On 7 July 2014, following weeks of growing tensions over the tit-for-tat murders of three young Israeli students and a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem and rockets being fired out of Gaza, the Israeli army launched a large scale military operation in the coastal territory dubbed ‘Operation Protective Edge’. In the course of the 51-day conflict over 2,100 people were killed and more than 11,000 wounded. The majority of casualties in Gaza were civilians.

This unprecedented volume of people needing urgent and long term care for complex injuries has put a huge strain on Gaza’s health system. Over the last six months, teams of six highly skilled British orthopaedic and plastic surgeons from the NHS have been volunteering their time, rotating in and out of Gaza.

The UK government’s support to the organsiations behind this programme, MAP and IDEALS, was part of a package of more than £17 million in emergency humanitarian assistance, to help deliver lifesaving food, clean water, shelter and medical assistance.

Shot by Abbie Trayler Smith, edit and production by Panos for DFID.