My morning on October 7th started out like any other, at least on the surface. As a surgical resident who takes pride in his work, I did patient rounds amidst the usual hustle and bustle of the hospital, then rushed in with one of my preceptors to operate on an emergency case.
But when I felt the cold metal of the scalpel in my hand, perhaps for the first time in my career, I didn't feel a thrill. I did not experience the deep joy that usually accompanies the opportunity to improve people's lives while on the operating table.
My doctor sensed something was wrong and asked me what the problem was.
I told him the news I had heard from my mother back home that the bombing had begun. My hometown of Gaza was under attack.
He listened and tears began to well up in his eyes. When I saw him, who was not Palestinian, share my pain, something cracked inside me and I burst into tears. He hugged me and said, “Your family is okay.” We are all with you. ”
I really appreciate his solidarity and the solidarity I have received from many of my American colleagues since then. Currently, I am the only surgical resident in the United States trained in the Gaza Strip, which is no small feat.
I feel mentally exhausted and anxious. Watching the attack on Gaza from afar makes me feel helpless and devastated.
I know it is a great honor to work and be trained in the American system. However, since October 7th, I feel like my existence has been split into two completely different and unconnected worlds.
I spend my days here in America worrying about and caring for patients. Will Mr. Jones be shot again after being released from the hospital? Did Ms. Lopez's insurance approve the surgery she needed?
But while I'm doing my best to help them and their families, I also feel bad for my own family, loved ones, and colleagues who are struggling back home. How will my elderly widowed mother, who suffers from severe arthritis, be able to walk miles to safety during heavy shelling? The disease has left her largely untreated as Israel repeatedly denied her permission to leave the country for treatment abroad. Will she and my other relatives be able to find food and shelter? When will we hear their voices again?
My family in Gaza has been under heavy Israeli shelling since October 7th. They walked many miles from devastated northern Gaza to the south, moving from shelter to shelter at least six times, but were unable to find safety because of Israeli air raids. Israeli incursions are occurring everywhere in the Gaza Strip, including areas designated as “safe” by the Israeli army itself. At one point, they took refuge in the courtyard of al-Shifa Hospital, but Israel eventually attacked there as well. This is a war crime under international law. My parents' home, the place of my most cherished childhood memories and where I held my brother's wedding and father's funeral, was also destroyed.
My family is now homeless. They are given no dignity and are forced to live in makeshift tents, as my grandparents once did, after being expelled from their villages during the Nakba.
In 1948, my grandparents were evicted from the village of Hamama, where they lived a peaceful and prosperous life side by side with their Jewish neighbors. After being forced from their homes, they had their identity and political rights erased and became permanent refugees. After this catastrophe, after this grave crime, my family managed to build a new life from scratch in Gaza. But every bombing campaign and attack on our homes rekindles the intergenerational trauma we suffered during the Nakba. And now my family is once again displaced, uprooted in tents and uncertain about the future.
During the recent attack on Gaza, I lost many members of my extended family, including three cousins, to Israeli bombing. Two other cousins were kidnapped for no reason. For my surviving family, this is an unimaginable living horror. This situation is especially traumatic for children. My nephew Adam is afraid of the dark and has night terrors and incontinence.
Due to communication problems, I have not been able to video chat with my family for over 3 months. Over a month ago, my brother was able to connect to Egyptian phone service via roaming and sent me photos of himself and his family. When I looked at the photos, I was shocked to see that everyone had lost weight to the bone. Within just a few weeks, my mother's face was so wrinkled that she was almost unrecognizable.
More than 30,000 people, more than two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza since October 7. About 70,000 others were injured and at least 1.7 million people have been evacuated.
I worry about my family and the people around me every day. But as a surgeon who is well aware that healthcare is a major lifeline for society, I am also concerned about Israel's relentless and illegal attacks on Gaza's healthcare system.
As of this writing, only 12 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are partially functional. My medical school, the Islamic University of Gaza, was destroyed, along with the Strip's only cancer treatment center. This means thousands of medical students will be unable to continue their studies in Gaza and cancer patients will lose their already limited access to cancer treatment for the foreseeable future.
Israel's attacks on health care are not just targeting infrastructure. More than 400 health workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to a recent report by Palestine Health Workers Watch. Among them were Dr. Omar Ferwana, former dean of my medical school, as well as Dr. Israa Al-Ashkar, a very kind anesthesiology resident, and Dr. Ibtihar Al-Astar, an excellent intern. Includes people's leaders.
Additionally, Israeli forces have abducted at least 110 medical workers in the Gaza Strip. Families of healthcare workers abducted from their workplaces do not know their current whereabouts or even if they are dead or alive.
I've wanted to be a surgeon ever since I could remember. He is not just a surgeon, but one of the most skilled surgeons in all of Palestine. From a young age, I understood the burden of avoidable death that all Palestinians living under occupation carry, and I wanted to do everything I could to help them. I never wanted to go abroad and stay there, and I never dreamed that I could use my surgical training to break free from the open-air prison we are all trapped in. It wasn't. My surgical training has always been part of my social contract with people. My goal has always been to learn as much as I can and then go home and use that knowledge to help people.
Since beginning my training in the United States, I have had the opportunity to return twice to teach basic surgical techniques and advanced trauma lifesaving techniques to medical students in the Gaza Strip. Now, I receive updates from former students as I watch helplessly from afar as the attacks endured by healthcare workers. They tell me about working in inhumane conditions, including a lack of essential medicines such as anesthetics needed to amputate children. They tell me about colleagues who have been injured, killed, or kidnapped by Israeli forces.
It is difficult to express in words how painful it is to hear their testimonies and watch from afar their suffering and the suffering of those they seek to treat under degrading conditions.
Thankfully, here in the United States, I am surrounded by patients, families, students, co-residents, nurses, and residents who recognize the escalating struggle and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. They not only support me, but they also speak out and say these injustices don't affect them personally. They are working tirelessly to ensure that targeted attacks against health workers, such as those seen in Gaza, do not become the norm. Many of them are calling for a permanent ceasefire to stop attacks on Palestinian health workers and infrastructure.
Their moral clarity and fortitude gives me strength and hope for the future.
But unfortunately, those people are in the minority. The entire medical community is completely silent about, and even complicit in, the ongoing attack on Palestinian health care. Several hospitals and academic institutions have issued unilateral statements supporting the Israeli regime and censored students and staff who spoke out against the genocide taking place in Gaza and the West Bank.
This apathy breaks my heart, but it does not break my resolve. As a Palestinian surgeon, my dream has always been to use my training and knowledge to build an independent and competent healthcare and education system in Palestine. It will enable us to properly train Palestinian doctors to treat our own patients with respect and help the Palestinian people. The nation will prosper and fulfill its immense potential.
Even though we are now witnessing death and destruction in Palestine, I have not given up on this dream. But I know that my dream cannot become a reality unless we achieve justice and long-lasting peace based on equity, dignity and equal rights for all. For this reason, I call on the global medical community to join me in calling for a ceasefire and an end to attacks on Palestinian colleagues, hospitals and other medical facilities. We know dreams can become reality, but only we can speak out against this attack on our profession.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
