It is 2 in the morning in the medical complex of obstetrics and gynecology of the Assahaba medical complex in Gaza City. Through the open windows, I can hear the endless buzzing of drones in the sky above, but other than that, it’s calm. A breeze flows into the empty room, granting the heat relief, and a gentle blue glow emanates from the few lights that are lit. I am six months after an internship of one year and 12 hours after a quarter of 4 pm. I am so tired that I could fall asleep here in the admissions office, but in calm, a rare sense of peace develops me.
He is soon broken by a woman crying with pain. She bleeds and seized with cramps. We examine her and tell her that she lost her baby to be born – the child she dreamed of meeting. The woman was newly married, but just a month after her marriage, her husband was killed in an air raid. The child she wore – a 10 -week embryo – was their first and will be their last.
His face is pale, as if his blood had frozen with the shock. There is anxiety, denial and cries. Her cries draw the attention of others, who gather around her as she falls to the ground. We revive it, only to return it to its suffering. But now it is silent – there is no cries, no expression. Having lost her husband, she now endures the pain of losing what she hoped to be a living memory of him.
Life insists on arriving
It is my sixth night change in obstetrics and gynecology. I am supposed to turn by other departments – spend two months in each – but I have already decided to become a gynecologist during this rotation. Being in this neighborhood brings joy to my life – this is where life begins, and it tells me that hope is present whatever the terrible things we endure.
Giving birth in a war zone – in the midst of bombing, hunger and fear – means that life and death coexist. Sometimes I always find it difficult to understand how life insists on arriving in this place surrounded by death.
It surprises me that mothers continue to bring children into a world in which survival seems uncertain. If the bombings do not take us, hunger could. But what surprises me most is the resilience and patience of my people. They believe that their children will live to carry an important message: that it does not matter the number you killed, Gaza responds by refusing to be erased.
Childbirth is far from easy. He is physically and emotionally exhausting, and mothers in Gaza undergo excruciating pain without access to basic pain relief. Since March, the hospital has experienced a serious shortage of basic supplies, including pain medicines and anesthetics. When they cry out by sleeping their wounds with tears without anesthesia, I feel helpless, but I try to distract them by telling them how beautiful their babies are and reassuring them that they crossed the most difficult part.
With constant hunger here, many pregnant women are tired and do not gain enough weight during pregnancy. The time to deliver, they are exhausted before they start to push. As a result, their work can be prolonged, which means more pain for the mother. If the heart rate of a baby slows down, she may need an emergency cesarean.
Practicing medicine here is far from ideal. Hospitals are exceeded and the resources are very limited. We are constantly fighting for shortages of medical supplies. Each quarter-night, I work with a gynecologist, three nurses and three midwives. I usually take care of the easiest tasks, such as the conditions assessing conditions, suturing small tears and aid to normal deliveries. A gynecologist takes the most complicated cases and a surgeon performs elective and emergency cesarean sections.
The surgeon always reminds us to minimize the consumption of gauze and sutures as much as possible, and to save them for the next patient who can arrive in a desperate need. I try to throw and replace the gauze only after it is completely saturated with blood.
Current failures make things even more difficult. Electricity cuts several times a day, plunging the delivery room into darkness. In these moments, we have no choice but to light the pocket lamps on our phone to guide our hands.
During a recent quarter of work, electricity was released for almost 10 minutes after the birth of a baby. The mother’s placenta had not yet been delivered, so we used our telephone lights to help her.
Many of the best health professionals in Gaza have been killed, such as Dr. Basel Mahdi and his brother, Dr. Raed Mahdi, both gynecologists. They were killed during their service at Mahdi Maternity Hospital in November 2023. Countless others fled Gaza.
Most of the time, doctors around me are too overworked to offer advice or teach me the practical skills I hoped to learn, although they do their best.
However, certain moments allow exhaustion and remind me why I chose this path first. These meetings remain with me longer than any conference or manual.
At dawn, a new baby
During a quarter of work, a pregnant woman came for a routine assessment, accompanied by her five -year -old daughter, whose smile illuminated the room. She had come to learn the sex of the baby.
While I was preparing the ultrasound, I turned around and asked the little girl with mischievous: “Do you want it to be a boy or a girl?”
Without hesitation, she said, “A boy.”
Surprised by his certainty, I gently asked why. Before she could answer, her mother explained quietly. “She doesn’t want a girl. She is afraid of losing her – as if she had lost her older sister, who was killed in this last attack.”
Another day, a woman from her tenth week of pregnancy came to the obstetric clinic after being unainized by a doctor that her baby’s heart did not beat. While I was doing an ultrasound to check the fetus, to my surprise and my relief, I detected a heartbeat.
The woman cried with joy. That day, I witnessed the life where we thought we were lost.
The tragedy affects each part of our life in Gaza. It is woven in our most intimate moments, even around the joy of waiting for a new life. Security is a luxury that we have never known.
At 6 am, while Dawn breaks in the morning of my work quarter, we welcome a new baby born to a mother of the Jabalia camp in the north of Gaza, an area surrounded by Israeli soldiers and tanks. While the first rays of Sunlight pierce the delivery room, the mother cries happy tears, her face blushes while tightening her little daughter.
Having endured a night filled with fear, missiles and elite shooters, the mother and her family managed to reach the hospital safely. Right now, they celebrate and find a reason to hope again.