Inside the Ramallah hotel housing Gaza’s cancer patients | Israel-Palestine conflict

Ramallah, occupied West Financial institution — For greater than 16 months, loss and grief have stalked the granite-floored corridors of the Retno Lodge.

On the night of October 6, 2023, the family-run resort was near full occupancy. A number of of the 70 or so friends have been Palestinian Individuals however most have been from Gaza. Anticipating to return house quickly, that they had introduced simply sufficient garments for every week’s keep.

Amongst them have been Ahmed Ayyash, a 72-year-old civil engineer from Gaza Metropolis, and his 62-year-old spouse, Maha. Forty-four-year-old Shadia Abu Mrahil from Deir el-Balah was there along with her 25-year-old son, Karam.

Like a lot of the friends from Gaza, they have been common guests to the modest limestone constructing with its 45 double- or triple-bedded rooms. It wasn’t the quiet north Ramallah avenue that drew them there, nor the small courtyard out entrance with its plastic tables and chairs, though on sunnier days, the friends would typically sip their espresso there close to a cover of shiny pink bougainvillaeas.

They have been there to obtain medical remedy – for most cancers, coronary heart issues and developmental problems – that was unavailable in Gaza. Each Ahmed and Shadia have leukaemia.

They might journey by way of the Beit Hanoon crossing, managed by the Israeli military and identified to Israelis as Erez, in northern Gaza to Ramallah. For a couple of days at a time, they might keep on the resort whereas they acquired their remedy after which return house to Gaza. Kinfolk would usually accompany them. Some had been doing this for years. For Ahmed and Maha, these medical journeys additionally supplied a chance to go to Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and to eat kunafa with buddies in Nablus, 50km (31 miles) away.

October 6, 2023, was a quiet day, a Friday. Most companies in Ramallah have been closed and lots of friends on the Retno Lodge took a break from their therapies. Ahmed went out to hope at a close-by mosque with Maha, his spouse of 44 years. That they had arrived in Ramallah the day prior to this and purchased bread, cheese, chocolate, fruit and veggies for his or her keep. After they returned to the resort that night, they ate dinner within the eating corridor, and spoke to fellow friends earlier than going to mattress.

After they awakened the next morning, all the pieces had modified. Within the days that adopted the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, Israel launched an enormous bombardment of the Gaza Strip and lower off meals, water and electrical energy. The Palestinian American friends on the resort fled. Those that stayed, hospital sufferers and their relations, waited anxiously for information from Gaza. The telephone service was down and lots of have been unable to succeed in their family members again house. Some crowded into the resort proprietor’s workplace to observe the developments on tv, questioning what the fast-escalating battle would imply for his or her households and for his or her therapies.

Ahmed stayed in his room watching the information and scrolling by Telegram updates from journalists in Gaza. Visitors who managed to contact family members throughout the sporadic moments when the telephone service returned, shared no matter they realized with others. Others by no means obtained by.

“A few of the friends misplaced their kids within the first month of the battle, and I heard information of the martyrdom of many members of my household, reminiscent of the kids of my cousin and his spouse, and my cousin and her husband … and their kids, and a few buddies,” Ahmed recalled.

“The dangerous information was fixed.”

Clouded ideas of the long run

Since 2017, the Retno Lodge has housed sufferers and their relations from Gaza throughout their medical visits to Istishari Hospital, a 10-minute taxi trip away.

It’s amongst a community of lodging — principally accommodations, but in addition lodgings together with UNRWA services — housing Palestinians granted momentary permits by Israel to go away Gaza to obtain medical remedy in West and occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The remedy is roofed by the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Well being.

Through the years, Nawaf Hamed, the 66-year-old proprietor and supervisor of the Retno, has tried to maintain the place cheerful. The frequent areas have been usually stuffed with music – all the pieces from Western folks to classical Arabic. Visitors would typically play the devices – a tabla, guitar, qanun (a Center Jap string instrument) – that Nawaf saved across the foyer. “We might sing, and we [would] dance!” he reminisced wistfully. These joyful nights stopped with COVID lockdowns, and by no means fairly returned.

When the battle started, the allow preparations for sufferers from Gaza shortly broke down. These in hospitals in Jerusalem needed to depart, fleeing to the occupied West Financial institution the place they scrambled to register with the PA and discover a new hospital. None have been capable of return to Gaza.

“The folks [were] very afraid of the long run,” recalled Nawaf of his friends.

Right this moment, 400 sufferers from Gaza are at the moment registered with the PA with some staying in Ramallah in addition to in Hebron, 60km (37 miles) to the south, and Nablus and Jenin, lower than 100km (62km) to the north.

Over the months, extra sufferers have moved into the Retno. Right this moment, it’s a momentary house to 33 grownup and 14 youngster sufferers, and 37 relations. Seven sufferers on the resort have died of their sicknesses because the battle began. Because the others proceed to battle their well being battles, their relations have been killed, and their properties and former lives destroyed.

On a November afternoon, Shadia was sitting on a lightweight gray sofa within the nook of the resort foyer the place many friends collect. “What the battle has performed to my household, to my house, to my Gaza, kills me extra day by day than the most cancers ever will,” she stated, sighing.

As frail residents emerged from the carry, they greeted each other earlier than heading to the hospital in shared taxis. A shuttle bus would carry them again later within the day.

Karam – his hair coiffed and beard well-groomed – sat beside his mom along with his fingers gently clasped in his lap. Close by, Ahmed, wearing a blue sweater and inexperienced button-down shirt, slouched in his chair, whereas Maha smiled warmly at fellow residents as they handed by. Different friends stopped to ask the entrance desk attendant, a girl in her 30s, for recent towels or to grouse concerning the noise coming from their neighbour’s room at evening.

“Our emotions are [in Gaza], and it impacts each second in our lives,” stated an exhausted Shadia. “I’m drained and sick already from the most cancers remedy. And our ideas of the long run, of constant day after day, are clouded not solely by our personal life-threatening sicknesses, however the whole destruction that sweeps our properties and households and communities in Gaza.”

They cry at evening

Nawaf, a stout man usually with studying glasses on a wire round his neck, goes about his days operating the household enterprise whereas stopping to speak with friends.

When inside his small workplace, simply subsequent to the foyer, Nawaf will peer by the glass doorways to see who’s there and beckon them to come back inside for a espresso. He has positioned the black leather-based couches in his workplace in a semicircle round a desk to make the place extra inviting. Visitors come by to debate their therapies, or to observe the information on tv. On chilly, winter nights, they arrive to sit down by the fireside. Some wish to discuss late into the evening, others wish to sit in silence.

On one sunny afternoon, when Nawaf was sitting within the courtyard, sipping Arabic espresso, Ahmed approached. He referred to as out to the older man and shook his hand as he requested: “How are you, my buddy?”

“Peace be upon you,” Ahmed replied with a faint smile earlier than heading inside.

“Could you have got good well being,” Nawaf referred to as after him.

“That man was an important civil engineer in Gaza!” Nawaf declared, gesturing at Ahmed as he disappeared by the doorway door.

As different friends walked by, Nawaf bellowed a hearty “hiya” and shook their fingers.

Nawaf and his father, Nayef, began constructing the resort in 2000 and opened it 4 years later. They ran the place collectively till Nayef handed away two years in the past. Nawaf’s 11 siblings are all concerned within the household enterprise, as are his two daughters, of their 20s and early 30s, who assist with administrative duties.

Most accommodations within the occupied West Financial institution are all however empty lately with the battle bringing tourism to a standstill and limiting journey. The Retno is a uncommon exception. However even with all of the occupants, the resort is below monetary pressure. Though the PA covers the sufferers’ lodging prices, these funds turned erratic when Israel started withholding the PA’s tax revenues final April, says Nawaf. “Each week, we battle to determine easy methods to pay the payments the subsequent week,” he defined as he sat within the courtyard lined with potted citrus bushes. “We don’t know what to do, easy methods to spend cash for breakfast. [Since June], the employees don’t have their [regular] salaries,” he stated, referring to his 20 workers.

From the time breakfast is served, Nawaf tries to maintain resort operations buzzing as he listens to residents’ issues, like complaints of a damaged bulb or an issue with the bathroom of their room.

Over time, he has seen some friends develop stressed. Some get aggressive. Others fear that after 16 months of residing in a resort totally free, the association received’t final.

“A few of them don’t allow us to clear their rooms,” Nawaf defined. “They suppose we’re simply going to make use of it as an excuse to truly kick them out.”

He has tried to place the sufferers relaxed, sometimes bringing representatives from the PA or NGOs to supply psychosocial companies and even theatre periods. “Normally, we don’t talk about politics,” he stated. Typically he half-jokingly suggests to single male sufferers to get married, saying they are going to be much less lonely. “If nothing else, possibly the [PA] will distribute [wives] to them,” he added with amusing.

Nawaf usually tries to cheer up his friends with humour. When, on February 4, the Israeli navy got here to the world of Ramallah the place the resort is situated, he requested me over the telephone: “What do you suppose they need? Falafel or shawarma?”

However because the battle continued, the despair grew amongst Nawaf’s friends. “They’re below stress, as a result of they at all times wait [for] unhappy information,” he mirrored, his tone changing into sombre. “No one even speaks about comfortable issues. Simply — they’re crying.”

Nawaf leaned again in his chair and appeared out on the empty avenue. “At evening, in corridors, you stroll, it’s quiet, and also you solely hearken to folks crying,” he stated slowly, taking a sip of his espresso. He let loose a sigh. “It’s a actually troublesome expertise.”

Although he tries to remain constructive, when the temper within the resort will get too heavy, “I typically go to my workplace, [and] I shut the door simply so I can snigger,” Nawaf defined. He received’t snigger at something particularly; it’s simply how he copes with the stress. Then, he may play some Mozart to attempt to unwind.

‘He’s all the pieces in my life’

Shadia and Karam have performed their finest to make their shared room on the Retno really feel extra like house. A small donated carpet, darkly colored with geometric patterns, sits in the course of the three-by-three-metre (10-foot-by-10-foot) room. On prime of a dresser, an electrical kettle waits – stuffed with water – to arrange Arabic espresso. However it’s a good distance from their house close to the seaside in Deir el-Balah. Only a 12 months outdated earlier than the battle started, it had marble flooring, chandeliers and brand-new furnishings.

“Round our home have been palm bushes and olive bushes,” recalled Shadia who was sitting subsequent to Karam on his mattress. “The folks subsequent to us planted cabbage, peas and cauliflower. And once we would look exterior, all you’d see can be inexperienced areas and all this magnificence.”

Now, on the Retno, shutters block the view of Ramallah’s limestone condo buildings, empty tons and again roads.

In Gaza, Karam frolicked outdoor within the household’s backyard and on the close by seaside.

An solely youngster, he has at all times been near his mom. “Her and my father, that’s all, that’s who I’ve,” stated Karam.

“I don’t really feel like she’s solely my mom,” he added softly. “She’s my buddy and my brother. We hang around collectively. In Gaza, we went to the seaside collectively. I spent extra time along with her than even my buddies.”

Shadia checked out her son and smiled. She suffers from joint ache, nausea, fatigue and dizziness, and infrequently speaks in an anxious voice, however she brightens when speaking about her son.

“Karam shouldn’t be solely my son,” stated Shadia. “He’s my father, my buddy, my sister, my brother. He’s all the pieces in my life, and I can’t think about my life with out Karam.”

In 2014, Shadia started to expertise intense ache in her again and joints. For years, medical doctors saved misdiagnosing her illnesses, at totally different factors saying she had a bulging disk, and even that she was imagining the crippling ache. “The painkillers they gave me numbed the ache for a short while, however then it could solely come again a lot stronger,” she recalled.

Lastly, in 2022, she was identified with leukaemia. “It got here as a lightning bolt to [Karam] and to me,” stated Shadia, “as a result of to suppose that I might lose my life and depart him alone, particularly as a result of he doesn’t have a brother or sister to handle him, put me in an excessive despair for over a 12 months.”

Shadia began coming to Ramallah for remedy. Her sister and Karam would take turns accompanying her. She has needed to endure numerous therapies to attempt to discover the appropriate one, and suffered kidney failure and different organ dysfunction. Starting her oral chemotherapy routine only a few months earlier than the battle began, Shadia is meant to keep up a strict weight loss plan that limits what she will eat to fruit and veggies and requires her to keep away from meals two hours earlier than and after taking her twice-daily medicine.

At the same time as she got here to phrases along with her sickness, the stress from the battle has made all the pieces more durable, Shadia admits.

“Any dangerous information from Gaza, I might really feel the ache in my physique,” she stated. The debilitating ache means she strikes slowly when sitting or standing.

“After all, the medication doesn’t [work] because it ought to, and the [medical] take a look at [results] are dangerous due to what the battle on Gaza does to me.”

‘Dying slowly in our alienation’

Final August, an Israeli rocket destroyed the household’s house. Karam’s father, Hani, had already fled. Karam recalled how his mom “broke down crying and refused to obtain any calls from her household in Gaza”.

“She sat in her room for every week, not talking to anybody as a result of our home was destroyed.”

Shadia refused to go away even for her hospital go to. Karam stayed along with her, attempting to cheer her up by displaying her humorous movies on his telephone and ensuring she ate.

“It didn’t solely occur to us,” Karam instructed his grief-stricken mom, attempting to consolation her. “It’s good that we didn’t lose any of our youngsters or a companion, all the pieces.”

“A very powerful factor is your well being,” he saved telling her. “The whole lot is simple in case your well being is sweet. Now we have to just accept it, and God keen, we may have one thing higher.”

“This, we saved repeating to ourselves,” stated Shadia.

Seventeen members of Shadia and Karam’s prolonged household have been killed on this battle.

Hani and the households of Shadia’s sisters whose properties have been additionally destroyed have been residing in tents within the Nuseirat refugee camp.

All through the battle, Shadia has remained for days at a time in her and Karam’s room, nauseous from chemotherapy and overwhelmed with anxiousness.

“I turned homeless and I’m sick, and I’m unable to bear these troublesome circumstances,” she stated.

With none enchancment to her situation, Shadia, like many different residents, is taking a look at attainable choices for asylum or medical visas in Europe.

Though Shadia usually stays indoors, she and different sufferers really feel confined with outings principally restricted to shuttling between the resort and Istishari Hospital. Many battle with boredom.

“It seems like we’re in a jail,” Maha defined.

Because the residents have Gaza IDs, they can not cross Israeli checkpoints within the occupied West Financial institution to enter different cities with out risking detainment by Israeli forces, successfully trapping them in Ramallah.

Although residents say they attempt to preserve one another firm, they speak about their communities again house with a way of longing, discovering it simpler to share recollections of Gaza earlier than the battle than to speak concerning the scenario at this time.

“The barbecues and picnics on the seaside collectively!” exclaimed Karam sooner or later within the foyer as others nodded enthusiastically.

“Mashallah! Everybody was simply so form and pleasant,” added a gleaming Maha.

Even the normally restrained Ahmed cracked a smile. “In our neighbourhood of Remal [in Gaza City], there was such a pleasant ambiance,” he chimed in. “Folks would at all times invite one another over to their homes, even strangers. It’s very totally different from Ramallah, the place everybody simply comes right here to work.”

The displacement eats away at all of them, significantly Shadia. “As a affected person, you consider your therapies, your routines, the workers and medical doctors you get to know, and then you definately consider Gaza, and you may’t assist however really feel this alienation, this foreignness, even in Ramallah,” she stated closely. “We’re dying slowly in our alienation.”

Labored ‘arduous to boost my kids proper’

The resort gives an acceptable breakfast for the sufferers that features bread, fruit and veggies. For lunch, Shadia and the opposite friends have acquired the very same meal of rice and rooster offered by the PA on the resort day by day for months. It’s a matter that elicits headshakes and sighs among the many residents. Some sufferers battle to eat this meals or preserve it down. “Somebody who’s doing chemotherapy can not eat this,” stated Shadia. However residents additionally really feel responsible understanding that their relations in Gaza might for a very long time solely dream of consuming a full meal, not to mention meat.

The residents obtain rare stipends from the PA, however they not often have spare cash, sending what they’ll to their households in Gaza. “Earlier than the battle, the restaurant within the resort was working,” stated Nawaf, who needed to decrease the price of espresso from seven shekels to 3 for his friends. “Folks got here for lunch. However now the [guests], their wallets are tight, in order that they purchase a sandwich, not a meal.”

“We’re barely surviving, and we can not even assist [our families],” Shadia stated. She and Karam usually save meals from breakfast to eat at dinner.

With sufferers typically too sick to work, relations like Karam have tried to search out work in Ramallah to help their households. Whereas some have discovered employment with the PA, native companies are largely cautious of hiring Palestinians from Gaza, fearing bother if there may be an surprising Israeli navy raid. “I’ve gone to eating places, supermarkets, wherever I believed I might get a job, however all of them refused,” Karam defined.

All through, many grapple with what and who, ought to it grow to be attainable for them to journey, awaits them in Gaza. They fear, too, that if they’re able to return, they may lose entry to medical care.

Mohammed al-Assali, a portly 59-year-old, usually shuffles across the foyer becoming a member of conversations amongst friends to speak concerning the Egyptian soccer he avidly follows, or crack jokes.

He sat down slowly on one of many couches within the foyer. Prayer beads dangled from his stiff left hand.

Mohammed has nobody left in Gaza to return to. His whole household was killed throughout the battle, leaving him alone on the earth.

Mohammad had come to Israel as a labourer to color homes simply two days earlier than the battle began. When the battle began, he fled throughout the Inexperienced Line to the occupied West Financial institution. He registered with the PA’s Ministry of Labour, which positioned him in low-cost scholar housing in Jericho.

In November 2023, his household fled their house in Gaza Metropolis’s Remal neighbourhood to take refuge in a home they believed to be safer. Then, that home was bombed, killing his spouse, their seven kids, and all 10 of his siblings.

Upon studying the devastating information, Mohammad had a stroke. He was rushed to the emergency room after which transferred to Istishari Hospital, the place he had surgical procedure.

“I underwent open coronary heart surgical procedure as a result of intense grief after my household was killed,” Mohammed stated.

The stroke left Mohammad with slight paralysis in his left hand and leg, which has prevented him from resuming work or wandering exterior the resort a lot. He spends the day in his room or talking with different friends.

Because the battle proceeded, Mohammed, friends within the resort say, would inform others that when there was a ceasefire, he would hand out sweets on the street. However when the deal between Israel and Hamas was reached, Mohammed stayed in his room for 2 days straight, crying in grief.

“I labored actually arduous to boost my kids proper and make good folks out of them. Three of them have been engineers, and two have been attorneys,” he defined in his calm, deep voice. “However now, they’re all martyred, our homes are destroyed, and I’ve nothing there.

“I don’t know why I might return to Gaza.”

‘Constructed for the entire society’

Ahmed spends his days in Ramallah in his and Maha’s room pouring by an engineering e-book, drafting plans to rebuild Gaza, and visiting the mosque.

When the couple first arrived on the Retno, Ahmed saved to himself with Maha doing the speaking for the couple. However spending greater than a 12 months residing below the identical roof with different friends has pressured him to work together throughout encounters at breakfast, within the resort foyer, or whereas sharing taxis and buses to and from the hospital.

“You’ve a number of interactions that you’re pressured to interact with, and to make pleasantries,” stated Ahmed, shrugging his shoulders. “And so I used to be pressured to interact and be a part of a group.”

“A few of the folks I like, and also you get to speaking about household or information or sports activities,” he mused. “Different individuals are annoying, loud or needy. However you simply be taught to take care of them.”

However more often than not, he likes to be on his personal, finding out arithmetic and physics. “I don’t wish to learn literature or science fiction,” Ahmed stated pointedly. “I wish to take care of actuality.”

At the same time as a baby, Ahmed dreamed of constructing buildings that might profit folks.

In every of the 4 wars between 2008 and 2021 to befall the besieged Gaza Strip, Ahmed performed a pivotal function in reconstruction. He spearheaded the constructing of infrastructure like al-Shifa Hospital’s surgical wing, Gaza Metropolis’s sanitation system and buildings alongside al-Rashid Road in an space which has since been levelled fully to create the Netzarim Corridor, a closely fortified Israeli navy zone constructed throughout the battle that till just lately successfully separated northern Gaza from southern Gaza.

“The saddest second in my life wasn’t my own residence being destroyed,” stated Ahmed, referring to the latest battle. “It was once they destroyed these main public locations that I helped construct — faculties and hospitals. These have been constructed for the entire society, not only for me.”

All through the battle, Ahmed has battled a uncommon type of leukaemia affecting his abdomen. He requires an injection which he can solely get in Ramallah.

Nonetheless, Ahmed and Maha are amongst those that yearn to return to Gaza, even when they’ve little religion within the ceasefire holding previous its first part, which completed on March 1. There may be nonetheless no coordination by authorities to facilitate a return to Gaza for Palestinians caught within the occupied West Financial institution, and it’s unclear if or when it’ll grow to be attainable.

“I wish to return, and I’m not hesitant to say that,” stated Maha firmly shortly after the ceasefire deal was introduced on January 15, as she and Ahmed sat alone one night within the foyer. “It’s simply our future if something occurs to us after that. However we have to return.”

Whereas folks have been celebrating on Ramallah’s streets — waving flags, chanting and handing out sweets — the response within the resort was muted.

Key sticking factors between Israel and Hamas — together with who will administer the Gaza Strip sooner or later — have been left to be resolved in negotiations throughout the envisaged three-part ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated Israel reserves the appropriate to renew the battle, calling the primary part a “momentary ceasefire”.

“This battle shouldn’t be going to finish,” stated Ahmed. “Either side are going to maintain [fighting]. However nobody goes again to Gaza considering that every one issues simply finish. They don’t.”

“That is how life is in Gaza,” stated Maha, a mom of 5 kids and grandmother to 19, with a wistful smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

‘Born to rebuild Gaza’

Maha and Ahmed’s house in Remal was as soon as the gathering place for his or her tightly knit household and Maha would put together feasts of kabsa, maqlooba, and maftool.

Throughout the battle, the couple’s home was destroyed together with these of their 5 kids who survived the bombardment with their households.

The lengthy separation has been painful. “Probably the most troublesome factor resides with out the kids, as a result of they’re our solely hope,” Maha stated, her voice cracking.

She is determined to stay in a house once more. “If you happen to keep in a resort for greater than every week, you’re going to go loopy,” exclaimed Maha as she threw up her fingers in exasperation. “I simply wish to be in a house. This isn’t a house!”

Maha has tried to deal with the separation and displacement by specializing in serving to her husband. In October 2021, medical doctors at An-Najah Hospital in Nablus instructed Ahmed’s brother that “there was no profit from remedy and that it was higher for me to stick with my household and await dying,” Ahmed recalled. On the time, he was so weak he might barely stroll.

However Ahmed saved attempting totally different therapies, ultimately discovering the injections. He says the battle in Gaza has solely motivated him to get higher. “It motivates me extra to return and rebuild,” he defined.

Regardless of the medical doctors’ earlier prognosis, Ahmed’s situation has improved and stabilised. He’s strolling effectively and now principally goes to the hospital on his personal.

In the meantime, Ahmed’s thoughts has turned to rebuilding Gaza. He’s a part of a world community of engineers discussing and mapping out easy methods to reconstruct the enclave, with 69 percent of all structures destroyed or broken.

For now, his well being prevents him from leaving the Retno Lodge, however he’s decided to beat his sickness.

“I used to be born to rebuild Gaza,” Ahmed stated matter-of-factly. “It’s what I’ve at all times performed.”