Dr. Nick Maynard, a British cancer surgeon from Oxford, has made repeated medical trips to Gaza over nearly two decades and has become one of the most credible Western eyewitnesses to what he describes as a systematic campaign of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes by the Israeli government against the Palestinian population. His account is significant because he is not a political activist or ideologist but a senior physician with no affiliation to Hamas or any militant group, and he describes what he has personally witnessed in clinical, factual terms.
Who Dr. Nick Maynard Is and How He Came to Work in Gaza
He is a cancer surgeon and medical professor at Oxford University, one of the most respected medical positions in the UK.
He first went to Gaza in 2010 after being invited to teach medical students, having already spent time in the West Bank.
He fell in love with the Palestinian people, describing them as the kindest, most generous, and most resilient people he has ever met.
For years he led annual teaching trips to Gaza, training doctors and helping develop cancer services, until the October 7, 2023 attacks made such trips impossible.
What Gaza Was Like Before October 7, 2023
Even before the current war, Gaza was under a crushing occupation that Maynard and many others describe as a large prison or concentration camp, with over 99% of the population never able to leave.
The infrastructure was already devastated from repeated Israeli military assaults, including major operations in 2008 and 2014 (Operation Protective Edge).
Despite this, Gaza was a busy, thriving place with markets, fishing boats, and a population desperate to live normally.
The healthcare system practiced high-quality medicine but was severely resource-constrained by the Israeli blockade.
Cancer patients needing treatment unavailable in Gaza had to apply to Israeli authorities for transfer permits, a process that took about three months on average, and one-third of applications were rejected, meaning those patients died.
Children with brain tumors were sometimes sent for treatment alone, without a parent.
The Scale of Hospital Destruction and Medical Worker Deaths
Gaza had 36 hospitals before the war, though many were small clinics. The four major ones were Indonesian Hospital, Shifa Hospital, European Gaza Hospital, and Nasser Medical Complex.
As of the interview, Nasser Hospital was the only major hospital still functioning, and even it was severely disabled.
Nearly 2,000 healthcare workers have been killed during this conflict, a rate of 75 per 100,000 population, compared to 0.8 in Ukraine and single figures in every other modern conflict.
Every single hospital in Gaza has been attacked.
Maynard rejects the Israeli claim that these are collateral damage or that hospitals are being used as Hamas command centers, stating he has had unlimited access to every part of these hospitals and has never seen any evidence of Hamas military activity.
What Maynard Personally Witnessed in Gaza After October 7
He entered Gaza on December 26, 2023, the first significant emergency medical team to get in after the war began.
Approaching from Egypt, he could see a low-lying cloud of smoke over southern Gaza from miles away and could smell the burning.
The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from northern Gaza was the worst he had ever seen, with families walking south, many having been displaced six to nine times.
Friends of his had written their names and dates of birth on their legs in ink because they expected to be killed and wanted their bodies identified.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital, designed for about 200 patients, there were roughly 800, with people covering every corridor, waiting area, and patch of ground.
He operated continuously on explosive injuries from fragmentation missiles, bombs containing thousands of tiny metal pieces designed to cause maximum tissue destruction.
Seventy percent of his patients were women and children.
He operated on an 8-year-old girl whose leg was so badly broken it had cut off blood supply to her foot, requiring the leg to be straightened without any painkillers because the hospital had run out. He can still hear her screams.
He treated a brother and sister, ages 6 and 8, who were the sole surviving members of their family after their parents were killed by a bomb.
High-Energy Weapons Used Against Civilian Populations
Maynard and a group of about 100 foreign healthcare workers published a survey in the British Medical Journal documenting the pattern of injuries they observed.
They described injuries from high-energy weapons that had only previously been documented in true combat situations between soldiers, never in civilian populations in such numbers.
The injuries included terrible shrapnel wounds, gunshot wounds, and burn injuries, all consistent with the mass targeting of civilians.
Starvation as a Weapon
Maynard categorically denies claims by figures like Johnny Moore of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that there was enough food in Gaza.
He saw profound malnutrition on every trip, worsening each time, with patients dying because they could not heal from injuries or surgery due to lack of nutrition.
He operated on an 11-year-old girl named Habiba whose esophagus was shattered by an explosive. He successfully reconstructed it, but she died after four weeks because the hospital had no nutrition to give her.
From March 18, 2025, when Israel broke a ceasefire, there was a total blockade of aid into Gaza for five or six months.
Maynard himself lost 8 kg in a month due to lack of food. A surgeon friend lost 40 kg and was unrecognizable.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a Death Trap
Before the GHF, UNRWA distributed food through over 400 distribution points. The GHF replaced this with only four sites.
Maynard operated on many victims shot at GHF distribution sites.
Colleagues who went to these sites described them as death traps: food would be placed in a compound, a narrow gate would be locked, and when hundreds of people had gathered (far more than there was food for), the gate would open, creating chaos, and people would be shot by surrounding soldiers.
Emergency room doctors at Nasser Hospital noticed a pattern: on one day, 19 teenage boys were shot in the head and neck; another day, predominantly chest injuries; another day, abdominal wounds.
On the Saturday before Maynard left, four teenage boys were brought in, all shot exclusively in the testicles. He and his colleagues concluded this was target practice.
Tony Aguilar, an American contractor hired to provide security at these sites, independently corroborated these accounts.
Quadcopter Drones Used to Shoot Civilians Indoors and in Tents
Maynard documented the use of remotely controlled quadcopter drones with cameras and guns that were flown into hospitals and tent camps to shoot people.
One of his friends was shot in the chest by a quadcopter while inside the operating theater at Nasser Hospital, preparing for surgery.
He operated on a pregnant woman who had been shot by a quadcopter while in her tent in Al-Musi, an area Israel had designated as a safe zone. The bullet missed her uterus by 2-3 cm.
These drones were also described as being used with dogs fitted with cameras and guns on their backs, trained to enter hospitals and shoot people.
Torture and Execution of Healthcare Workers
Nearly 500 healthcare workers have been abducted and detained without charge by the Israeli military.
Maynard knows about a dozen close friends who have been killed.
A young plastic surgeon he knew was found executed about a mile from Shifa Hospital, handcuffed with his mother, both with bullet wounds to the head.
When Israeli forces first invaded Shifa Hospital, they left after a few weeks, and staff discovered 300 dead civilians on the grounds, many handcuffed with bullet wounds to the head.
An iconic orthopedic surgeon was tortured to death in Israeli prison, including being raped repeatedly over two weeks. His body was never returned. This was documented by Sky Television investigative journalism.
Maynard took detailed video and audio testimonies from healthcare workers who survived Israeli prison. They described being electrocuted through their genitals, blindfolded for 60 consecutive days, forced to remain on their knees or sitting without lying down for 60 days, beaten regularly, and subjected to severe psychological torture.
None of the detained healthcare workers were ever charged with crimes.
The group Healthcare Workers Watch has documented all of this and submitted it to international courts.
The Deliberate Targeting of Healthcare Infrastructure
Maynard believes the disproportionate killing and detention of healthcare workers reflects a deliberate Israeli policy to destroy the entire healthcare system in Gaza.
Senior healthcare workers were disproportionately targeted compared to junior ones.
Hospitals were bombed in their clinical areas, not in outbuildings where Hamas activity might theoretically occur.
When Israeli forces invaded the pediatric hospital in Gaza City, they expelled all local staff and left six neonates in incubators. When doctors returned weeks later, all six babies were dead, their bodies rotting.
Hospitals ran out of sterile drapes, running water, painkillers, electricity, and fuel. When fuel ran out, ventilators stopped and patients on them died.
Death Toll
The Gazan Ministry of Health, recognized by the United Nations and even by the Israeli military, reports about 76,000 killed by trauma alone.
The Lancet estimates this figure is undercounted by about 50%, suggesting around 100,000 direct trauma deaths, with thousands more buried under rubble.
Excess deaths from untreated chronic illness, infectious disease, and malnutrition are estimated by the Lancet at approximately 180,000, bringing the total to over a quarter million, or well over 10% of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.2 million.
Some estimates exceed half a million total deaths, or more than 20% of the population.
The International Response and Complicity of Western Governments
Maynard and colleagues presented detailed evidence, including laminated color photographs of babies shot in the head and children who had starved to death, to the Biden administration, including to Samantha Power, the head of USAID who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book on genocide prevention.
They met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and cabinet ministers.
The response was sympathetic in meetings but resulted in no action whatsoever.
The UK claims an arms embargo but continues to supply parts for F-35 jets used by Israel, and the Royal Air Force flies reconnaissance missions from Cyprus over Gaza daily, providing intelligence to the Israeli military.
Maynard describes the complicity of Western governments as clear and inexcusable.
The Role of Western Media
Maynard describes the BBC and other Western media as having behaved appallingly, systematically suppressing the truth about Gaza.
Individual journalists within these organizations have been desperate to report what they learn but are blocked by senior editorial boards.
The BBC’s policy of false balance means giving equal time to Israeli spokespeople who openly lie, such as David Mensah, who claimed on air that Maynard’s closest friend in Gaza was not a real doctor but a senior Hamas commander, a claim Maynard calls an outright lie.
Whenever the BBC cites Gazan death figures, it must refer to the “Hamas-led Ministry of Health” to discredit the numbers, which is a deliberate editorial policy.
Maynard has been accused of lying multiple times despite having no motive to do so.
The Weaponization of Antisemitism
Maynard describes how the charge of antisemitism has been systematically weaponized to silence anyone who speaks about what is happening in Gaza.
Politicians, journalists, and academics are petrified of being publicly labeled antisemitic, which effectively ends careers.
He points to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which includes as an example any comparison between Israeli government actions and those of the Nazis, as a preemptive attempt to prevent the most obvious comparison.
He praises Jeremy Corbyn as someone who tried to establish a parliamentary tribunal to investigate what was happening and who ran an independent tribunal when Parliament refused.
He recommends the book Complicit by Peter Oborne, which documents how the UK media and government have been compromised.
Israeli Restrictions on Humanitarian Workers
Israel introduced a new registration process for agencies bringing doctors into Gaza, with an exclusion criterion stating that if any member of an organization has criticized Israel in the past seven years, the organization is banned.
More than 36 NGOs have been banned, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Most foreign doctors who have spoken out have been barred from re-entry.
Maynard himself expects to be refused entry when he tries to return in August but says he will keep trying.
Why He Keeps Going Back
Despite having been injured by a bomb in Gaza, Maynard plans to return because he feels an absolute obligation to the Palestinian people he has known and loved for nearly two decades.
He describes a complex mix of emotions: fear, guilt at leaving when his friends cannot, sadness, and anger at his government’s complicity.
The dominant emotion is the desire to help his friends and patients.
His wife Fenula is equally passionate and supportive. They have informally adopted a Gazan doctor named Enas who escaped Gaza years ago and consider her a daughter.
Their home has served as a refuge for Gazan medical students and doctors who have managed to leave, and they have helped bring two Gazan medical students into Oxford’s medical school.
His children are all passionate activists and fully support his work.
The Broader Lesson
Maynard’s testimony, along with that of many other Western doctors who have worked in Gaza, constitutes overwhelming eyewitness evidence of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
The fact that this is happening with the financial, military, and diplomatic support of the United States and the United Kingdom, and that Western media and institutions are complicit in hiding it, raises profound questions about the moral foundations of these societies.
The comparison to Rwanda in 1994, where the world knew genocide was happening and did nothing, is explicit and intentional, and the lesson is the same: the world can know and still choose to allow it.
