Gaza- Fifty-year-old patient Khalil al-Jarousha no longer has to sleep in the corridors of Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, after he received a tent to shelter him in the “Insan” camp to house patients and their families, most of whom are displaced from the northern Gaza Strip.
Before joining this free charitable camp, Al-Jarousha (56 years old) was suffering greatly to reach the hospital’s dialysis unit, and was forced to sleep in the corridors of this small and only government hospital in the middle of the Gaza Strip. He was exhausted and stranded.
Al-Jarousha’s health and psychological condition have changed since he joined Insan Camp, which is run by young initiators who were keen to keep it close to the hospital.
According to Taghreed Al-Saifi, spokeswoman for the camp administration, to Al-Jazeera Net, the camp initially targeted kidney patients like Al-Jarousha, and then expanded to house other patients.
The camp provides patients with shelter, food, and health and psychological follow-up, and facilitates their access to medical services at the hospital, in addition to housing their families and educating their children. It receives praise from the patients, who are considered one of the segments most affected by the raging Israeli war for the second year in a row.
Displaced and sick
When the occupation forces stormed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during the first weeks of the war, Al-Jarousha and his son, Ali (36 years old), accompanying him, were trapped inside for days. They, along with the patients, displaced persons, and medical staff, were subjected to harsh interrogation while they were almost naked, before the occupation forces forced them and others to flee south.
The displacement separated Al-Jarousha, his wife, and the rest of his children, who are still in Gaza City. He told Al-Jazeera Net, “We were displaced from Al-Shifa to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in the city of Rafah, and we stayed there for months before we were displaced to Deir Al-Balah.”
Al-Jarousha had stayed with other patients in a wedding hall that had been turned into a shelter for patients in the city of Rafah, until they were forced to leave due to the Israeli ground invasion of the city, which has been continuing since May 6.
For about two months, Al-Jarousha and his son Ali slept in a corridor inside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where there was no place for them. Ali told Al-Jazeera Net, “We had one mattress and one blanket that my father used, and I stayed sitting next to him and often slept in this position.”
Despite the tragedy of displacement and his distance from his wife and two children in Gaza City, Ali feels very satisfied with their life inside the “Insan” camp compared to what they were like before they obtained this tent, which facilitated his and his father’s arrival at the hospital.
The patient, Al-Jarousha, lives in difficult health conditions because he is in dire need of a wheelchair instead of his dilapidated chair, which Ali struggles to push and get his father to the bathroom or the hospital.
Distilled water and healthy food are not available for Al-Jarousha’s health condition, since he discovered that he had kidney failure 7 years ago. For his daily living, he depends on the charitable hospice provided by the camp administration, and what his son Ali works hard to provide for him for breakfast and dinner.
Ali’s struggle with his father increases in providing him with the necessary medicines. He says that most of them are not always available, and the prices that are available are double what they were before the outbreak of the war.
Harsh experience
Mervat Al-Jadba, a 50-year-old woman, had her share of the harsh experience of the Israeli raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, and she accompanied Al-Jarousha on the forced displacement trip from Gaza to Rafah, and from there to Deir Al-Balah.
Al-Jadba told Al-Jazeera Net that she, her son Muhammad (21 years old), and her daughter Amina (26 years old) did not find a place or shelter except the street, until a tent was available for them in which they stayed for about two months, before the opening of the “Insan” camp, which provided them with “a decent life as much as possible.” “.
With their presence in this camp, the task of getting Mervat and her son Muhammad to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital became easier, as both of them suffer from kidney failure. She says, “We became ill during the Corona pandemic (about 4 years ago), and since then we have needed dialysis 3 times a week.”
Al-Jadba praises the basic services that the camp provides to them as patients and their families, but at the same time she complains of her inability to provide many needs, saying, “We need medicines, clothes, and healthy food.”
With great emotion, this patient says that she spent the night hungry a few days ago, because she had nothing to eat in her modest tent. She had just returned from a dialysis session with her son Muhammad, when she was exhausted and could not move except with great difficulty.
Since last October, the Israeli occupation has imposed more severe restrictions on the movement of humanitarian aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is the main crossing point in the areas of the southern Gaza Strip, which are crowded with more than 1,800,000 Palestinian residents and displaced people, who are being ravaged by a real famine, according to the United Nations. United States, local and international bodies.
These restrictions had a severe impact on the camp’s services, and according to its spokeswoman, Taghreed Al-Saifi, services at the charitable hospice and the medical point declined due to the scarcity of goods and materials, as well as medicines, and even fresh water necessary for patients with kidneys and chronic diseases. She confirms, “We notice a decline in the health of many patients due to this miserable condition.” “.
Accommodation, education and entertainment
The administration of Insan camp was keen to establish it in the closest place to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, as it includes 155 tents, a medical point, and another for psychological follow-up, in addition to a classroom for patients’ children, a kindergarten, and a hall for various activities.
The idea of this camp was born by its young management from initiators and initiatives at the beginning of the outbreak of the war, but it came to light with the large exodus from the city of Rafah, and the asylum of many patients and their families to the city of Deir al-Balah, according to Al-Saifi.
She says that the idea was well received by donors and supporting bodies, and this had a positive impact on the lives of sick women and their families, through the provision of tents for shelter, water for drinking and hygiene, and a charitable hospice that prepares lunch daily, despite the decline in the quality of food provided due to the siege, Israeli restrictions, and high prices.
Regarding those who deserve to have the opportunity to stay in the camp and benefit from its services, Al-Saifi explains that the criteria for comparison between applicants are clear, the most important of which is that the applicant must have chronic diseases such as kidney failure, cancer, and other diseases that require periodic follow-up at the hospital.
The camp houses 160 families, and according to Al-Saifi, there are tents housing patients who were displaced alone, and gathering them in one tent with each other had a great impact on improving their psychological state, and alleviating the burden of distance and separation from their families in the north.
The camp provides educational and recreational services for students and children of male and female patients, through classrooms and a kindergarten from which 120 children benefit. Al-Saifi says that the camp opened a special class for high school students (Tawjihi) to help them continue their lessons in basic subjects in preparation for exams.
