As bombs and shells fall around the European Hospital, or European Gaza Hospital, in the southern Gaza Strip, a team of six Norwegian doctors and nurses have been treating the wounded for the past two weeks.
Among them is orthopedist Geir Stray Andersen.
The hospital is one of only two hospitals in the Gaza Strip that still has a functioning operating room.
This photo of Geir Stray Andersen working in Gaza was sent by the Norwalk Foundation earlier this month.
Photo: Norwalk
We hardly see the damage from the explosion until after the explosions. Many of the patients who come to the hospital have parts of their bodies torn off, often their legs, Andreasen's colleague, orthopedist Thor Erling Ingemeier, told NRK from Gaza.
-We just received a ten-year-old boy whose leg had to be amputated. He added that fortunately we were able to save his life because many people living around the hospital donate blood.
– Traveling is a very terrible thing
The work was carried out under the leadership of the Norwegian humanitarian organization Norwac (Norwegian Aid Committee).
Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide will also attend the meeting in Cairo.
Photo: Christie Marie Scready/NRK
After two weeks working as a surgeon in the war-torn region, Ingemeyer, along with orthopedic surgeon Geir Stray Pedersen and surgical nurse Kirsti Fifeland, left the Gaza Strip yesterday.
Then they left Khan Yunis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, which was subjected to violent Israeli attacks in recent days.
Yesterday, a United Nations building housing hundreds of displaced Palestinians was also attacked in Khan Yunis.
-We are traveling from something very terrible. People were displaced from one place to another, being bombed and shelled day and night. Geir Stray Andersen said there was intense bombing, especially at night TV 2 When he and his colleagues arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, yesterday.
The Palestinians tried to put out the fire that broke out after the attack on the United Nations building in Khan Yunis yesterday.
Photography: Ramez Haboub/AFP
Gaza meeting before the book fair
Geir Stray Andersen met today with Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide in Cairo.
The Crown Princess, who is the ambassador of Norwegian literature abroad, is in the Egyptian capital because Norway is the guest country at the International Book Fair in Cairo this year.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit will open the Norwegian State Guest Program and the Norwegian Pavilion at the book fair, which is visited by several million visitors when it is held in February every year.
But at the same time that the Norwegian delegation is in the Egyptian capital, the war is raging a few dozen miles away.
Therefore, Crown Princess Mette-Marit's visit to Egypt began today with a meeting with United Nations staff and representatives of humanitarian organizations working in the Gaza Strip and with Andreassen from the Norwegian medical team.
More than 25,700 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, according to Palestinian health officials.
In addition, more than 63,700 people were injured, and several thousand are believed to still be trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
A total of 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes in the Gaza Strip since October, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA).
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