This week, a 12-member team of doctors and nurses from France returned to the Gaza Strip to provide life-saving open-heart surgery for sick children with congenital heart disease. Led by long-time PCRF volunteer pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr. Dominique Metras, the team included surgeons Dr. Francois Lacour-Gayet and Dr. Alexandre Metras, intensivists Dr. Bruno Bourdarias and Dr. Pierre Geigle, an anesthesiologist from Palestine Dr. Hasan Ismail, pediatric cardiologist Dr. Elodie Perdreau, perfusionist Patrick Siclis, nurse anesthesiologist Jean Detchepare, and ICU nurses Lara Rigaud, Cyrielle Bacle, Marie Lathus and Sebastien Duhaupas. We are the only organization sending cardiac surgery missions into Gaza to save the lives of our children there with heart disease and are grateful for our volunteers giving their time and efforts to join our humanitarian work.

Update: From morning until night, our French pediatric cardiac team continues to conduct life-saving surgeries from one child to the next. Their drive to save the next children's life after just finishing long intensive surgeries is inspiring to us all. The surgeons left after the third surgery of the day and the ICU nurses started to give the children recovering from surgery the love and care necessary to ensure the success of these life-saving surgeries.