INTERVIEW: ‘Most barbaric atrocities’: Palestinian journalist, British surgeon testify to Israel’s genocide in Gaza

“Journalism in Gaza feels like a death sentence.”

With those words, Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed set the tone at The Gaza Tribunal in London, where testimonies this week painted a harrowing picture of Palestinian life during Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Alongside him, British surgeon Nick Maynard described witnessing “the most barbaric atrocities” during his recent mission to Gaza, warning that the devastation amounted to genocide.

Abed, who managed to leave the enclave earlier this year, told Anadolu that Gaza’s reporters work under relentless shelling, food shortages, and deliberate targeting. “Israel has been targeting journalists and media workers since the outset of Israel’s genocide,” he said, recalling days when he filed reports while starving and exhausted.

He described the ordeal of covering the war amid hunger and illness. “The malnutrition I had was one of the toughest periods of my life. I had to go through really unbearable panic and pain, and I was looking for medicines that I couldn’t really find,” he said.

Often, he survived on little more than a single meal a day, but kept working despite being fatigued and extremely exhausted.

He also faced rising online Israeli smear campaigns that put his life at risk. In one recent instance, Abed was with his Gaza photojournalist Hassan Aslih when he was targeted and killed in an Israeli attack.

Journalists have been “hunted down deliberately” by Israel, he added.

Abed has now found safety in Dublin, but remains tied to Gaza, receiving daily messages from colleagues interrupted by the sound of bombs and bullets. “People are desperate and hoping for a ceasefire … They are trapped, with no food, no safety, and nowhere to go.”

- ‘I’ve seen multiple war crimes’

For British surgeon Nick Maynard, the reality was no less horrifying in Gaza, where Israel has now killed over 64,200 Palestinians, wounded nearly 161,600 more, and created a famine that has claimed hundreds more lives, including children.

“I’ve seen multiple war crimes. I’ve seen the most barbaric atrocities,” said Maynard, a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon at Oxford University Hospital, who has just returned from his third mission to Gaza.

He described hospitals under attack, healthcare workers targeted, and entire wards overwhelmed by hunger – newborn babies, children, teenagers, adults dying of starvation imposed by the Israeli blockade.

Some of the injuries he treated revealed deliberate targeting. “I’ve seen many children who’ve been shot — deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers, deliberate targeting of specific body parts,” he told Anadolu.

Maynard emphasized that forums like The Gaza Tribunal are vital for exposing evidence and demanding accountability.

“We have to get the evidence out to the wider world through a forum such as this, but it’s also about holding to account those who have been responsible for these war crimes and this genocide,” he said.

This also includes the British government, whose silence and inaction are “tantamount to complicity” in what is happening in Gaza, he added.

Urging the world to act, he said: “My message is that there is a genocide being carried out under our eyes. The evidence is overwhelming.”