When I started studying nursing at Al Azhar University, I knew I wanted to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.
This was the largest and most prestigious hospital in the Gaza Strip. Some of the best doctors and nurses in Palestine worked there. Various foreign medical missions would come to provide training and care there as well.
Many people from north to south of the Gaza Strip sought medical help at 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 find a job in the private sector. After several short-term jobs, I got into al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.
I really enjoyed my work at the emergency department. I went to work with passion and positive energy every day. I would meet patients with a big smile, hoping to relieve some of their pain. I have always been pleased to hear patients' prayers for me with thanksgiving.
In the emergency department, we were 80 nurses in total – both women and men – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my closest friends were colleagues at the hospital. Alaa was one of them. We did shifts together and went out for coffee outside of work. She was a beautiful girl who was very kind and loved by everyone.
It was such friendship and camaraderie among the workers that helped me get through when the war started.
From day one, the hospital was overwhelmed with casualties. After my first shift ended that day, I stayed in the nurses' room crying for an hour over everything we had been through and the injured people I had seen. suffering
Within 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 terror to last more than a month. But he did.
Soon, the Israeli army contacted my family and told us that we had to leave our home in Gaza City. I had 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 say goodbye to my family who fled south to Rafah and stayed behind in 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 put a siege on it. Our medical supplies began to dwindle. We were quickly running out of fuel for our electric generators that kept life saving equipment going.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment was when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and could not keep the premature babies in our care in the incubators. We had to move them to an operating room 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 sitting and crying for a long time that day for those innocent souls.
Then on November 15, Israeli soldiers attacked the building. The attack came as a surprise. As a medical facility, it was supposed to be protected under international law, but that clearly didn't stop the Israeli army.
Just before the attack, our administration told us that they had received word that the Israelis were going to storm the medical center. We quickly closed the emergency department gate and gathered around the central nursing desk, not knowing what to do. The next day, we saw Israeli soldiers around the building. We couldn't leave and we were running out of medical supplies. It was difficult for us to treat the patients who were with us.
We had no food or water left. I remember feeling dizzy and almost fainting. I hadn't eaten anything for three days. We lost some patients because of the Israeli siege and attack.
On November 18, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa, came to tell us that the Israelis had ordered the evacuation of the entire medical center. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army left me no choice.
Hundreds of us, doctors and nurses, had to leave, along with many patients. Only about two dozen staff stayed behind with immobile bed patients. Dr. Abu Salmiya also stayed behind and was arrested several days later. He disappeared for the next seven months.
I, along with dozens of colleagues will go south according to Israeli orders. Alaa and a few others defied these orders and went north to their families. We walked for many kilometers and passed Israeli checkpoints, where we were asked to wait for hours, until we found a donkey cart that we could carry part of the way.
When we finally arrived in Rafah, I was very happy to see my family. There was much crying and relief. But the joy of being with my family was soon overshadowed by terrible news.
Alaa was able to return to her family in Beit Lahiya, which was relocated in a school shelter. But when she and her brother went to their abandoned house to retrieve some things, an Israeli missile hit the building and killed them.
The news of her death came as a great surprise. A year later, I still live with the pain of losing my best friend – one of the sweetest people I have ever known who loved to help others and always there to comfort me in difficult times.
In March, Israeli soldiers returned to al-Shifa. For two weeks, they are to ram through the hospital, leaving behind death and devastation. Not a building was left in the medical center that was not 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 the best moments shared with colleagues became a place of death, deportation and displacement?
Today, more than a year after I lost my job, I live in a tent and care for the sick in a mobile clinic. My future, our future is uncertain. But in the new year, I have a dream: to see al-Shifa as it used to be – big and beautiful.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
