Dr. Ali Alhaj Salem, neo-natal intensive care specialist, Al-Helou Hospital, whose Instagram post struck a chord in Israel

Dr. Ali Alhaj Salem posted a short video on Instagram from inside his neo-natal intensive care unit in Al-Helou Hospital, showing the babies he is trying to care for.

Many were born prematurely because their mothers are malnourished, he said. The special formula for premature babies is “not available in our market,” he says in a matter-of-fact voice, but the hospital is making do with formula for full-term babies. Dr. Salem himself looks very thin.

Dr. Salem’s Instagram post moved Israeli designer Mushon Zer-Aviv, who wrote about it in the New York Times. Zer-Aviv’s own child was born three months prematurely and weighed less than two pounds. But all of human society had provided the specialist care, equipment, and supplies Zer-Aviv’s baby needed to survive and thrive. Not so today for Dr. Salem’s little patients born in Gaza.

More information at Instagram and the New York Times