Gaza- From afar, before arriving, you see a torn Palestinian flag standing over the charred Al-Shifa complex, fluttering despite its deplorable condition, imitating what is said about the Palestinian’s resurrection and standing despite all the scars that bleed in and from him.
You approach closer, you find a single white building like a clean spot in a black dress, you enter its gate on which is written in bold letters “Reception and Emergency Department.”
A little further inland, dozens of representatives of the Palestinian Ministry of Health and medical and relief institutions are gathering to unveil a new story announcing that “Al-Shifa has opened its arms – once again – to receive its patients.”
challenge
With scissors, they make a pledge in front of the cameras to continue until their last breath, and they cut a red ribbon, the color of the massacre that claimed the lives of hundreds of martyrs within its borders.
It is not an ordinary opening in ordinary circumstances, it is a challenge in exceptional circumstances, in which he speaks. Director General of the Ministry of Health Dr. Munir Al-Barsh In front of the visitors, he said: “Israel wanted to destroy the complex, and we wanted to rebuild it, and whenever they destroy it, we will rebuild it.” The audience applauded, no wonder or vulgarity, as it was an act that everyone here saw as a victory that defeated Israel’s will.
Al-Barash said in a speech he gave during the opening, “We continued working day and night, we did not get tired or weary, to reach this great day,” the day on which the Al-Shifa Complex announces its readiness and the readiness of its staff to receive the wounded and sick cases, in the largest reception and emergency department in the Gaza Strip.
He added that the Ministry of Health is working on 20 projects to renovate hospitals that were affected by the “Israeli hand of oppression.” He confirmed to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that renovating the remaining 11 buildings is “only a matter of time.”
For 5 months, from the moment of the last withdrawal of the occupation forces after the military attack that put the Al-Shifa complex out of medical service on April 1st, until the opening day, work was in full swing to revive it again, even if only partially.
Urgent need
For his part, the Director of Nursing, Jad Allah Al-Shafei, explained to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that they chose the outpatient clinic building to open the emergency department, based on the recommendation of the engineering staff, as it was the least damaged place, the quickest to rehabilitate, and the least expensive.
He also stressed that the reopening of the department came as a result of an urgent need, which is the inability of the Arab Baptist Hospital and the operating hospitals to receive the large numbers of wounded and injured and bear the burden alone.
Inside, there are 70 beds for the wounded or sick, two emergency operating rooms, and 10 intensive care beds. During the opening, workers were installing blue signs on the doors to identify the rooms and departments: one for fractures and casts, another for stitches, this one for X-rays, this one a large laboratory.
Although the war has not ended and danger still threatens everything that pumps life into Gaza’s arteries, the doctors believe that they are performing their humanitarian duty, and that danger will not prevent them from performing this duty, as they agree.
Gazans also consider Al-Shifa Complex a historical icon and the backbone of the health system in Gaza, so they see its restoration – after the “shocking destruction” – as an irreversible necessity.
Second stage
In this context, the Assistant Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health, Maher Shamiya, confirmed to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the cessation of medical services in the complex has led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians who could have been saved if the departments and equipment had remained and the capabilities had been available. In addition, it has forced many residents of the northern Gaza Strip to move south in search of missing health services in their area.
According to Shamiya, the second phase of the restoration will include the surgery and maternity buildings, the central laboratory, and internal medicine. He also noted that the external courtyards will be cleaned to prepare them to receive field hospitals, if necessary.
For his part, Al-Barash called on international institutions to assume their responsibility and play their role in preserving medical personnel and hospitals and keeping them away from targeting in the Gaza Strip, in line with the Fourth Geneva Convention.
He pointed out that the number of martyrs from the health sector staff reached 890 martyrs, while the number of detainees reached 320 prisoners, who were arrested from their places of work.
In the corridors leading out of the department, you are struck by how everything is bright and clean, as if no occupier’s foot had defiled it, as if no war had passed through it, and no holocaust had broken out in it. As for outside, when you examine the four streets leading to the medical complex, the same question comes to mind: “How do the Gazans insist on wresting life from a womb cursed with death?”
