This morning I opened social media to search for news from Gaza. I had to scroll through my newsfeed for a while before I saw the first mention of my home country.
Yet the news we receive from Gaza through friends, family and social media is no less grim than it was a year ago. Its people continue to cry out for help, hoping the world will hear them.
For three months, Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, appealed to the world for help as the Israeli army besieged the hospital, cut off supplies, bombarded it and massacred the people nearby. and injured some of the medical staff and patients inside.
In a video call released on December 12, Dr Abu Safia lamented: “We are now without any capacity and providing a low level of service. I hope there are ears listening. We hope that there is a living conscience that will hear our call and facilitate a humanitarian corridor to the hospital so that Kamal Adwan Hospital continues its work to provide services.
But his cries for help fell on deaf ears. The day after Christmas, Israeli bombing killed a woman at the hospital entrance and five medical staff: Dr. Ahmed Samour, a pediatrician; Esraa Abu Zaidah, laboratory technician; Abdul Majid Abu al-Eish and Maher al-Ajrami, paramedics; and Fares al-Houdali, a maintenance technician. Shrapnel shattered the skull of nurse Hassan Dabous inside the hospital, putting his life in danger.
Yesterday, Israeli soldiers stormed the hospital and set it on fire, evicting 350 patients and kidnapping Dr. Abu Safia and other medical staff.
This horrible news received little attention in the international media; there has been no reaction from foreign governments or leading institutions, with the exception of a few Middle Eastern states and the WHO. Israel has clearly succeeded in normalizing its brutal attacks, the destruction of Palestinian hospitals and the killing of Palestinian patients and medical staff.
There was also no reaction from the world when, earlier this month, Dr Said Joudeh, the last orthopedic surgeon in northern Gaza, was assassinated on his way to work at the The barely functional al-Awda hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp. Dr. Joudeh was a retired surgeon who felt compelled to return to work due to the desperate shortage of doctors caused by Israel’s targeted killings.
Just a week before his assassination, he learned that his son, Majd, had been killed. Despite his grief, Dr. Joudeh continued his work.
Israel seeks to eliminate all aspects of civilian life in northern Gaza as part of a policy aimed at depopulating it. It is for this reason that it targets civilian infrastructure throughout the north and obstructs its functioning. The few medical facilities were the last vestiges of civilian life.
In addition to attempting to exterminate medical personnel, the Israeli military also systematically prevents civil defense teams and ambulances from saving lives in the north, often beating and killing them when they attempt to do so.
And it’s not just calls from the North that are being ignored.
The whole of Gaza has been hit by famine as Israel has significantly reduced the number of humanitarian and commercial trucks entering the Gaza Strip. Hunger is omnipresent and affects even those who can afford to buy food but cannot find it.
My cousin, a teacher at UNRWA, recently told me about his visit to his sick and displaced sister in Deir el-Balah. During his visit, he could not sleep. He hadn’t eaten bread for 15 days, but it wasn’t his own diabetic hunger that kept him awake. It was the cries of his sister’s children asking for just a piece of bread. Desperate to comfort them, my cousin told them story after story until they fell asleep. But he remained awake, haunted by their hunger and his own.
In addition to food, Israel is also blocking the delivery of essential materials for building shelters. Four babies have already died from the cold since the start of the month.
Amid the famine and harsh winter, Israeli bombings against the homes and tents of displaced people have not stopped.
On December 7, a distant relative, Dr. Muhammad al-Nairab, lost his wife and three daughters when the Israeli army struck their house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Two of his daughters, Sally and Sahar, were doctors and helped save lives. They can’t do it anymore.
When my niece, Nour, a mother of two, contacted her uncle, Dr. Muhammad, to offer condolences, she found the pain of his loss intolerable. I spoke to him shortly after. His words cut through the despair like a cry: “When will the world hear and see us? When will these massacres matter? Are we not human?
On December 11, another family was affected not far from Dr. Muhammad’s home, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. This Israeli attack killed Palestinian journalist Iman al-Shanti, as well as her husband and three children.
Days before her assassination, Iman shared a video of herself reflecting on the reality of genocide. “Is it possible that this level of failure exists? Is the blood of the people of Gaza so cheap for you? she asked the world.
There was no response. Just as war crimes against Palestinians have been normalized, so too have Palestinian death and pain been normalized. This normalization not only silences their suffering, but also denies their humanity.
Yet for Palestinians, the pain of loss is anything but normal: it persists, sinking into the soul, raw and relentless, carried by the echoes of those they have lost, both inside and out. outside Gaza. This is a transnational pain, a grief that crosses borders and defies borders, linking Palestinians in exile to those enduring the horrors of genocide.
In a December 3 social media post, journalist Dayana al-Mughrabi, currently displaced in Egypt, described the endless grief of the people of Gaza: “Our loved ones don’t die once, they die many times after their death. A person died the day he died, then died again the day his watch that I kept on my wrist for years was broken. He died again when the teacup he was drinking from broke. This person died again on the day that reminds us of the actual date of his death, and after his burial, when the coffee residue was washed from his last cup and when I saw someone collect the rest of his medication to get rid of it. . Those we love keep dying many times – they never stop dying – not for a single day.
As this repetition of death occurs more than 45,000 times, the world appears ready to leave Gaza. Fifteen months into this genocide, advocates and activists around the world are devastated and exhausted by the endless destruction in Gaza, and the overwhelming silence and acceptance of it.
As a native Palestinian and a third-generation Palestinian refugee, despite the indelible marks left on my soul by the genocide – marks that time cannot erase – I refuse to lose hope. I remember the words of Czech dissident Vaclav Havel: “Hope is certainly not the same thing as optimism. It’s not about the belief that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. »
South Africa’s case against the apartheid regime before the International Court of Justice and the work of the International Criminal Court are not only significant: they are crucial in establishing Israel’s status as a pariah, among nations that sought the eradication of entire peoples. The world must not forget Gaza. Now more than ever, their cries must be heard and the call for justice must be answered.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.