The memories of “starving children” with horrific injuries still haunt emergency doctor Mohammed Mustafa.
Warning: This story contains graphic details of dead bodies and animals.
Dr Mustafa, known as Dr Mo, recently returned from his second volunteer medical mission to Gaza and the 35-year-old is considering a third.
He said the only way to describe the situation inside Gaza was “apocalyptic”.
“You see dogs eating people in the streets, dead bodies in the streets, [dogs] pulling blown up arms out of rubble, or a leg and running away with it,” he told the ABC.
“There’s a saying here, ‘The only things that are not hungry in Gaza are the dogs’, as they have a lot of people to feed on.”
born to a Palestinian refugee family, dr Mo has had time to reflect on his experience.
Arriving just as a fragile ceasefire between Hamas and israel collapsed in March this year, Dr mo spent three weeks volunteering in north Gaza’s al-Ahli Hospital.
He said Al-Ahil Hospital was one of the last fully functional hospitals standing in Gaza but was severely lacking in medical supplies, including proper sanitisation and adequate anaesthesia.
Israel has bombed it including in April, in what their military said was targeting a Hamas “command and control center” – a claim denied by the group.
Dr Mo said there were days when hospital staff only had one portion of rice or lentils to eat for the entire day.
He’d stop eating altogether on some days to save and ration food for those in greater need.
“I just wanted to work. I just wanted to be there to help.It wasn’t a big issue to me whether I was full or not,” he said.
He said he was one of the lucky ones, when many of the people, including children, he saw were severely malnourished or “starving”.
An underfed Palestinian boy is assisted by his mother as they shelter in a tent after being displaced due to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. (Reuters: Mahmoud Issa)
In May in the lead-up to Israel deciding to allow a “basic amount of food” into Gaza , the united nations World Food Programme warned populations across the Strip were at risk of famine.
The World Health Association also reported in May that the “entire 2.1 million population of Gaza is facing prolonged food shortages,with nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger,acute malnutrition,starvation,illness and death.This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time”.
“We do not need to wait for a declaration of famine in Gaza to know that people are already starving, sick and dying, while food and medicines are minutes away across the border,” WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
‘It was a moral obligation’
Dr Mo pursued his medical training across Britain and Australia, saying he was driven by his commitment to human rights.
In 2024 and 2025, he served in Gaza’s Nasser and European hospitals, with Rahma worldwide providing critical emergency care amid escalating violence.
Dr Mo, pictured seeing a patient in Gaza, said children would often come in with horrific injuries. (Supplied)
But it was his commitment to frontline care that drew him back to Gaza again,this time with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association.
His raw, live social media videos from inside emergency departments brought the devastation of the conflict to his tens of thousands of followers worldwide.
“I documented my journey when I was in Gaza, and I was told that I wasn’t allowed to do that, but I did it anyway as I just felt like it was a moral obligation,” he said.
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“If I didn’t have my medical equipment with me to treat the patients. At least I could do share with the world what was happening to them.”
Dr Mo on the Freedom Flotilla with Greta Thunberg. (Supplied: @beastfromthe_middleeast)
As he left Gaza, he’s been busy.
He was recently on the Freedom Flotilla with 12 activists, including Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, just before the yacht set sail for Gaza to deliver aid, including baby formula, food, and medical supplies.
“they were in tears, they were crying, they were scared. They were hugging their families goodbye. It was real,” he told ABC’s News Breakfast.
Since then, Israeli forces intercepted the yacht and detained the activists. Ms Thunberg was then deported to her home country, Sweden, and six other crew members were also deported shortly after.
Two French nationals remain in Israeli custody awaiting deportation on Friday, according to Adalah, a nonprofit legal association in Israel.
Dr Mo standing inside a makeshift portable section of a hospital in jordan. (ABC news: Hamish Harty)
Dr Mo said he had lost sleep,worried for their safety.
He’s also been making
