My first day in Gaza and the reality of what people are going through is hitting home.

Today, I went to the mobile health clinic we have at the border where the humanitarian zone meets northern Gaza. Palestinians cross over a bridge to get to the relative safety of the south. Sometimes they come with their families and a few belongings, sometimes they come in distress after their families have been killed, sometimes they manage to escape across with severe injuries after a recent attack.

Soon after I get there, a man who looked emaciated and shell shocked came over on crutches; he had gunshot wounds to his legs. We dressed his wounds, and he received some food. A while later, a man with his trousers held up by a string came to weigh himself.

He had lost 25kg, his wife, and children.

That evening, we were back at the guesthouse. There’s more than a dozen of us here at the moment, mostly from the UK, but also Kenya, Italy, and Zambia. Some slept on the floor in the house, a few of us in the tents in the garden. I had a ration pack to eat and went to sleep, waking occasionally to the sound of bangs in the distance.