When I started studying nursing at Al Azhar University, I knew I wanted to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.
It was the largest, most prestigious hospital in the Gaza Strip. Some of the best doctors and nurses in Palestine work there. Various foreign medical missions would come to provide training and care there as well.
Many people from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip seek health care in al-Shifa. The name of the hospital means “healing” in Arabic and indeed, it was a place of healing for the Palestinians of Gaza.
In 2020, I graduated from nursing school and tried to get a job in the private sector. After several temporary jobs, I joined al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.
I loved my job in the emergency department. I went to work with enthusiasm and positive energy every day. I would meet patients with a big smile, hoping to relieve some of their pain. I always loved hearing patients’ prayers of thanks.
In the emergency department, we were 80 nurses in total – both women and men – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my best friends were working with them at the hospital. Alaa was one of them. We would take turns together and go out for coffee outside of work. She was a beautiful girl who was kind and loved by everyone.
It was such camaraderie and interaction among the workers that helped me to continue when the war started.
From the first day, the hospital was filled with injured people. After my first shift that day, I sat in the nurses’ room for an hour crying about everything we had been through and all the injured people I had seen suffer.
In a few days there were more than a thousand wounded and martyrs in the hospital. When more people were brought in, we worked hard, trying to save lives.
I never expected this horrible thing to last more than a month. But it was so.
Soon, the Israeli army called my family and told us that we had to leave our home in Gaza City. I faced a difficult choice: to be with my family in this terrible time or to be with the patients who needed me the most. I decided to stay.
I said goodbye to my family who fled south to Rafah and stayed at al-Shifa hospital, which became my second home. Alaa also remained. We supported and comforted each other.
At the beginning of November, the Israeli army told us to leave the hospital and they surrounded it. Our medical supplies began to dwindle. Soon we were running out of fuel for our electric generators that kept the life saving machines running.
Perhaps the saddest time was when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and could no longer keep the premature babies we had in the incubators. We had to move them to the operating room where we tried to warm them up. They were struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to help them. We lost eight innocent children. I remember sitting and crying for a long time that day because of those innocent souls.
Then on November 15, Israeli soldiers stormed the building. This attack was shocking. As a medical facility, it should have been protected under international law, but that did not stop the Israeli army.
Just before the attack, our commanders told us that they had received a call that the Israelis were about to attack the medical center. We quickly closed the door of the emergency department and gathered inside around the nurses’ desk in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. The next day, we saw Israeli soldiers surrounding the building. We couldn’t walk and we were running out of medical supplies. We struggled to provide for the patients we have.
We had no more food or water. I remember feeling dizzy and almost passed out. I had not eaten anything for three days. We have lost some patients due to the Israeli siege and attack.
On November 18, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa, came to tell us that the Israelis ordered the evacuation of all medical facilities. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army did not leave me alone.
Hundreds of us, doctors and nurses, were forced to leave, along with many patients. Only about twenty workers were left behind and the patients were lying in bed and could not be moved. Dr. Abu Salmiya was also arrested a few days later. He disappeared for the next seven months.
I, along with a number of colleagues are going south according to Israeli orders. Alaa and a few others defied these orders and headed north to their families. We walked many kilometers and passed Israeli checkpoints, where we were asked to wait for hours, until we were able to find a donkey cart that could take us another way.
When we finally arrived in Rafah, I was very happy to see my family. There was a great cry and relief. But the joy of being with my family was soon overshadowed by some shocking news.
Alaa was able to return to his family in Beit Lahiya, who was expelled from the school shelter. But when he and his brother went to their abandoned house to collect some supplies, an Israeli missile hit the building and they were martyred.
The news of his death was very shocking. A year later, I’m still dealing with the pain of losing my best friend – one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known who loved to help others and was always there to comfort me in difficult times.
In March, Israeli soldiers returned to al-Shifa. For two weeks they roamed the hospital, leaving death and misery behind. No building was left in the medical center that was not damaged or burned. From a place of healing, al-Shifa was converted into a cemetery.
I don’t know how I will feel when I see the hospital again. How will I feel knowing that the place of my professional success and the lovely moments I shared with my colleagues also became a place of death, forced disappearance and displacement?
Today, a year after I lost my job, I live in a tent and take care of the sick in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is uncertain. But in the new year, I have a dream: to see al-Shifa as usual – beautiful and beautiful.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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