Chicago doctor describes heartbreaking scenes in Rafah, vows to return
Newsy
After a recent medical mission treating kids in Rafah, Dr. John Kahler says he desperately wants to go back to do his part to ease Gazans’ suffering.
Two weeks ago, Chicago area Dr. John Kahler returned from a medical trip in Rafah, in southern Gaza. But he says he left a piece of his soul behind.
"It just moved me, and it touched me at a place that hadn't been touched before," said the retired pediatrician.
According to the U.N., 1.4 million Gazans are now sheltering in Rafah, which borders Egypt, living in sprawling tent camps after escaping fighting elsewhere.
"Families of 10, families of 20 living in one tent. Talking to families where their child hadn't eaten in two days," recalled Kahler. As a humanitarian doctor, the 77-year-old has visited crisis areas around the world, but he says in Gaza "it was a level of contact with suffering that I've never had in my life."
During his two-week mission in Rafah, Kahler spent all day treating hundreds of children inside a health care center recently set up by his organization MedGlobal.
