Emergency physician memoir details Gaza hospital missions

Dr. Mimi Syed has released a memoir about two 2024 medical missions to Gaza, describing mass-casualty care at Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals alongside Palestinian physician Dr. Helen Hwaihi. The book adds a firsthand account to an already high-profile body of testimony about the war’s toll on civilians and health workers.

Why it matters: - The memoir adds a first-person medical account of Gaza’s war injuries from an American emergency physician who worked inside two major hospitals. - The book centers the human cost of mass-casualty events and the strain on civilian health care during the war. - Dr. Syed’s experience also highlights the limits on medical access into and out of Gaza.

What happened: - Dr. Mimi Syed released The Blood on My Hands: A Memoir of a Moral Catastrophe through Blue Ear Books. - The memoir covers two medical missions to Gaza in 2024. - Dr. Syed wrote the book with Palestinian physician Dr. Helen Hwaihi, who served alongside her. - Dr. Syed worked at Al-Aqsa Hospital and Nasser Hospital from Aug. 8 to Sept. 5, 2024, and again from Dec. 3 to Dec. 31, 2024. - Dr. Syed treated critically wounded civilians during mass-casualty events. - The book is published in paperback and was released in September 2026. - The book is available on Amazon.

The details: - The memoir follows individual patient stories from the emergency department. - The book frames those scenes as a record of what Dr. Syed witnessed inside Gaza’s hospitals. - In August 2025, Dr. Syed was barred from returning to Gaza while carrying medical supplies and baby formula. - Haaretz and Mother Jones reported that episode. - Dr. Syed has appeared on CNN, NPR, ABC News, the BBC, Democracy Now!, The Washington Post, Haaretz and Mother Jones. - Dr. Syed contributed photographs to a New York Times feature in which 65 doctors, nurses and paramedics described what they saw in Gaza. - Dr. Syed also appears in Al Jazeera’s Emmy- and Peabody-winning documentary Kids Under Fire. - Dr. Syed has presented at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Columbia Journalism School and the University of California, San Francisco. - Dr. Syed gave testimony at the Gaza Tribunal. - Dr. Syed is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Washington and Washington State University, and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. - Dr. Syed was born, raised and trained in Chicago and lives in Washington State with her husband and three children. - Dr. Hwaihi is a Palestinian physician in Gaza whose emergency medicine residency training was halted by the war. - Dr. Hwaihi continues to care for her community as a volunteer.

Between the lines: - The memoir arrives with built-in public attention because Dr. Syed has already been visible in major news outlets and documentary projects. - The collaboration with Dr. Hwaihi gives the account both an American outside perspective and a local Palestinian perspective. - The August 2025 return ban underscores how even medical workers can face barriers to entering Gaza with supplies.

What's next: - The book is now being sold in paperback on Amazon. - Dr. Syed’s public testimony is likely to continue through media appearances, academic talks and advocacy settings. - The memoir may become another reference point in ongoing debates over civilian harm and access to medical care in Gaza.

The bottom line: - The Blood on My Hands turns two Gaza hospital missions into a published witness account of wartime medicine, civilian suffering and the limits of humanitarian access.