“The one who stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could – remember us.
These are the words that Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila wrote on October 20, 2023 at the Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia Refugee Camp. He scribbled them in blue ink on a whiteboard used for surgery schedules. They were a testimony to resilience, a last message from Défi.
A month later, Nujaila redefined the moral dimensions of the medical oath not with words, but with her own blood. An Israeli air shot at the hospital killed him and two of his colleagues, Dr Ahmad Al Sahar and Dr. Ziad al-Tatari.
The words of Nujaila stayed with me for 15 months, while I was looking in horror how the medical system in Gaza in which I hoped to work was bombed in rubble, the doctors that I hoped for – killed, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured, tortured forceful.
Each aspect of life has been stained by death. Each warm memory was invaded by horror. Each certainty has been replaced by an abyss of the unknown.
The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where I had volunteered in the emergency room a month before the start of the genocide, was searched, ransacked and burned. It was the largest Gaza hospital, which provided intensive care that could not be received elsewhere and which had gathered a highly qualified doctors.
It was not only a place of healing but also a shelter for the displaced. In the end, it was transformed into a cemetery.
The Turkish-Palestinian Hospital of Friendship, where I had joined a university project on awareness of breast cancer, was bombed, then besieged and closed, its patients left to die slowly, helpless. The fate of the only Gaza Cancer Hospital has been sealed by its location – being in “the axis of death” – which the Israeli army calls the Corridor of Netzarim, which he had established and occupied to divide Gaza in the north and the south.
The Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, where my grandmother suffered critical surgery carried out by Dr. Mohammed al-Ron, a devoted and qualified surgeon, has been attacked and bombed. Then, he was besieged, cut off from the world – his medical staff, his patients and his displaced civilians trapped inside without food or water. In the end, everyone was forcibly expelled and the hospital was rendered out of service.
I learned later that Al-Ron disappeared from another hospital in the north of Gaza and tortured in Israeli dungeons. When he emerged two months later, he had lost 30 kg (65 lb). He was always one of the lucky ones.
Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, one of the main surgeons at Al-Shifa Hospital, was tortured to death.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, head of the Kamal Adwan hospital, remains in Israeli captivity, where he was tortured and mistreated.
More than 1,000 medical workers were killed in Gaza. More than 300 have force.
It is clearly obvious that health workers are targets in Gaza. The practice of medicine has become a deadly profession.
However, I do not feel frightened or discouraged. Doctors who defended their patients and risked their lives during the genocide became an inspiration: Abu Safia, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya and so many others.
My own sister Dr Mariam Salama Abo HELLOW was a brilliant example for me. She works as a pediatrician at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, the only functional hospital remaining in the south, exceeded and extended beyond her limits. She fights alongside her colleagues, testifying to the horror – the injured, orphans, burned, badly nourished, frozen to death.
Although it witnesses the destruction of the Gaza health system and the mass murder of Palestinian health workers, my determination to become a doctor has not become stronger in the last 15 months. Gaza needs her sons and daughters more than ever. It is therefore my moral, patriotic and human obligation to study hard and to become the best doctor I can be.
In January 2024, I had the opportunity to leave Gaza, but I refused. How could I abandon my house when she needed me most?
Moved from Nuseirat’s refugee camp, I wore my medical books in my backpack and I hung on to the dark hope that online learning provided after the six Gaza universities were seriously damaged or destroyed.
I traveled research documents a few minutes before the arrival of my second evacuation prescription. I didn’t know where I would go. I did not know if there would be an internet connection. I didn’t even know if I would survive. But at that time, I could not leave my work unfinished.
I begged my father to wait. Let me finish this one task.
I endangered my life. I endangered my family. And yet, I stayed two more hours – under the bombing, browsing research documents.
I am one of the hundreds of medical students in Gaza who, despite everything, want to stay. We are all at different stages of training, eager to start our professional career in the midst of the broken remains of the Gaza hospitals, guided by the survivors of this assault.
There are medical students and workers who are desperately waiting to go home and serve. One of them is my sister Dr Intimaa Salama Abo Helow, who obtained a baccalaureate in dental surgery in Gaza and then continued his mastery and his doctorate in public health and social justice abroad.
In December, against all odds, 80 medical students from Al-Azhar University graduated and became doctors ready to save lives.
I myself am planned to obtain my diploma in 2028. I am determined to become a neurosurgeon. For Gaza. For my grandmother, martyred last year. For my parents, who have sacrificed everything to help me continue this dream. For each stolen future. For each hospital destroyed. For each lost doctor.
I succeeded, Dr. Abu Nujaila. And I will wear your story and those of other brave Palestinian doctors with me.
We will not be defeated.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
