In September, when Médecins Sans Frontières deputy medical co-ordinator for Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughessib, discovered he had been accepted for an MSF advisory job based in Ireland, he was staying in an MSF office in Al Mawasi with two watchmen. “The three of us hugged each other and cried.”

The watchmen wanted to cook a dinner for him. They had a can of meat between them. One went to try and find an onion. “Onions were very expensive. It cost around $20 (€17) for one onion.” But then he found he couldn’t eat. “I was happy and sad. I called my wife [she was in Egypt]. She didn’t believe it. She was crying.”

Mughessib worked for MSF in Gaza throughout the war. He was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents and has lived in Gaza for 25 years. He left on September 17th. Before that, he distributed everything he still owned among his friends: “Winter clothes, blankets, my mattress, my pillow, a jerrycan of water. These are the precious things during this war.”

On October 7th, 2023, Mughessib was woken up by his wife, who said she could hear rockets. At first, he thought it was some sort of training exercise. “Sometimes,” he says, “Hamas fired rockets into the sea.” When they turned on the television there was no relevant news but there were all sorts of rumours. One person rang and said the rockets were related to an assassination attempt in Beirut. Eventually the truth emerged about what Hamas had done. “A horrible thing,” says Mughessib, speaking in Dublin, where he now lives and works.

Mughessib knew there would be a response. He moved his family into the MSF headquarters.