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 worked there. Various foreign medical missions would come and provide training and care there as well.
Many people from north to south of the Gaza Strip sought medical help 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 finished nursing school and tried to find a job in the private sector. After several short-term jobs, I joined al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.
I really enjoyed working in the emergency department. I went to work with passion and positive energy every day. I would meet patients with a big smile, hoping to ease their pain a little. I always enjoyed hearing patients pray for me in gratitude.
In the emergency department, we were a total of 80 nurses – women and men – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my closest friends were colleagues at the hospital. Ala was one of them. We toured together and went out for coffee outside of work. She was a beautiful girl who was very kind and loved by everyone.
It was camaraderie like this and camaraderie among the staff that got me through when the war started.
From the first day, the hospital was filled with victims. After my first shift that day ended, I stood in the nurses room crying for an hour about everything we had been through and all the hurt people I had seen suffer.
Within a few days there were more than a thousand wounded and martyrs in the hospital. The more people brought in, the harder we worked, trying to save lives.
I never expected this horror to last more than a month. But it was done.
Soon, the Israeli army called my family and told us that we had to leave our home in Gaza City. I was faced with 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 stayed behind. We supported and comforted each other.
In early November, the Israeli army told us to evacuate the hospital and surrounded it. Our medical supplies began to dwindle. We were quickly running out of fuel for our power generators that were keeping the life-saving equipment running.
Perhaps the most distressing moment was when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and could no longer keep the premature babies in our care in the incubators. We had to move them to an operating theater where we tried to keep them warm. They were struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to help them. We lost eight innocent babies. I remember that day I sat and cried for those innocent souls.
Then, on November 15, Israeli soldiers attacked the compound. The attack came as a shock. As a medical facility, it was supposed to be protected under international law, but that clearly didn’t stop the Israeli military.
Shortly before the raid, our administration told us that they had received a call that the Israelis were about to attack the medical complex. We quickly closed the emergency door and gathered inside around the nurse’s table in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. The next day, we saw Israeli soldiers surrounding the building. We couldn’t leave and we were running out of medical supplies. We struggled to provide treatment for the patients we had with us.
We had neither food nor water. I remember feeling dizzy and almost passed out. I had not eaten anything for three days. We lost several patients to the Israeli siege and raid.
On November 18, Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa, came to tell us that the Israelis had ordered the entire medical complex to be evacuated. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army didn’t give me one.
Hundreds of us, doctors and nurses, were forced to leave, along with many patients. Only about two dozen staff stayed behind with bedridden patients who could not be moved. Dr Abu Salmiya also stayed behind and was arrested a few days later. He disappeared for the next seven months.
I, along with dozens of colleagues, go south according to Israel’s orders. Alaa and several others defied these orders and headed north to their families. We walked for many kilometers and passed Israeli checkpoints, where we were made to wait for hours, until we managed to find a donkey cart that could take us part of the way.
When we finally reached Rafah, I was extremely happy to see my family. There was much crying and relief. But the happiness of being with my family was soon overshadowed by the shocking news.
Alaa was able to return to her family in Beit Lahiya, who had moved to a school shelter. But when she and her brother went to their abandoned house to get some belongings, an Israeli rocket hit the building and they were martyred.
The news of her death came as a great shock. A year later, I still live 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 rampaged through the hospital, leaving death and destruction in their wake. There is not a single building left in the medical complex that has not been damaged or burned. From a place of healing, al-Shifa was transformed 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 best professional achievements and most cherished moments shared with colleagues also became a place of death, enforced disappearances and displacement?
Today, more than a year after I lost my job, I live in a tent and care for 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 it once was – magnificent and beautiful.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
