After I began learning 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 number of the finest medical doctors and nurses in Palestine labored there. Varied international 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 non-public sector. After a number of short-term jobs, I received into al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.
I beloved my job on the emergency division very a lot. I went to work with ardour and optimistic power daily. I’d meet sufferers with a large smile, hoping to alleviate a few of their ache. I at all times beloved to listen to sufferers’ prayers for me in gratitude.
Within the emergency division, we had been 80 nurses in complete – each men and women – and we had been all buddies. In reality, a few of my closest buddies had been colleagues on the hospital. Alaa was one among them. We did shifts collectively and went out for espresso exterior of labor. She was an exquisite woman who was very sort and beloved by everybody.
It was such friendships and the comradery among the many employees that helped me pull by way of when the conflict 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 part we had been by way of and all of the injured individuals I had seen struggling.
Inside days there have been greater than a thousand wounded and martyrs within the hospital. The extra individuals had been introduced in, the more durable we labored, attempting to avoid wasting 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 go away our dwelling 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 dwelling. 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 had been shortly working out of gas for our electrical energy mills that had been preserving life-saving gear going.
Maybe essentially the most heartbreaking second was once we ran out of gas and oxygen and we might now not hold 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 had been struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to assist them. We misplaced eight harmless infants. I keep 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 imagined to be protected beneath worldwide legislation, however that clearly didn’t cease the Israeli military.
Simply earlier than the raid, our administration advised us that that they had obtained a name that the Israelis had 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 figuring out what to do. The following day, we noticed Israeli troopers surrounding the constructing. We couldn’t go away and we had been working out of medical provides. We struggled to offer therapy to the sufferers we had with us.
We had no meals or water left. I keep 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.
Lots of of us, medical doctors and nurses, had been compelled to go away, 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 had been made to attend for hours, till we had been capable of finding a donkey cart that would transport us among the method.
Once we lastly arrived in Rafah, I used to be past glad to see my household. There was loads of crying and reduction. However the happiness of being with my household was quickly overshadowed by stunning information.
Alaa was capable of return to her household in Beit Lahiya, who had been displaced in a college shelter. However when she and her brother went to their deserted home to retrieve some belongings, an Israeli missile hit the constructing they usually had been martyred.
The information of her demise got here as an unlimited shock. A 12 months later, I nonetheless stay with the ache of dropping my shut buddy – one of many sweetest individuals I had ever identified who beloved to assist others and who was at all times there to consolation me in tough moments.
In March, Israeli troopers returned to al-Shifa. For 2 weeks, they rampaged by way of the hospital, forsaking demise 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 once I see the hospital once more. How will I really feel figuring out that the place of my finest skilled achievements and dearest moments shared with colleagues additionally grew to become a spot of demise, compelled disappearances and displacement?
In the present day, greater than a 12 months after I misplaced my office, I stay in a tent and take care of the ailing in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is unsure. However within the new 12 months, I’ve a dream: to see al-Shifa because it was – grand and exquisite.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
