Operating department practitioner Jay Matthews, who spent six weeks working Gaza for charity UK-Med, kept a sobering record of events
Children with gunshot wounds. Emaciated patients. An exhausted surgeon collapsing at the operating table.
These are just some of the harrowing pictures painted by a British medic who has been working in war-torn Gaza. In a series of sobering video diaries, brave Jay Matthews offers a behind-the-scenes account. The operating department practitioner opens up about a startling lack of supplies at British charity UK-Med’s field hospital in al Mawasi. In one video, Jay, from Staines, in Surrey, painfully tells how a theatre technician’s seven-year-old daughter was killed. The married 41-year-old spent six weeks working in Gaza, his third stint there.
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This month marked two years of war in the stricken enclave after the conflict sparked by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 — with 251 hostages taken. More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed since, health ministry figures show; genocide and famine both declared in recent weeks. Now, with a ceasefire finally brokered, we publish Jay’s diary – showing why peace is so important…
August 22, 2025
“We’ve had six children with gunshot wounds to the abdomen, two of which have been eviscerated so where the bowels are coming out. And it’s just awful to see,” Jay says. He adds: “Two of them are suffering quite badly with psychological trauma as well. They can’t engage properly. They’ll just start screaming, randomly. It’s just awful to see they’re having to go through that at their age…”
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August 25 – Nasser Hospital struck, killing over 20 people
“It’s incredibly close to home for us because we’ve worked closely with the hospital but also all the national staff that we work with,” Jay says. “For them to hear these things and have to find out that colleagues and friends have just passed away is incredibly difficult. To try and support them through that is incredibly hard.”
He adds: “I feel for them so much. One of our security guards was there and they were hit and had some shrapnel lodged in their neck. They’re OK but it’s a stark reminder of how close to home all these things are.”
August 27
“We have many malnourished patients who are struggling to heal. Lots of delayed healing because they don’t have the nutrients and supplements to get their bodies to heal,” says Jay. “On top of that our national orthopaedic surgeon fainted today at the operating table, just from lack of intake.”
August 31
Jay says: “Today in Nasser there were mass casualties… reportedly from two [aid sites]… It really was huge. There were hundreds of people that were injured and obviously some were fatally injured. The spill out over to other hospitals in the area including our own was large, we’ve taken on a number of patients that we’re still dealing with into the night now. It’s just heart-breaking and abhorrent to see these sort of things going on. People just after food and a little support and aid…”
September 2
“Today we’ve had more children come in with severe injuries from explosions and gunshot wounds, “Jay says. “It just seems to be everyday now that we have young children, young men, women all coming in with these types of horrific injuries.”
September 3
“We have received a number of teenagers who have been shot in the abdomen, a number of people that have been attacked while trying to receive aid, it’s been reported,” Jay says. “They all have such psychological trauma on top of the physical trauma. And it’s not normal for this amount of children… teenagers, children, to be injured this way. They’re really horrific injuries”
September 5
Jay says: “One of our theatre technicians, his seven-year old daughter was killed… This is people we spend everyday with and chat to and he’s just had to watch his seven-year-old daughter be killed… It’s just so unnecessary and just so devastating. To us, just to everyone, it’s just disgusting. It’s just so painful to see.”
September 14
“Today we were performing laparotomies [surgical incision via the abdominal] from people suffering explosive injuries when we had a strike happen extremely close to our hospital complex,” Jay explains. “It was enough to make everyone in the operating theatre jump, shook the tent, dust fell. And what was really interesting was, this happened, there was a half a second, second pause and everyone just continued what they were doing. It was definitely frightening, scary and really concerning that it was that close.”
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September 24
“This morning on our ward rounds it just became quite apparent just how many children and young people in wheelchairs, crutches from loss of limbs,” Jay says. “Seeing a child doing his walking exercises, he’s seven years old, he has a chest drain in from being shot and he’s just holding his chest drain, walking about like he’s holding a small rucksack. Like it’s a normal thing. The normalisation of trauma is truly surprising and horrifying that people become OK with people not having limbs and people being deformed and having paralysis and weaknesses, just all these horrible things. And children being OK with having drains coming out of their chests. And managing these things… It shouldn’t be normal, yet it is completely normal here in Gaza.”
September 25
“I’m leaving Gaza today, hopefully,” says Jay. “I wanted to try and reflect on everything that’s happened in the last six and a half weeks. There’s always a guilt when you leave these places because you’re leaving people… in a terrible situation and you’re getting to leave.”
He adds: “I’ll miss everyone here. I’ll miss all the team and the people that have worked hard to support us all. I’ll be thinking of them all as I travel out and as I get home. I hope that I’ll get to see them again because there is no guarantee that I will get to see them again. There is no guarantee you’ll see anyone in this place…”
Next month Jay is due to return to Gaza. To donate to UK-Med please visit: https://www.uk-med.org/donate-now/