'We dealt with the rain of fire and death,' says volunteer doctor who worked in Gaza

A trauma surgeon from the US state of California who volunteered at the European Hospital in the Gaza Strip earlier this year described the situation as a "rain of fire and death" Wednesday during a UN Security Council session.

"During mass casualty events, we dealt with the rain of fire and death falling around us everywhere," Dr. Feroze Sidhwa said, recounting the horrors he witnessed, particularly during the Israeli violation of a ceasefire on March 18.

"That day, I witnessed the most extreme mass casualty event of my career. At Nasser Medical Complex, 221 trauma patients arrived in one morning. Ninety were dead on arrival, nearly half were severely injured children," he said.

Noting that "no health system on earth could cope with this, least of all, one that is besieged and starved of supplies," Sidhwa stressed that "hospitals are meant to be sanctuaries" but that protection no longer exists in Gaza.

For children who were shot in the head, he "personally treated 13 such cases" in two weeks at the European hospital. "Children ask, 'Why didn't I die with my sister, my mother, my father?' Not out of extremism, but out of unbearable grief."

Calling for decisive action, Sidhwa urged the Council to "demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire," halt arms transfers, guarantee medical evacuations and ensure sustained humanitarian access.

"If this Council remains silent and fails to act now, that record will stand as a testament to a global failure to provide urgent care and to the collapse of our collective conscience," he warned.