Al-Shifa was a dream and a nightmare – INA NEWS

After I began finding out nursing at Al Azhar College, I knew I needed to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.

It was the largest, most prestigious hospital within the Gaza Strip. A few of the finest medical doctors and nurses in Palestine labored there. Numerous international medical missions would come and supply coaching and care there as effectively.

Many individuals from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip sought medical assist at al-Shifa. The title of the hospital means “therapeutic” in Arabic and certainly, it was a spot of therapeutic for the Palestinians of Gaza.

In 2020, I graduated from nursing college and tried to discover a job within the personal sector. After a number of short-term jobs, I received into al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.

I cherished my job on the emergency division very a lot. I went to work with ardour and constructive power daily. I’d meet sufferers with a large smile, hoping to alleviate a few of their ache. I at all times cherished to listen to sufferers’ prayers for me in gratitude.

Within the emergency division, we have been 80 nurses in whole – each men and women – and we have been all buddies. In actual fact, a few of my closest buddies have been colleagues on the hospital. Alaa was one among them. We did shifts collectively and went out for espresso outdoors of labor. She was a lovely lady who was very sort and cherished by everybody.

It was such friendships and the co.adery among the many employees that helped me pull by means of when the struggle began.

From the very first day, the hospital turned overwhelmed with casualties. After my first shift ended that day, I stayed within the nurses’ room crying for an hour over every little thing we had been by means of and all of the injured individuals I had seen struggling.

Inside days there have been greater than a thousand wounded and martyrs within the hospital. The extra individuals have been introduced in, the tougher we labored, making an attempt to save lots of lives.

I by no means anticipated that this horror would final for greater than a month. However it did.

Quickly, the Israeli military known as my household and advised us that we would have liked to go away our house in Gaza Metropolis. I confronted a troublesome alternative: to be with my household on this horrific time or to be with the sufferers who wanted me probably the most. I made a decision to remain.

I bid farewell to my household who fled south to Rafah and I stayed behind in al-Shifa Hospital, which turned my second house. Alaa stayed behind as effectively. We supported and comforted one another.

In early November, the Israeli military advised us to evacuate the hospital and laid a siege to it. Our medical provides began to dwindle. We have been shortly operating out of gasoline for our electrical energy mills that have been maintaining life-saving tools going.

Maybe probably the most heartbreaking second was after we ran out of gasoline and oxygen and we might now not maintain the untimely infants we had in our care within the incubators. We needed to relocate them to an working room the place we tried to maintain them heat. They have been struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to assist them. We misplaced eight harmless infants. I bear in mind sitting and crying for a very long time that day for these harmless souls.

Then on November 15, Israeli troopers stormed the complicated. The assault got here as a shock. As a medical facility, it was imagined to be protected beneath worldwide legislation, however that clearly didn’t cease the Israeli military.

Simply earlier than the raid, our administration advised us that they’d acquired a name that the Israelis have been about to storm the medical complicated. We shortly closed the gate of the emergency division and gathered inside across the nursing desk in the course of it, not understanding what to do. The following day, we noticed Israeli troopers surrounding the constructing. We couldn’t go away and we have been operating out of medical provides. We struggled to supply remedy to the sufferers we had with us.

We had no meals or water left. I bear in mind feeling dizzy and nearly fainting. I had not eaten something for 3 days. We misplaced some sufferers due to the siege and the Israeli raid.

On November 18, Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, al-Shifa’s director, got here to inform us that the Israelis had ordered the entire medical complicated to be evacuated. If I had a alternative, I’d have stayed, however the Israeli military didn’t go away me one.

Lots of of us, medical doctors and nurses, have been pressured to go away, together with many sufferers. Solely about two dozen employees stayed behind with bed-ridden sufferers who couldn’t be moved. Dr Abu Salmiya additionally stayed behind and was arrested a number of days later. He disappeared for the subsequent seven months.

I, together with dozens of colleagues head south per Israeli orders. Alaa and some others defied these orders and headed north to their households. We walked for a lot of kilometres and handed Israeli checkpoints, the place we have been made to attend for hours, till we have been capable of finding a donkey cart that would transport us a few of the approach.

After we lastly arrived in Rafah, I used to be past completely satisfied to see my household. There was a whole lot of crying and aid. However the happiness of being with my household was quickly overshadowed by surprising information.

Alaa was in a position to return to her household in Beit Lahiya, who had been displaced in a college shelter. However when she and her brother went to their deserted home to retrieve some belongings, an Israeli missile hit the constructing they usually have been martyred.

The information of her loss of life got here as an unlimited shock. A yr later, I nonetheless stay with the ache of dropping my shut buddy – one of many sweetest individuals I had ever recognized who cherished to assist others and who was at all times there to consolation me in troublesome moments.

In March, Israeli troopers returned to al-Shifa. For 2 weeks, they rampaged by means of the hospital, forsaking loss of life and devastation. Not a constructing was left within the medical complicated that was not broken or burned down. From a spot of therapeutic, al-Shifa was reworked right into a graveyard.

I have no idea how I’ll really feel after I see the hospital once more. How will I really feel understanding that the place of my finest skilled achievements and dearest moments shared with colleagues additionally turned a spot of loss of life, pressured disappearances and displacement?

At the moment, greater than a yr after I misplaced my office, I stay in a tent and take care of the unwell in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is unsure. However within the new yr, I’ve a dream: to see al-Shifa because it was – grand and exquisite.

The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.