After I began finding out nursing at Al Azhar College, I knew I needed to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.
It was the most important, most prestigious hospital within the Gaza Strip. A few of the finest docs and nurses in Palestine labored there. Varied overseas medical missions would come and supply coaching and care there as effectively.
Many individuals from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip sought medical assist at al-Shifa. The identify of the hospital means “therapeutic” in Arabic and certainly, it was a spot of therapeutic for the Palestinians of Gaza.
In 2020, I graduated from nursing college and tried to discover a job within the personal sector. After a number of short-term jobs, I bought into al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.
I liked my job on the emergency division very a lot. I went to work with ardour and optimistic power day by day. I’d meet sufferers with a large smile, hoping to alleviate a few of their ache. I all the time liked to listen to sufferers’ prayers for me in gratitude.
Within the emergency division, we have been 80 nurses in complete – each ladies and men – and we have been all buddies. In truth, a few of my closest buddies have been colleagues on the hospital. Alaa was one in all them. We did shifts collectively and went out for espresso exterior of labor. She was a lovely woman who was very type and liked by everybody.
It was such friendships and the comradery among the many employees that helped me pull by when the struggle began.
From the very first day, the hospital grew to become overwhelmed with casualties. After my first shift ended that day, I stayed within the nurses’ room crying for an hour over every thing we had been by and all of the injured folks I had seen struggling.
Inside days there have been greater than a thousand wounded and martyrs within the hospital. The extra folks have been introduced in, the tougher we labored, making an attempt to save lots of lives.
I by no means anticipated that this horror would final for greater than a month. However it did.
Quickly, the Israeli military known as my household and advised us that we wanted to depart our residence in Gaza Metropolis. I confronted a tough alternative: to be with my household on this horrific time or to be with the sufferers who wanted me essentially the most. I made a decision to remain.
I bid farewell to my household who fled south to Rafah and I stayed behind in al-Shifa Hospital, which grew to become my second residence. Alaa stayed behind as effectively. We supported and comforted one another.
In early November, the Israeli military advised us to evacuate the hospital and laid a siege to it. Our medical provides began to dwindle. We have been shortly operating out of gas for our electrical energy turbines that have been maintaining life-saving gear going.
Maybe essentially the most heartbreaking second was after we ran out of gas and oxygen and we may now not preserve the untimely infants we had in our care within the incubators. We needed to relocate them to an working room the place we tried to maintain them heat. They have been struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to assist them. We misplaced eight harmless infants. I bear in mind sitting and crying for a very long time that day for these harmless souls.
Then on November 15, Israeli troopers stormed the advanced. The assault got here as a shock. As a medical facility, it was alleged to be protected underneath worldwide regulation, however that clearly didn’t cease the Israeli military.
Simply earlier than the raid, our administration advised us that that they had acquired a name that the Israelis have been about to storm the medical advanced. We shortly closed the gate of the emergency division and gathered inside across the nursing desk in the course of it, not understanding what to do. The following day, we noticed Israeli troopers surrounding the constructing. We couldn’t go away and we have been operating out of medical provides. We struggled to offer remedy to the sufferers we had with us.
We had no meals or water left. I bear in mind feeling dizzy and nearly fainting. I had not eaten something for 3 days. We misplaced some sufferers due to the siege and the Israeli raid.
On November 18, Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, al-Shifa’s director, got here to inform us that the Israelis had ordered the entire medical advanced to be evacuated. If I had a alternative, I’d have stayed, however the Israeli military didn’t go away me one.
A whole lot of us, docs and nurses, have been compelled to depart, together with many sufferers. Solely about two dozen employees stayed behind with bed-ridden sufferers who couldn’t be moved. Dr Abu Salmiya additionally stayed behind and was arrested a number of days later. He disappeared for the subsequent seven months.
I, together with dozens of colleagues head south per Israeli orders. Alaa and some others defied these orders and headed north to their households. We walked for a lot of kilometres and handed Israeli checkpoints, the place we have been made to attend for hours, till we have been capable of finding a donkey cart that might transport us among the approach.
Once we lastly arrived in Rafah, I used to be past completely satisfied to see my household. There was lots of crying and reduction. However the happiness of being with my household was quickly overshadowed by stunning information.
Alaa was in a position to return to her household in Beit Lahiya, who had been displaced in a faculty shelter. However when she and her brother went to their deserted home to retrieve some belongings, an Israeli missile hit the constructing and so they have been martyred.
The information of her loss of life got here as an infinite shock. A yr later, I nonetheless dwell with the ache of shedding my shut pal – one of many sweetest folks I had ever identified who liked to assist others and who was all the time there to consolation me in tough moments.
In March, Israeli troopers returned to al-Shifa. For 2 weeks, they rampaged by the hospital, forsaking loss of life and devastation. Not a constructing was left within the medical advanced that was not broken or burned down. From a spot of therapeutic, al-Shifa was reworked right into a graveyard.
I have no idea how I’ll really feel after I see the hospital once more. How will I really feel understanding that the place of my finest skilled achievements and dearest moments shared with colleagues additionally grew to become a spot of loss of life, compelled disappearances and displacement?
At present, greater than a yr after I misplaced my office, I dwell in a tent and take care of the sick in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is unsure. However within the new yr, I’ve a dream: to see al-Shifa because it was – grand and exquisite.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
