Deir el-Balah, Gaza – As the bombardments intensified and moved closer and closer to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, patients, displaced people and doctors grew increasingly concerned for their safety.
Then, unmanned Israeli quadcopters began shooting at anything that moved outside the building, forcing tens of thousands of families to dismantle their tents and flee for their lives.
Israeli tanks then reached the entrance to the Maghazi refugee camp and the Israeli army announced that the area around the hospital had become a theater of operations.
There would be no safety inside the medical facility for the tens of thousands of people sheltering there. They had to start fleeing for their lives, to get themselves and their families to safety.
Piles of belongings appeared outside the hospital as people struggled to find vans, cars or even donkey carts to take away their belongings.
Bedding, dismantled tents, clothes, mats and children’s backpacks were piled up, with each family’s belongings packed together.
Some families had accepted hospital beds, likely because their loved one was a patient who would still need them once they got to a safe place.
Not all patients were able to leave the hospital, some were too sick or injured to move, while others were not accompanied by their families to help them in what certainly looked dangerous.
To take care of them, some doctors stayed behind, like Ismail Jabr, a fifth-year medical student whose family lived around the hospital and who had decided to continue coming to the hospital, said. he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“I come here every day to see if I can help. I have been working with the orthopedics department since day one.
“A lot of doctors left to get their families to safety, so yesterday it was just me and five doctors. Together, we had to manage the orthopedics department, the operating rooms, the hospitalization department and the emergency room. We had no supplies, we worked without morphine.
“We were just doing what Gazans do, we are stubborn people and we continue to do what we can. »
The hubbub continued around Jabr, and he excused himself to go tend to a patient.
Nurse Mohamed al-Hams was also part of the remaining team.
“I sent my family away but stayed to support them as much as I could. It’s so terrible here, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave these people behind and leave.
“I experienced the same thing in al-Shifa, I had to evacuate from there and leave the patients behind and I don’t know what happened to them.
“I can’t do this again, I can’t abandon my patients again. »
Hours later, an Israeli attack hit a house a few meters from the hospital’s west gate, spreading even more terror among displaced people around the hospital.
Eight people died and around 30 others were injured in the attack.
