Voices from Gaza: “We never imagined this war would be different”

Three months before the war I got engaged and I was preparing for the wedding. I was happy with all the details of preparing the wedding. Of course, after October 7, I won't be able to do what I dreamed of. But at least I hope to be reunited with my fiancé, because he stayed in the north, and I came to the south. Maybe the thing I wish for most is to see him again. 

We will try to continue our lives on the rubble of the past. Even if it's not the way we imagined it before.  

Maybe this war taught us the value of family, and that we [should] try to spend more time with our family because at any time, we risk losing them. I miss our warm family gatherings over tea and breakfast. We used to watch TV series together in the evening. I also miss my friends in the north. Half of them are still there ... I also miss walking in Gaza’s streets. It was so full of people, with pretty lights. I miss Al-Shifa Hospital, where I used to work. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go back. The memories of the hospital are still stuck in my mind. I spent a lot of time there and wish I could return one day.  

My life stopped on October 7 ... I hope life will continue. I know it's impossible but I'm in denial and can't comprehend what's happening. I used to work at Al-Shifa hospital until it was evacuated. We had to cross the border to the south. Honestly, this was a moment I will never forget. Crossing [into southern Gaza] was scary; I saw bodies on the ground, and there were flies on them. I saw people's clothes on the ground and couldn't tell if they were alive or not. It was humiliating. I felt like there was no turning back from that checkpoint. I feel like I've lost my country and identity. 

Read more from MSF staff on what a ceasefire would mean to them >>

Chaos soon ensued at the hospital. Our team ran to the emergency room to receive those in need of medical care. One of the patients, a 3-year-old, was injured. Her parents were standing right next to her, worried, as she looked directly at me. She was breathing, so she must be okay, I thought. But as I took her bandage off, I realized her entire left thigh was peeled down to the bone.

Read more of Dr. Abdelmoneim's story >

... In my experience, I have never seen a mass casualty event like today [Saturday]. Every corner in the hospital was busy. Every space was occupied by the injured or bodies of the dead. The medical staff were working very hard to save lives. Some patients passed away, unfortunately, because of the type of difficult injuries they had. Both the intensive care unit and the operation theater rooms were [fully] occupied.

Our anesthesiologist went to support the emergency room, and he discovered that his family were among the injured. He lost his nephew, and his daughters were injured. So even our medical staff, while they were working and trying to save patients, were receiving news that their families were among the injured or dead.

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I stood up to see if my son had come back and I realized he had left his phone at home. I went to the street screaming, ‘Where is my son? Where is my son?’ My family tried to get me back into the house. I screamed so much that I lost my voice.

One hour later, my son arrived home. The sight of fear and terror on his face… I have never seen this on a human being. He was barely able to speak. He said, ‘Dad, people have been blown into pieces! Children, women … why is it like this, Dad?’

I hugged him and cried and cried. For the first time, I felt weak. 

After that, I went to Al-Awda clinic in Deir al-Balah, which is only a few meters away from my home. I saw dozens and dozens of people lying on the ground. Some of them were dead, others injured. One ambulance arrived carrying three people who had been killed and four others who were wounded. My eyes were full of tears.

One of my colleagues called me. His brother had been hit by shrapnel in the back. He told me he was throwing up blood. He kept asking what he should do. But what could I do? There was no ambulance available. I told him to tie a piece of cloth around the wound to pressure the injury, and to pray for him that he stays alive.

Dozens of people were killed. We did not have time to bury them.

Read more of Dr. Maloh's account of the Nuseirat attack >

... One of MSF’s surgeons told me about dressing the wounds of babies who had lost their legs. It stayed with him. Babies who never learned to walk, and never will.

Some of those children have a new acronym written on their file: “WCNSF,” which stands for “wounded child, no surviving family.” 

Nine-year-old Salma* is one of thousands of WCNSFs. She suffered a fractured skull when the house her family was in was shelled. One of her legs was broken; the other had been amputated. We met her in the intensive care unit. She still didn’t know that she was the only one who made it out of the rubble alive. The exhausted staff wanted to let her recover physically first.   

One of the biggest challenges facing hospitals in southern and central Gaza is bed capacity. The beds are needed to treat patients in critical condition, but those who have been stabilized have nowhere to go. Where should we send a patient like Salma? What do we say to her?

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... The number of patients is very high and medical staff have reported difficulties in many areas, whether with the supply of oxygen, electricity, medical equipment, or simply food. All of this makes providing medical care extremely difficult, and they have enormous operating difficulties to overcome. The convoy's 19,000 liters of fuel [over 5,000 gallons] will supply the hospital for barely a week. Around 3,000 liters per day [about 792 gallons] are required for it to be functional. 

This visit was very short as the journey from the south of the Gaza Strip took us a very long time, and we were not allowed to stay there for long. The convoy was supposed to go to the hospital five days earlier, but it was impossible to go then for various reasons. 
 
It was moving to see the surprise of patients, displaced families, and staff at the sight of new people after being holed up in the hospital for weeks by themselves.

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... Prepared to provide as much medical support as possible, the team went to work at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. At the time, Nasser had become the largest functioning hospital in Gaza following relentless attacks on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital in the enclave’s north. But it had twice as many patients as it could handle, and people were setting up tents to shelter from the airstrikes and shelling elsewhere. Some patients have had their homes destroyed and have nowhere to go after being discharged. Many get stuck in the hospital, where at least it’s warm and there is drinking water.

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... It’s impossible to safely provide the medical aid people desperately need in conditions like these. Hospitals and health care workers should never be a target.

As people have been forced to flee location after location in search of safety in Gaza, many have been left without shelter and are living in terrible conditions. Rafah, the southernmost city in the Strip, is now home to at least 1.2 million people, up from a pre-war population of 300,000. Tents improvised from plastic sheeting line the streets, and the schools are crammed full of people looking for a safe place to sleep. Because there is little or no gas, the land is being stripped of its greenery to feed fires to keep people warm against the winter cold. Clean water and toilets are in short supply, diseases are spreading rapidly due to the crowded conditions and lack of health care services, and food prices have risen to six or seven times their pre-war norm.

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... We treated a six-year-old female child. She was badly injured, with [an] external fixator [a tool to hold broken bones in place], and there is a big raw area. She was crying, shouting. She was begging for painkillers, for sedation, because she's tired from pain, and she's tired from inability to move her arm.

In most shelters, you will find fleas, you will find all kinds of skin diseases, all kinds of gastrointestinal symptoms. And in one shelter near where I am located, there is hepatitis A spread between people.

It's really hard to treat them because we don't have access to the needed drugs. We don't have access to anything at all. Water and food are not clean. And people are now eating anything they could find, because it's really starvation here.

I don't believe that anything I say will change the picture. My only message [is] that Palestinians have the right to be treated as human beings, have the right to live. Every day, every night I fear for my kids' life, for my life.

And I'm sorry to say that, but after 60 days of war, I'm losing hope, and I am saying that the ones who passed away in the [first] few days were very lucky. They didn't witness two months of terrifying days and nights. I'm seeing my people suffer, and I cannot do anything. This world is not fair.

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... The situation is very bad, it is inhuman. It’s a closed area, no one knows about us. We don’t have an internet connection—you managed to call me now, [but] maybe you’ll [have to] try 10 times before you can reach me again.

The medical team agreed to leave the hospital only if patients are evacuated first. We don’t want to leave our patients. There are 600 inpatients, 37 babies, someone who needs an ICU. We can’t leave them.

We need a guarantee that there is a safe corridor [to leave] because we saw some people trying to leave Al-Shifa and they killed them, they bombed them, the sniper killed them.

Inside Al-Shifa Hospital, there are injured patients and medical teams. If they give us guarantees and evacuate the patients first, we will evacuate.

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... You work 24 hours, but the number of patients is so high you cannot keep up. Though, we keep going. Thousands of people are sheltering at Al-Shifa. People who evacuated from the north or lost their homes in airstrikes flocked to the hospital to try and seek safety. There are people everywhere—no hygiene, no water to drink, no food. They lost their homes. They haven’t been able to bathe for 24 days. It's a health catastrophe.

I come back to the office in the evening to see my kids. I calm them down when they hear the bombing—especially at night. Some days I go to Al-Shifa without sleep after staying up all night calming them down. It's difficult. There are no words to express my feelings.

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... There were huge numbers of people inside the hospital; they think the hospital is a safe place, but there is no safe place. The majority of the injuries are very critical. There is not enough space. Patients who need surgery are lying on the floor.

I decided to stay in my home because there is no safe place in Gaza. My house is close to the MSF office and clinic.

The majority of my family decided to move to the center of Gaza and to the south. A large number of the people who moved south are returning now to their homes, because they have suffered a lot being homeless. Again: no electricity, no water, and the situation is extremely tense for people in the south.

I am still working on a daily basis at the burn clinic with MSF. We still receive some patients with burns. I do the dressings for them. It is difficult for them to come back again so I prepare kits for them and I show them how to do it themselves. This is at least something I can help with as a nurse.

... I slowly comprehend the sound of my child’s voice: ‘Mom, I am hungry, I want to have breakfast.'

While making breakfast with the bare minimum of supplies, I start to blame myself for having children and bringing them into a world with such dire conditions and frequent wars—especially this miserable war.

When you have children, you do your best to protect them and provide them with everything. When you hear the sound of bombs falling, you are supposed to be a strong parent; to remain calm for your kids. But the truth is, you are really in need of someone to calm you down.

We dread nightfall. The Israeli drones, warplanes, warships, heavy rockets, and bombs spread like wildfire. After trying to calm myself and my children down, who awake many times crying, I think about my father, mother, and family, who are sheltering far away, but under the same circumstances. 

You try to think positively, that they are far away from the targeted bombs, but it’s in vain. I will be worried until I hear their voices.

... The base is a sort of large complex which serves as a school, among other things, with perhaps 10 buildings of various sizes. And so people are looking for a small place to shelter where they can. People are sleeping on the stairs, in the hallways, the classrooms, the cafeterias. There are people really everywhere, putting their mattresses or just a blanket on the ground. 

People come from almost everywhere, especially from the areas which have been evacuated—from Gaza City, from Beit Hanoun, from Khan Yunis. People think that they are safer here.  

People came here to seek safety, but they are still afraid. They wonder what will happen. People often come to us asking if we have information, but we don't have any either. We don't know if [the] bombing will continue close by or far from here. We heard a few bombs falling yesterday, but for sure less than in Gaza City.

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