Why This Emergency Nurse is Taking Risks to Help in Gaza

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Melbourne nurse Jean-Philippe Miller has spent years working in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones — from Sudan to Myanmar and Syria.

Now on his fourth rotation in Gaza, the 41-year-old is treating the sick and injured in a Red Cross Field Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a deployment he says is unlike anything he has faced before.

“I have been deployed 14 times over the last 10 years with Australian Red Cross to different kinds of crises, refugee settings and conflict areas,” he told SBS News.

“At Rafah, we are working in the middle of a conflict. So, you can hear active hostilities like gunfire, blasts, and drones 24/7.”

Leaving behind his role as a critical care nurse in a major Melbourne hospital, he has joined aid workers on Gaza’s medical front line, risking his safety to help those with nowhere else to turn.

A bearded male nurse in a blue uniform stands next to a patient on a hospital bed with two young men looking at him as they stand on either side.

Jean-Philippe Miller said years in emergency care in Melbourne could not prepare him for the devastation he has witnessed in Gaza. Source: Supplied / Jean-Philippe Miller / Red Cross

At times, Miller admittedly wonders why he keeps returning to the war-ravaged Strip.

“But when you are here [in Australia], you are very much an observer. I see the suffering that people are enduring on the news,” he said.

“As a humanitarian, I have an opportunity to flip that dynamic.

“So, when I go into [Gaza], I am no longer an observer. I am an active participant, and I can help save a life, I can help alleviate suffering.”

The Australian Red Cross says 50 Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and workers have been killed in the line of duty since the start of 2024, with 18 of those deaths in 2025.

A bearded man in a blue parka stands next to a river with a city backdrop.

Jean-Philippe Miller is tending to the wounded and sick at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza. Source: SBS News / Scott Cardwell

At least 1,581 health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza health ministry.

‘Worst year for humanitarian deaths’

Adrian Prouse, head of international programs at Australian Red Cross, said 2025 is on track to be “one of the worst years for humanitarian deaths”.

“It is heartbreaking and incredibly frustrating that people put their lives on the line to provide humanitarian assistance,” he told SBS News.

Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza since then has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, left much of the enclave in ruins and wrought a humanitarian disaster with grave shortages of food, drinking water and safe shelter, according to Palestinian health officials.

A large group of people, some carrying cardboard boxes full of aid, stand at a distribution site in a muddy area surrounded by damaged buildings and rubble.

Australian Red Cross says food insecurity in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. Source: Getty / Anadolu

Almost two years later, Miller said food insecurity is rife and not just among civilians. Aid workers are also exhausted and hungry.

“We have 350 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) staff members on the ground in Gaza, and they’re also struggling to access food and clean water,” he said.

“As well, the only meal that the hospital is able to offer our patients is a small portion of rice, because that is all that’s available.”

Australian Red Cross says food insecurity in Gaza has now reached catastrophic levels.

The United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is now warning that the “worst-case famine scenario” is unfolding on a population of 2.1 million.

The group said 514,000 people are experiencing famine, with the number expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

Around 280,000 of those experiencing famine are in a northern region covering Gaza City — known as Gaza governorate.

The IPC predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

Since October 2023, there have been 227 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza, including 103 children, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says over 320,000 children — the entire population under five in the Gaza Strip — are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Israel describes widespread hunger documented by aid agencies as “a Hamas-orchestrated starvation campaign”, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating: “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”

In a statement to SBS News, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “The IDF forcefully rejects the allegation of deliberate starvation of the civilian population.”

“Israel does not operate to hinder access to medical care nor does it prevent the entry of medical supplies into the Gaza Strip, including medications, such as antibiotics.”

Overrun and understaffed, hospitals struggle to cope

Miller, who has been deployed to Gaza four times since early 2024, initially went to the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza — one of the last operating highly specialised hospitals — which is now non-operational after repeated attacks.

“It was so overcrowded, with tents and temporary structures littered throughout the hospital grounds. It was essentially like a refugee camp,” he recalled.

“The injuries we were tending were horrific: amputations, severe burns, broken bones, fractures, any kind of injury you can think of.”

However, he fears the next few months in Rafah would be his toughest yet.

“From a hospital perspective, an increased number of patients are attending with signs of malnourishment,” he said.

“And that’s extremely concerning because we know that adequate nutritional intake is paramount in order to aid recovery.”

A series of curved makeshift tents lined up in a campsite beside the ocean.

The Rafah field hospital in Gaza is struggling to meet rising demand for medical aid. Source: Supplied / Jean-Philippe Miller / Red Cross

The 60-bed field hospital in Rafah was set up by the ICRC in 2024 to address the overwhelming medical needs arising from the ongoing conflict, along with 12 Red Cross and Crescent Societies, including the Australian Red Cross.

However, Miller said bed occupancy has doubled this year, with around 120 patients currently admitted. He said staff are under increased pressure from mass casualty incidents and often work 10 to 12 hours a day.

“The needs are immense with 143,000 plus people injured, so far. Their rehabilitation requirements are huge and there are so few services operating in Gaza to deal with demand,” he said.

‘Distressing and unsettling’: The faces that haunt

Miller’s years in critical care wards in Australia have taught him to stay calm in the most dire medical emergencies.

But nothing, he said, could prepare him for the faces of the injured children in Rafah — expressions of pain and fear that linger with him long after he leaves the hospital.

“Looking after the paediatric patients is definitely incredibly challenging: both distressing and unsettling,” he said.

“I find it horrific to see these injuries that these children have endured. And I think we can all agree in the setting of conflict that children are extremely vulnerable.”

Head of the UN Palestine refugee agency, Philippe Lazzarini, has described the situation as “the latest in the war on children and childhood in Gaza”.

A crowd of people surrounds a burnt, destroyed building.

Airstrikes and a lack of medical supplies, food, water and fuel have virtually depleted an already under-resourced health system in Gaza, the World Health Organization says. Source: Getty / Anadolu

Fewer than half of Gaza’s hospitals and under 38 per cent of primary healthcare centres are partially functioning — or are doing so at minimal levels, according to Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organisation’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

He said last week that international medics face entry denials, while key items such as ICU equipment, anaesthesia machines and cold chain supplies continue to be held back.

Prouse said access for international medical teams and supplies remains a major obstacle.

“We continue to have major challenges getting medicines, medical equipment, humanitarian assistance across the borders, into our field hospitals, into the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which obviously runs a paramedic facility amongst other things,” he said.

On the front line of care and conflict

Under international humanitarian law (IHL), medical personnel and aid workers are afforded special protection in times of armed conflict. Hospitals, ambulances and clinics are meant to be safe havens, shielded from attack, and those who provide care are not to be targeted.

Israel has repeatedly insisted it operates within the framework of IHL.

Yet, in Gaza, the reality for humanitarian staff tells a different story. Aid convoys have come under fire, medical facilities have been damaged, and doctors and nurses say they work under constant threat.

“It is very confronting. We are told when we go into Gaza that our safety cannot be guaranteed,” Miller said.

“Obviously, ICRC takes security very seriously and does everything to mitigate risk, with passive and active security measures.

A man with his back turned and hands folded behind him stands at an entrance to a Red Cross field hospital.

Medical and humanitarian workers in Gaza say they carry out their duties under constant threat to their lives. Source: Supplied / Australian Red Cross

Eyal Mayroz, a senior lecturer in peace and conflict studies at The University of Sydney, said the Red Cross is in charge of advancing and developing IHL, but despite that, humanitarian workers continue to face a range of risks.

“In Gaza, the Geneva Conventions have been left aside on many, many occasions during the last 22 months. And this is really something that the international community has been insufficiently strong on trying to prevent,” he said.

“Gaza is an extreme case, but not the only one.”

Latest data indicates a 31 per cent increase in aid worker deaths compared to 2023, driven by the relentless conflict in Gaza.

At least 265 aid workers have been killed globally as of 14 August this year, according to provisional data from the Aid Worker Security Database.

Hope in the midst of chaos

While the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza can be overwhelming and his own safety is never guaranteed, Miller said he finds hope in the smallest moments — a shared laugh with colleagues, a quiet word from a patient — fleeting reminders of humanity amid devastation.

“It is about listening to our patients, listening to our colleagues, making sure that they feel heard and showing we understand the trauma that they experience and endure,” he said.

A bearded man in a blue nursing uniform smiles as he clicks a selfie inside a makeshift clinic.

Amid the devastation, Jean-Philippe Miller said he finds hope in small moments with colleagues and patients. Source: Supplied / Jean-Philippe Miller / Red Cross

It’s a sentiment echoed by Prouse.

“The people who make four rotations in Gaza like [Miller] understand that small acts make a massive difference in terms of meeting the humanitarian needs of people who are in situations of armed violence and conflict,” he said.

Miller flew to Gaza last week, determined to help where he can.

“I don’t think of myself as brave necessarily. My family is concerned. I have friends who have told me not to go.

“But I am lucky that my parents and my girlfriend are 100 per cent supportive, so that makes it easier.

“I really want to show solidarity for our colleagues.

“It is so important for them to see familiar faces and to know that we haven’t forgotten them. Because they genuinely do fear that the world has forgotten them.”