded patients into the passenger seat,” he says from Nasser Hospital, where he works.

Israel’s relentless bombing campaign has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals. Of the 16 that remain, all have sustained severe damage.

Amid the destruction, paramedics have not just scrambled to save lives–they also became targets themselves. According to the UN and Medecins Sans Frontieres, over 1,000 health workers have been killed since October 2023. Others have been arrested and tortured.

As head of public relations for the Health Ministry’s ambulance department, Hassan received threats from Israeli intelligence demanding he provide information—or his family would be targeted. “My daughter Salma is visually impaired, so she was granted permission to leave for treatment in Egypt on January 8, 2024. The rest of my family went with her. Only then did I feel some relief,” he says. That day, he ate an orange—his first in nearly a year.

The personal cost

Nahid Jargon, a 57-year-old paramedic, has been on Gaza’s medical frontlines since 2002. But this war, he says, has been the worst. “Children torn apart, women with their limbs protruding from their bodies, human remains gathered in bags and buried together as if they were just meat,” he laments. “No words can describe what we’ve seen.”

Sitting with colleagues, Jargon admits that, despite years of witnessing war, he is struggling to cope. “I pay the price psychologically. I act strong for my family, but inside, I am shattered. I barely sleep two to three hours a night. I snap at people. I have no appetite.” He has lost 23 kilogrammes since the war began.

Omran shares the same fears. There is no mental health support. Paramedics, he says, try to heal by talking to each other, but the uncertainty is unbearable.

“We can move on, but we need this war, this genocide, to end. All we want is for our homeland to be stable, for our children to live in peace.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.