▶ Watch Video: An inside look at the rising danger humanitarian aid workers see in combat zones
The reality of being a trauma surgeon in a war zone came crashing down on Dr. Feroze Sidhwa when the surgical unit where he was working in Gaza was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
“I got scared that day, that’s for sure,” Sidhwa said, recalling the March 23, 2025, strike that hit the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
“The ICU has those like saloon-type swinging doors. As I walked out, the door came back and hit me in the face and I was like, ‘What the heck was that?'” he said. “That was a bomb that hit the hospital and the Palestinians all recognized it immediately and, like, jumped on me to try and keep me safe.”
The blast killed two people, including, Sidhwa says, one of his patients. Sources told CBS News that Ismail Barhoum, a political Hamas member and spokesperson who was being treated there, was the target.
Sidhwa, based in California, has traveled to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ukraine and most recently Gaza to render aid.
He said he hopes to go back to Gaza early next year, but his mother worries about his safety.
“For the first time in probably 40 years, maybe 30 years, she just broke down crying, screamed at me on the phone: ‘They almost killed you last time you were there. Why are you going back?'” Sidhwa said.
He said he told her, “I’m sorry, Mom. Somebody’s got to go do this.”
Rising danger for aid workers
More than 1,000 aid workers have been killed over the past three years, according to the United Nations. Violent incidents affecting aid workers have grown by more than 1,500% since 2000, according to the Aid Worker Security Database from the independent research organization Humanitarian Outcomes.
Last year, Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo accounted for the majority of incidents and killings, the organization’s Aid Worker Security Report said.
So far, there have been at least 160 major attacks this year, according to the database.
In February, there were four incidents within 10 days in Sudan that resulted in World Food Programme partners or contractors getting killed or injured while delivering food. In Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022, World Food Programme assets, including a warehouse, trucks and marked armored vehicles, have been targeted by drone attacks.
“A critical need”
Trauma surgeon Dr. Michael Samotowka travels to Ukraine six to 10 times a year.
“There’s not a million people who do what I do. There’s not a million nurses. So if you bomb a hospital or a healthcare provider or a medic, you’re taking out somebody that’s providing a critical need,” he said.
Samotowka said he and his colleagues have an evacuation plan and security team with them. But in December 2023, a missile struck an operating room that he had been working in two months prior.
“There’s a psychological aspect to it. It’s demoralizing,” he said.
Still, he said there is nothing that would keep him from going back.
“I really feel very passionately that what I’m doing is important,” he said.
Samotowka said nations at war need to respect the Geneva Conventions, international treaties that protect civilians, medics, aid workers and others.
“There needs to be some form of punishment for those who violate the law,” Samotowka said.
Sidhwa agrees and goes a step further, encouraging Americans to call their members of Congress.
“One very practical way of protecting people is just saying that if you go out and kill doctors and nurses, then you’re not going to get weapons from the United States anymore,” he said.
The State Department declined an interview request from CBS News. It said in a statement that the U.S. favors accountability to anyone who attacks aid workers and hospitals and it condemns this type of violence.
