In July 2025, USA for UNFPA Leadership Council member Dr. Ambereen Sleemi spent a month working at Gaza’s Naseer hospital. While there, she witnessed the full impact of the famine that gripped the region and the way it crippled the already failing healthcare system.
Nearly half a year after her brief tenure in Gaza ended, she was notified that her application to return had been approved. In December 2025, she traveled back to Gaza to continue her work at Naseer hospital, unsure of what she would find.
The buzz of summer versus the eerie silence of winter
“When I was in Gaza in July, it was overwhelmingly loud. Drones and fighter jets were constantly streaking through the sky, as well as the frequent sounds of bombs striking.
December couldn’t have been more different. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. Of course, there were still occasional sounds of jets and drones, but it was nothing like the summer. Everything felt dialed back—almost like everyone was holding their breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Dr. Sleemi continued to describe the silence as eerie. Gaza was still experiencing a mass casualty event, but this was the slow period of it. No one knew how long the silence and break in violence would last.
After a long journey and multiple checkpoints, Dr. Sleemi reached the wall that separated Israel and Gaza with three other surgeons, but she was the only one from her group allowed through. The other surgeons were denied entry because they had a small amount of medical equipment—such as catheters and antibiotics—in their suitcases. With the blockade still in effect, these simple supplies could have saved dozens of lives, but individuals were forbidden from bringing them over the border.
Alone, Dr. Sleemi continued across the border.
She was immediately taken to Nasser Hospital, where she had worked over the summer. A section of the hospital had been hit in an airstrike in August, after she departed Gaza, but it remained partially intact and functioning. Then, the work began.
A steady stream of trauma patients and a never-ending medical evacuation list
“I operated on people every single day. The staff knew I was coming and my skillset, so they created a list of patients for me to help.”
An expert pelvic medicine reconstructive surgeon (urogynecologist) who is also trained in obstetric fistula surgery and OB/GYN medicine, Dr. Sleemi spent most of her time treating people with chronic conditions who had previously been unable to receive care, such as those with severe prolapse or suffering incontinence.
But there were still bombings every day, and with that came a steady stream of trauma patients who needed immediate care.
“A woman came in who was 21 weeks pregnant. She had shrapnel through her uterus. She had already lost her baby,” Dr. Sleemi recalled.
“Another woman who was early in her pregnancy came in. She had burns across her body and significant brain trauma. Right away, we knew that the chance of survival for her and her baby was low, but we had to try. In the middle of her first night, she started miscarrying. She was stabilized, but I asked about her after I left Gaza, and last I heard she’s not doing well.
In the bed beside that woman was a 2-year-old with a traumatic brain injury, burns, and shrapnel injuries. Her parents were dead, one of the thousands of children who made up a new pediatric category of WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family.
The violence wasn’t the same intensity of July, but there’s still so much trauma.”
With the healthcare system stripped so bare and spread so thin, there has been no capacity to treat patients who required more complicated care or resources, such as cancers or severe birth defects.
“When I returned, I found that many of the children who needed to be medically evacuated in July were still waiting—or dead.”
Dr. Sleemi saw one baby with a birth defect, a cystic hygroma, that would eventually collapse their windpipe without proper care—but with no way to treat the defect, the baby was placed on the ever-growing waiting list to be medically evacuated.
“One of the surgeons in my cohort who was turned away could have saved the baby’s life.”
Dr. Sleemi was working the first day that Rafah’s border was opened. 50 people were initially permitted to leave, “which even that was nothing,” she remarked grimly.
But only fifteen people ended up being permitted to leave, of which only five to 10 people were on the medical evacuation list.
A moist, cold winter spent in thin tents
“It was very cold and moist in a way that’s bone chilling—especially without any heat.”
During her tenure, Dr. Sleemi resided in Naseer Hospital, but mostly everyone else—including her colleagues—still lived in tents.
The constant cold, lack of vaccines, and lack of access to hygiene products or facilities lead to a deadly concoction of infections that spread across Gaza.
“A very horrific flu-like virus has taken over the Gaza strip. We didn’t have tests to confirm that it was anything, except we knew it wasn’t Covid.
It was so powerful that a 28-year-old had just died from it when I arrived. A 19-year-old medical student was intubated in the ICU. And, according to my colleagues, this wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the peak of the illness was.
I asked if we had given anyone flu vaccines, and I was laughed at—because there nothing available in Gaza, least of all flu vaccines.”
Dr. Sleemi also shared that pelvic infections had significantly increased due to the lack of access to clean menstrual products and proper sanitation facilities.
Her colleagues shared that, before the flu-like virus reigned in Gaza, babies were dying from a disease they had coined “Wet Tent Syndrome”. Several of her fellow medical staff have also treated women and girls with frostbite throughout the winter.
One week turned to two
Dr. Sleemi was only supposed to be in Gaza for one week this time—but she was denied permission to leave on her final day.
“I would’ve been worried, had I not dealt with the exact same situation in July.
That was especially scary because it was right when bombings were accelerating, and peace talks had ceased. We were worried we would never be allowed to leave, and that’s when the panic really began.
The doctors and surgeons in my cohort began calling up their representatives and embassies and got immediate support—but I didn’t know what to do. I was one of the only Americans and wasn’t sure if my representatives would be able to do anything.”
A few days later in July, Dr. Sleemi and her cohort were allowed to leave.
This most recent trip to Gaza, Dr. Sleemi was one of the only people in her group not allowed to leave for reasons unknown. She was kept for an extra week before finally being allowed to leave Gaza.
Final thoughts
In December, around the same time that Dr. Sleemi entered Gaza, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification announced that Gaza was no longer experiencing famine. We asked Dr. Sleemi if she felt this change in classification was accurate.
“I was actually surprised to see that food was much more accessible this time. I saw it available on street corners, and my colleagues at the hospital talked about how much better the food situation had become.
But that’s not to say that the damage from months of famine in Gaza has been erased.
Every day, babies are still being born with defects. There will likely not be a drop in the number of miscarriages or infections any time soon.”
Dr. Sleemi shared that no one actually knows how long access to food will last—and losing access again was something that everyone she spoke to dreaded.
We also asked Dr. Sleemi if she was able to see firsthand the impact that UNFPA’s work was having for women and girls.
“UNFPA is one of the few organizations that has been allowed to operate in Gaza, even through the blockade. Maternal health supplies that were crucial were provided by UNFPA. They’re also helping to train and support midwives, a critical need.
I actually got to meet with some people at UNFPA Palestine while I was there—they were in constant communication with the heads of the Obstetrics and Pediatrics Departments at the hospital.
They talked about some of the work they were able to do, but also the significant unmet needs. For example, before I arrived, people with birth injuries such as fistulas were unable to get care because they didn’t fall into the acute trauma category. And of course, medical supplies are still hard to get across the border.
But they’re working toward the future—because they’re not going anywhere until every last woman and girl in Gaza gets the care she needs.”
We thank Dr. Ambereen Sleemi for having the unshakable courage to provide lifesaving care to people in Gaza not once, but twice in the same year. We’re honored to consider her a part of the USA for UNFPA team!
If you would like to read more about Dr. Sleemi’s first tenure at Gaza’s Naseer Hospital, you can do so here.