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CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward was granted approval to visit a field hospital established by the United Arab Emirates in southern Gaza this week.

This facility, a rare functioning and well-equipped place, is currently providing crucial assistance to the most serious cases among the sick and injured. Local hospitals in the area are overwhelmed, either damaged or destroyed, leaving the UAE-operated field hospital as a vital source of help.

CNN was granted a unique opportunity to observe the operations during the brief visit this week, making the network the first Western media outlet to independently report from southern Gaza. Only controlled visits in company of Israeli army personnel have been allowed previously, and all material has to be cleared by the army before publication.

In the context of the Israel-Hamas war, the human toll is starkly evident within the hospital’s rooms. Among the victims is a 13-year-old who has lost a leg. Another is 20-month-old Amir Taha, an orphan with a raw forehead wound, having lost his parents and two siblings in an Israeli strike.

“They found Amir in his mom’s arms laying in the street,” his aunt Nehaia Al-Qadra said. “His sister died, his brother died, his uncle, and his other sister is injured in the hospital Here we are, he doesn’t have a mother or a father or an older sister or brother. Now it’s just us two and God.”

Amir wants his father. “Yesterday he saw a nurse that looked like his dad, and he kept screaming ‘Dad! Dad! Dad!’” Al-Qadra said. When she needs to calm him, she shows the toddler a video of his father.

In another room, eight-year-old Jinan Sahar Mughari is immobilized in a full body cast after her home was bombed. “They bombed the house in front of us and then our home,” she told Ward. “I was sitting next to my grandfather, and my grandfather held me, and my uncle was fine, so he was the one who took us out.”

Dr. Ahmed Almazrouei, working in the UAE field hospital, acknowledges the emotional impact of treating innocent child victims of war. Despite the heavy bombardment, the streets outside are strewn with trash and rubble, portraying the grim reality of modern warfare in Gaza.

The report emphasizes the difficulty of finding hope in the midst of tragedy, with people wandering the streets, closed shops, and a chilling atmosphere. CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward reflects on the pervasive sense of tragedy, stating, “You don’t have to search for tragedy in Gaza. It finds you on every street.”