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An orthopedic surgeon from Saskatchewan, Dr. Deirdre Nunan, who recently returned from a task in Gaza, urges Canada to take stronger measures.
“We have seen that the Canadian government proposes to recognize the state of Palestine, but this is not a practical movement,” said Nunan.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney affirms Canada’s intention to recognize the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly at the end of this month and Nunan said that his message to Ottawa is clear: recognition alone will not save lives.
She urges a significant resumption of helping Gaza and Canada to implement a two -way embargo.
Canada announced a arms embargo, but a parliamentary report marked lagoons; Nunan is now asking those gaps to close.
“It is completely terrible and every time I have gone, I thought we have reached the background … I did not think things worse.
Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders Canada, Sana Bég, label the situation “unequivocally a genocide”, stating that the destruction of the infrastructure and the blockade of Israel’s water has promoted civil suffering.
Nunan captured a photo of a desalination installation in southern Gaza, whose operation has been affected by fuel shortage. She said she witnessed that the children asked for water in the hospital’s halls.
Deirdre Nunan says he captured this image of the desalination plant in southern Gaza on July 3, 2025.
Courtesy: Nunan Delread
“At a time when children ask for water, I think it has to be clear that there is a shortage of water of the greatest magnitude,” Nunan said.
Bég warns that not a single hospital in Gaza is now fully functional; She said that only 18 of 36 still show partial operations. She said Canada must act under her international obligations of humanitarian law.
“Stop the genocide in Gaza, stop ethnic cleaning and forced displacement. We are asking for a high immediate and sustained fire. Lift the siege. Canada needs to play its role and show real leadership to remain in the international humanitarian law and make the same demands,” Bég a Global News told an interview.
Israel firmly opposes the recognition of the Palestinian State of countries such as Canada, saying that peace efforts could undermine and increase tensions. According to reports, Israeli officials are considering the annexation of West Bank in response to the flourishing movements of international recognition.
The Israeli Defense Forces (FDI) say that their military operations point to Hamas militants, not civilians and seek to protect the Israelis from the ongoing rocket attacks. The FDI emphasizes that the warnings are emitted before strikes and efforts are made to minimize civil damage.
Nunan has worked in Gaza since 2019, with three tasks since the attack of Hamas on October 7 and Israel’s response.
During his most recent allocation in Gaza in July 2025, Nunan describes the treatment of many of his patients at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis with minimal supplies, little or nothing anesthetic, limited clean water and frequent energy cuts.
“There were days when we did not have enough fuel to execute the generators in the hospital to feed the air conditioning. Therefore, the surgeons were dripping sweat in the patient’s wounds while operating on them,” said Nunan.
Nunan said that he saw patients treated in tents and mats outside the hospital buildings, operations rooms that are executed with bottled water and surgical equipment working in heat, energy cuts and constant air attacks.
The doctors who treated an injured man admitted to a mat on the floor next to a store on July 25, 2025.
Courtesy: Nunan Delread
“The patients were admitted to tents outside the hospital … we were using bottled water to pour over our hands while we washed before surgeries,” said Nunan.
Traumatic lesions of missile impacts and shrapnel, to burns and wounds crushed, were widespread, often required amputations, Nunan said.
“The majority of the injuries we are seeing were for explosive injuries. So they are missiles to a large extent about the people who are at home with their families in their tents,” he said.
Nunan said that the gunshot wounds were another frequent injury, even among the civilians who reported that they were attacked while waiting for help. She said the children represented at least a third of their patients, with some of up to six weeks.
“They are the most serious injuries I’ve seen in my career … There were five worst cases that I have seen in a year in one day and then the next day would be the same,” said Nunan.
Nunan is taking his testimony to a public event in Vancouver on Monday, September 8, along with author Naomi Klein, making it clear that the eyes of the area of crisis and Canada are seeing what the policy formulators do below.
Calls to the ‘ignorad’ action
Nunan said that on July 20, 2025, he witnessed the medical staff who protested for famine conditions, asking the world to act. Now, weeks later, with formal famine reports, she emphasizes international action is now necessary.
“When he walked between the hospital buildings at the Nasser Hospital, the hospital staff organized a protest. He was coordinated with other health centers in Gaza … with small posters they said, finishing the famine and stopping hunger and feeding the children of Gaza. And they expected that to be a call to the world,” he said.
She took an image of that protest and then recognized one of the journalists in her photo when Mohammed Salama, who was later killed in the double -touch strike of the Israeli army at Nasser Hospital on August 25. Nunan said his colleague later confirmed that it was Salama in his image.
“The starlarm of Gaza” sounds protest by health workers at the Nasser hospital on July 20, 2025. Courtesy: Deirdre Nunan.
Courtesy: Nunan Delread
The air attack on August 25 arrived for the first time to the top floor of the hospital, then there was a second blow about 15 minutes later when doctors, journalists and rescuers fled to help the initial victims. The attack, killing at least 20 people, including five journalists, has been condemned internationally as a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incident as a “tragic accident.” He emphasized the Israel values of the work of journalists, medical staff and civilians and the mentioned military authorities were carrying out an exhaustive investigation.
Nunan expressed a serious concern for his colleague, Dr. Ahmad Mhanna, director of the Hospital Al Awda in northern Gaza, who was arrested by Israeli forces, according to reports, without formal charges, in December 2023, when Israeli troops assaulted the hospital and retired to several employees. Most were released, but Dr. Mhanna did not.
“One of my colleagues … Dr. Ahmad Mhanna, anesthetist and medical director of the Al-Awda facilities in northern Gaza, which is an associated center where I worked for years, has been in prison for many, many months,” said Nunan.
He Guardian reports worrying accusations That Dr. Mhanna suffered a hard treatment, including dehumanizing interrogations and physical and psychological abuse in detention.
According to human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, these reports echo broader accounts of other health professionals in Gaza who describe a similar abuse, including beatings, humiliations and hunger, often under the illegal combatant law of Israel, which allows indefinite detention without charge.
Israeli authorities argue that their detention policy implies reviewing detainees and release “those who are not involved in the terrorist activity” once clarified.
