Israel’s military says it has established a foothold on the outskirts of Gaza City and is calling up an additional 60,000 reservists ahead of a full-scale invasion of Gaza’s largest urban area. This follows days of escalating airstrikes and artillery fire that have killed scores of Palestinians in one of the world’s most densely populated regions. Dr. Mimi Syed is an emergency medicine physician who’s been on two medical missions in Gaza working in hospitals that were under Israeli siege and was just denied reentry into Gaza, mere hours before she was scheduled to travel there for a third medical mission. Syed was planning to bring in a small amount of aid to the besieged enclave. “As a doctor, I shouldn’t have to smuggle in baby formula,” she says. “I shouldn’t have to smuggle in protein.” Syed also received harrowing voice memos from a Palestinian medical student in Gaza with whom she had become friends. The medical student lives in Gaza City and received evacuation orders as Israeli forces prepare to invade. “I no longer have any hope,” said the student in a recorded message.