WASHINGTON

Emily Callahan, an American nurse who was recently evacuated from Gaza, shared her touching experiences Tuesday and emphasized her deep connection with the region and its people, which are under Israeli bombardment.

“My heart is in Gaza, it will stay in Gaza,” Callahan said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper. “The Palestinian people that I worked with both our national staff in the office as well as my staff at Indonesia Hospital were some of the most incredible people I've ever met in my life.”

Callahan worked with Doctors Without Borders and stayed in Gaza for 26 days after the conflict with Israel and Palestine resistance group, Hamas, erupted in early October. She was evacuated last week.

She cited an incident where everything went off, and the health personnel got a notice to move to the southern Gaza Strip. She said she was texting nurses at the Indonesia Hospital.

“I said: ‘We lost the nurse weekend one.’”

"He was killed when the ambulance outside the hospital was blown up," said Callahan.

She recounted reaching out to her colleagues to ask if anyone was moving south. The response was one of steadfast determination: “This is our community. This is our family. These are our friends. If they're going to kill us, we're going to die saving as many people as we can.”

Emphasizing their dedication, Callahan said, “The doctors and nurses didn’t leave, out of loyalty to their community. I want to remind people that those who stayed behind are heroes.”

“They know they're gonna die, and they're choosing to stay behind anyway."

Callahan noted her daily routine of texting every colleague in the morning and before sleep to see if they were still alive.

Israel launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.

At least 10,328 Palestinians, including 4,237 children and 2,719 women, have been killed in Gaza.

Amid the soaring death toll, basic necessities are increasingly running out in Gaza after Israel imposed a "full siege" on the enclave that has ground humanitarian aid deliveries to a near halt.

In the month since the war began, little more than 500 trucks -- what would have constituted a day's worth of deliveries prior to the war -- have arrived in Gaza.