For decades, Seema Jilani has been responding to conflict and humanitarian crises wherever they arise. A paediatrician and humanitarian volunteer, her work has taken her to Afghanistan , Iraq, the Balkans, Sudan, Gaza, and the West Bank, among others; she has treated migrants on board rescue ships in the Mediterranean, and responded on the scene after the 2020 explosion in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, in which her own daughter was injured. Shortly after Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in response to the 7 October terrorist attack by Hamas, Jilani began working on the international humanitarian response.
She travelled to Gaza in December to work at Al-Aqsa hospital alongside Palestinian medical workers, and has since briefed the White House and spoken publicly about the need for medical aid and an end to the conflict which, according to a United Nations analysis, had by early May killed at least 35,000 people and displaced an estimated 1.7 million Gazans. GQ : This recent trip wasn’t your first time in Gaza or the West Bank.
What are your recollections of working there before? Dr Seema Jilani : I’ve been in and out of Gaza for 19 years. My first time there was in 2005, prior to Israeli disengagement. My second time was in 2015, right after the 2014 ground incursion.
I’ve been doing aid work for over 20 years and have worked in Iraq , Afghanistan, Egypt, Lebanon, post-conflict Balkans and elsewhere – but there is nothing that could have prepared me for what I saw in Gaz.