American who escaped Gaza: 'People are frustrated, they’re desperate'
Barbara Zind, a pediatrician from Colorado who was in Gaza working with the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, said the scene at the Gaza-Egypt border was pure chaos.
"Everyone rushed in and they were pressing the doors," she told ABC News. "They did have a list up of who was on the list to leave."
“People are frustrated. They’re desperate. People are angry. There were a couple of fist fights," she said.
Zind, one of the first five Americans to leave Gaza on Wednesday, said she has survivor's guilt.
"I just left so I might get a little emotional, but these people are just being slaughtered," she said. "These are my friends."
Zind said the bombing was constant.
She said often it was near impossible to contact people outside Gaza. At one point she was in a total communication blackout for 18 hours and unable to tell her husband and son that she was safe.
![](https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/c7168618-4eb4-496b-acf7-6831e61d2e7e/Ramona-Okumura-ht-gmh-231101_1698871176062_hpEmbed_3x2.jpg)
As conditions worsened, she said at one point they were down to consuming 800 calories per day, with two days left of supplies. She said one man risked his life to drive into Gaza City to get more supplies for everyone to eat for another week.
Zind has made many trips to Gaza to work with children and families there. When asked if she would go back, she said, definitely.
-ABC News' Maggie Rulli