Gaza Under The Attack -No Place is Safe -

It is extremely difficult for me to be here in the UK watching events unfold on the ground in Gaza from this very far distance. With a broken heart I watch the news from this unprecedented and savage Israeli attack on my friends, family, and colleagues in Gaza. In the last two days around 300 Israeli air strikes have hit dozens of locations in the overcrowded Gaza Strip. Their “military targets” are mixed in with homes, schools, hospitals, and universities. As of this writing, 294 people are dead and more than 600 injured.

Unnecessary deaths

I am distraught thinking about the fate of these injured people. I know the situation of hospitals in Gaza well through my health and humanitarian work. The siege of Gaza has left our hospitals without one hundred basic medications and many important diagnostic and laboratory equipment is not working because spare parts aren’t available and the fluctuation of current from our irregular power supply has left some equipment beyond repair. In this period of crisis, Gaza hospitals are also lacking crucial medications and supplies for their operation rooms.

I’ve watched the chaotic scenes inside Gaza hospitals as staff struggle to find space for all of the injured and dead. The unprecedented numbers of casualties come in from ambulances and cars in a near-constant stream. But emergency situations are nothing new in Gaza; it is the impact of the siege that has changed the odds. I know that we would be facing a different situation if the 18 months of siege hadn’t drained our supplies of medicines and food, making it difficult to treat and feed patients.

I’ve spoken to several of my fellow doctors in Gaza and each one of them is overwhelmed and demoralized. Even with all of their training, the material conditions in Gaza are preventing them from doing what they are capable of. They could have saved many more lives.

I remember how ambulance drivers were not allowed to reach the injured in previous military attacks on Gaza. Many lives could have been saved then too if the ambulances reached the injured at the right time. A few minutes can be the difference between life and death. I wonder whether we will hear reports like this again once the emergency situation is over and there is time for truth and reflection.

No place is safe in Gaza

The first military air strikes struck at the exact time that school children make their way home. W here I live in Gaza City, several primary schools are very close to the police headquarters which were among the first targets. These horrifying facts explain the high number of women and children amongst the dead. Thirty children and nine women have been reported dead and another 130 children and 38 women injured.

I’ve spoken with friends and family in Gaza and my heart sunk further with their first-hand accounts of the death and destruction. On a personal level I am mourning the loss of one of my cousins, Ibrahim Mahmoud El-Farra, age 22. He was killed in the first attack on the presidential palace. F16 fighter planes fired three big missiles at the building. Neighbors tell me the ground shook and that the blast broke all the windows of my nearby apartment building.

My cousin, and an unknown number of other victims, is still under the rubble. The scale of destruction is too large for Gaza’s small number of rescue workers. They are slowly pulling body parts out of the rubble as Israeli air strikes make more and more piles of rubble and people.

The number of reported deaths will increase in the next few days as more bodies are recovered and more of the seriously injured cases die because their serious but treatable wounds cannot be treated in Gaza.

No justification

As a mother, I believe that all children are precious and deserve love and protection. If Israeli children are terrified and confined to the shelters because of the Palestinian rockets, this is wrong. But it is no justification to kill Gaza’s children and innocent civilians, who make up the majority of victims. Israel’s actions are creating more and more hatred. While families in Gaza cower in their homes, ready for death to strike, how can Israel talk of peace? Neither building the wall in the West Bank nor attacking Gaza so savagely will bring peace to Israel. Only peace that is based on justice and respects the rights of us all will work in the end. We are humans too.

With an aching heart I continue to watch Gaza from a distance. I cannot turn the TV off, cannot detach myself from what is going on there. Not while my medical colleagues work hard under such extraordinarily circumstances. Not while my friends, my family, and the whole population of Gaza face such horrible atrocities and constant fear. The nightmare isn’t over.