“Whoever stays till the tip will inform the story. We did what we might – keep in mind us.”
These have been the phrases Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila wrote on October 20, 2023, at al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp. He scribbled them in blue ink on a whiteboard used for surgical procedure schedules. They have been a testomony to resilience, a last message of defiance.
A month later, Nujaila redefined the ethical dimensions of the medical oath not with phrases, however together with his personal blood. An Israeli air strike on the hospital killed him and two of his colleagues, Dr Ahmad Al Sahar and Dr Ziad Al-Tatari.
Nujaila’s phrases stayed with me for 15 months, as I watched in horror how the medical system in Gaza I had hoped to work in was bombed to rubble, the docs I had hoped to be taught from – killed, tortured, forcibly disappeared.
Each side of life was stained by loss of life. Each heat reminiscence was invaded by horror. Each certainty was changed by an abyss of the unknown.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis, the place I had volunteered within the emergency division only a month earlier than the genocide began, was raided, ransacked and burned. It was Gaza’s largest hospital, which supplied essential care that might not be obtained elsewhere and which had assembled a workers of extremely expert docs.
It was not solely a spot of therapeutic but in addition a shelter for the displaced. In the end, it was was a graveyard.
The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the place I had joined a college mission on breast most cancers consciousness, was bombed, then besieged and shut down, its sufferers left to die slowly, helplessly. The destiny of the one most cancers hospital in Gaza was sealed by its location – mendacity inside the “axis of loss of life” – what the Israeli army calls the Netzarim Hall, which it had established and occupied to divide Gaza into north and south.
Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza Metropolis, the place my grandmother had a essential surgical procedure carried out by Dr Mohammed Al-Ron, a devoted and expert surgeon, was attacked and shelled. Then it was besieged, minimize off from the world – its medical workers, sufferers and displaced civilians trapped inside with out meals or water. Ultimately, everybody was forcibly expelled, and the hospital was rendered out of service.
I later discovered that Al-Ron was forcibly disappeared from one other hospital in northern Gaza and tortured in Israeli dungeons. When he emerged two months later, he had misplaced 30kg (65lb). He was nonetheless one of many lucky ones.
Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, a number one surgeon at al-Shifa Hospital, was tortured to loss of life.
Dr Hussam Abu Safia, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, stays in Israeli captivity, the place he has been tortured and abused.
Greater than 1,000 medical employees have been killed in Gaza. Greater than 300 have been forcibly disappeared.
It’s blatantly obvious that healthcare employees are targets in Gaza. Practising drugs has grow to be a lethal career.
But I don’t really feel scared or discouraged. The docs who’ve stood up for his or her sufferers and risked their lives through the genocide have grow to be an inspiration: Abu Safia, Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya and so many others.
My very own sister Dr Mariam Salama Abu Helow has been a vibrant instance for me. She works as a paediatrician at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the one remaining useful hospital within the south, overwhelmed and stretched past its limits. She fights alongside her colleagues, bearing witness to the horror – youngsters wounded, orphaned, burned, malnourished, frozen to loss of life.
Regardless of witnessing the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the mass homicide of Palestinian well being employees, my willpower to grow to be a physician has solely grown stronger up to now 15 months. Gaza wants its little kids greater than ever. So, it’s my ethical, patriotic and human obligation to check arduous and grow to be the very best physician I will be.
In January 2024, I had the chance to depart Gaza, however I refused. How might I abandon my dwelling when it wanted me most?
Displaced from Nuseirat refugee camp, I carried my medical books in my backpack and clung to the dim hope that e-learning supplied in any case six of Gaza’s universities have been badly broken or destroyed.
I used to be going by way of analysis papers minutes earlier than my second evacuation order arrived. I didn’t know the place I might go. I didn’t know if there could be an web connection. I didn’t even know if I might survive. However in that second, I couldn’t depart my work unfinished.
I begged my father to attend. Simply let me end this one activity.
I endangered my life. I endangered my household. And but, I stayed two hours longer – beneath bombardment, going by way of analysis papers.
I’m one among lots of of medical college students in Gaza who, regardless of every thing, wish to keep. We’re all in numerous levels of coaching, keen to begin our skilled careers amid the shattered stays of Gaza’s hospitals, guided by the survivors of this onslaught.
There are medical college students and employees desperately ready to return dwelling and serve. One in every of them is my sister Dr Intimaa Salama Abo Helow, who earned a bachelor’s diploma in dental surgical procedure in Gaza after which pursued her grasp’s and doctorate in public well being and social justice overseas.
In December, towards all odds, 80 medical college students at Al-Azhar College graduated and have become docs prepared to avoid wasting lives.
I personally am scheduled to graduate in 2028. I’m decided to grow to be a neurosurgeon. For Gaza. For my grandmother, martyred final 12 months. For my dad and mom, who sacrificed every thing to assist me pursue this dream. For each stolen future. For each destroyed hospital. For each physician misplaced.
I made it by way of, Dr Abu Nujaila. And I’ll carry your story and people of different courageous Palestinian docs with me.
We won’t be defeated.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
