Jerusalem – Saeb Ali al-Tanani, 14, has a tumor in his leg. Last Wednesday, Suhaila, his grandmother, was with him as he walked down the corridor of Makassed Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem.
“He has to do genetic and blood tests, so he will be here for a while,” Suhaila said, remembering her family in Gaza. “Our hearts break at what our family is experiencing in Gaza. »
Saeb echoed his grandmother’s concerns. “We are afraid for our family,” he told Al Jazeera. “I want to go home.”
A day later, fear would come to haunt the hospital itself.
On Thursday, Israeli forces arrested Suhaila. She is one of 12 detained Palestinians who were receiving treatment at Makassed Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem or serving as medical escorts to patients.
According to an Israeli police statement, the Palestinians were staying “illegally” in the hospital after their medical permits issued by the Israeli army had expired.
“In a joint operation by Jerusalem District Police and soldiers from the Jerusalem Security Guards, 12 female and male suspects residing illegally in Israel were identified and arrested,” the police said in a statement, adding that the deputy director of the hospital was also summoned for questioning.
“Among them, 11 residents of the Gaza Strip are suspected of remaining in hospital in recent weeks in violation of the law, and the other suspect is a Palestinian who resides illegally in Israel. »
Four men and seven women from Gaza were arrested, the statement said.
تغطية صحفية:”جانب من اقتحام قوات الاحتلال مستشفى المقاصد في بلدة ا لطور بالقدس المحتلة”. pic.twitter.com/Ux5gV5YrpB
– فلسطين بوست (@PalpostN) November 2, 2023
(Translation: (Israeli) occupying forces storm Al-Makassed hospital in the town of al-Tur, occupied Jerusalem.)
Samira Aweina, a Makassed hospital worker, said dozens of Israeli police and soldiers raided the hospital on Thursday.
“They all entered at the same time and immediately sealed off the other entrances,” she explained.
“They arrested a group of elderly women from the emergency room with the young children they were with,” she continued. “They arrested the father of one of our patients and the grandmother of another patient.”
Qaddoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, told Al Jazeera that the PA had no information on those arrested.
“The occupation authorities have not provided us or the Red Cross with any details about the detainees in Gaza,” he said, speaking from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. “We don’t even know where they are being held or what their names are. »
Israel usually provides the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with the names of Palestinians it has arrested. The Red Cross in turn informs the Palestinian Authority. The role of the ICRC is generally to visit detainees and re-establish contact between family members.
“I want mom and Baba”
Other patients and their loved ones said they were stuck in uncertainty, unable to return home and forced to stay in hospital.
Imm Taha al-Farra is with her nine-year-old granddaughter Hala, who underwent spinal surgery on October 7.
“We were supposed to return after a few days,” Imm Taha said. “We can’t go back now. We don’t know anything. How are we supposed to get back?
Hala, who said she wanted to become a doctor so she could treat children, has been asking to return home for weeks.
“I want Mom and Baba,” she said. “I miss my brothers Omar and Ali.”
Their family lives in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Imm Taha said the families of her nieces and nephews, all 16 of them, were killed in an Israeli air raid on their home.
Another patient, Mahdiya al Shanti, has also been hospitalized for more than a month.
“I was supposed to return home towards the end of October, but now I can’t because of the war,” said the 20-year-old from northern Gaza.
“It’s hard to always know how my family is doing because the internet is out and sometimes they can’t charge their phones,” she continued. “They fled to the north, towards Khan Younis, but since there is no safe place in Gaza, it is as if they were going from one dangerous area to another. »
Mahdiya’s father accompanied her as a medical escort. He too was among those arrested by Israeli forces last Thursday.
Mahdiya said the forces stormed the hospital and broke into patients’ rooms and rooms where medical attendants were staying.
“They said they were looking for someone from Gaza,” she said.
She quickly sent a message to her father, who was in one of these rooms, warning him of the presence of Israeli forces. But it was too late.
“I don’t know where they took him,” Mahdiya said. “How can they do this in a hospital? Now I’m all alone and worried sick. My family is in Gaza, my father is missing and I am a patient here alone.
Hospital stay in the balance
There are six Palestinian hospitals in occupied East Jerusalem offering medical specialties that the Palestinian Ministry of Health is unable to provide in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to Medical Aid to the Palestinians (MAP), more than 50 percent of patients in these hospitals come from the occupied territories.
Makassed Islamic Charitable Society Hospital was established in 1968 and had 60 beds. The hospital has continued to expand and now has 250 beds, making it the main referral hospital for the Palestinian community in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
According to Makassed Hospital administration, there were 53 patients from the Gaza Strip, each accompanied by a family chaperone, when Israeli security forces raided the facility. The hospital, which said it was not authorized to make statements to the media about Thursday’s raid, declined to say how many patients and attendants from Gaza remained.
Doctors have cited fear of retaliation if they speak out – including the possibility of being arrested or losing their jobs.
As for patients in Gaza, their anxiety about what is happening to their families in the coastal enclave is compounded by their own unknown situation.
Nafez al Qahwaji, who was transferred to Makassed Hospital from the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, spent three days in the hospital before the start of the war.
“Israeli intelligence called my number and told me to evacuate my house in Khan Younis,” al-Qahwaji said. “I immediately called my children and told them to leave the house for fear that she would be targeted. Now they are taking refuge in a United Nations school.
Al-Qahwaji refused to reveal why he was being treated and initially thought he would only stay a week or two.
“I don’t have suitable clothes now that winter is coming,” he said. “I don’t know how I will get home if Erez is destroyed,” he added, referring to the Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza, also known as the Beit Hanoon crossing.
(Linah Alsaafin reporting from London, United Kingdom)