“All eyes of course are on Rafah right now, but the violence continues across the Gaza Strip,” my friend Dr James Smith, a British emergency physician, said to Al Jazeera this weekend from Al Nuseirat refugee camp.
The medical team James volunteers with was forced to move from Rafah due to intensified violence from Israeli occupation forces when a long-feared assault on the southern city became a reality in early May. The assault brought with it massacres of civilians living in tents, more mass displacement of people with nowhere safe to go, increased disease and starvation, the closure of border crossings, the suspension of many aid activities, further targeted killings of healthcare workers as they work to save lives, and a hospital system choking at every turn.
During the week, my friend Mahmoud*, a language professor, messaged via WhatsApp, “I just finished a visit to a nearby medical point. It turns out two of my boys also have symptoms of Hepatitis A.” Mahmoud was very unwell himself with flu-like symptoms one week ago and was unable to eat or get out of bed. “They are okay. They are Gazans, strong enough to withstand terrible conditions,” Mahmoud assured me of his children. “But they have had too much to see over the past eight months.”
In early February, my friend Mohammed, a Gazan paediatrician, wrote on WhatsApp, “To stay alive in Gaza now is a matter of luck. They will attack Rafah soon. Where should we go?”
Mohammed had been staying in a tent in Rafah with his family after the destruction of their home in Gaza City in November. His house was also demolished by Israeli airstrikes several years ago in another major military escalation. Mohammed is an expert in child nutrition who now struggles to ward off malnutrition in his own five children.
In May 2021, during a major escalation of violence in Gaza, Mohammed wrote to me: “Even nightmares have an end. What is happening in Gaza is never-ending. I am scared of falling asleep… We are no longer the same as we were before… Tell them… ‘He is not ok.’”
In 2020, in his child health clinic in Gaza City, a newly built, welcoming space with the scent of fresh paint, Mohammed and I spoke over coffee about living, enduring and dying in Gaza: “If you will not die from cancer, you will die from airstrike. And if you will not die from airstrike, you will die from starvation,” Mohammed reflected. “Death is working with us here in Gaza. It’s here. Nobody will be the first, nobody will be the second. The majority of our life is built on believing in death.”
Like many others who have for so long held on to land and home in Gaza, Mohammed had made the distressing decision in recent weeks that leaving is the only option. He was seeking support for visas to Australia, first for his extended family of 22, then his immediate family, and then in the most pained request to me on WhatsApp: “I need to get my 16-year-old son out. He will be sick if he stays… I want to send him to Australia. Please keep him with your kids.”
Mohammed’s appeal is far from isolated. For weeks, Palestinians in Gaza had been dreading the impending Israeli army ground invasion of Rafah. The number of fundraising campaigns on GoFundMe to support Palestinian families in Gaza to pay exorbitant evacuation fees to leave, assist those who have managed to reach safety in Egypt or elsewhere, or help to simply buy food, has climbed to 1,000, alongside countless private pleas overwhelming social media pages. Most of these campaigns involve wicked decisions that will separate families.
My physiotherapist friend Ahmed has sought help for his wife and children to leave Gaza, while he has committed to remaining behind to care for his patients. My translator colleague Hana was preparing to leave, but not without first securing the funds to take her best friend and her 7-month-old baby, while her friend’s husband (and new father) stays to care for his elderly parents.
With the intensification of violence, disease and famine, and the closure by Israel of the border crossing to Egypt — the only possible escape route for Gazans — the past month has brought messages unambiguous in their meaning.
Mohammed wrote on WhatsApp as the assault on Rafah began, “I cannot handle anymore.”
On the morning of May 6, my taxi driver friend Ahmed, messaged, “I live in Rafah. The Israeli army is sending us leaflets to evacuate. By God, the family is tired and perishing.”
“My hope is dying,” wrote Khaled*, a young medical student. Khaled should be in his fourth year of medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza. No universities have survived Israel’s military onslaught.
Mahmoud* confessed, “I am tired of being strong. I want to reclaim my normal being, to live both my strength and my fragility, to enjoy taking for granted small things.”
Last week, my good friend Ola, a Gazan paediatrician currently based in the US, separated from family and unable to return to her own destroyed home, shared with me over the phone, “It is as if there was a full dictionary over my chest, yet I still don’t have the words to verbalise what I feel.”
As evacuation leaflets were drifting down from Gaza’s sky, Khaled*, the medical student, wrote on to ask for help to continue his studies: “All I care about is my education journey. I want to become a doctor despite all the horrible circumstances we live in. I can conquer these circumstances, and I will. But I need help from people like you.” He spoke of his love of music that keeps him going, “I love Olivia Newton-John style. I love John Lennon songs. Alicia Keys is one of the best singers. Imagine Dragons is a pop band and I love the raucous music they create.”
My friend Omar*, a public health doctor and teacher displaced to the middle area of Gaza, messaged, “We are okay. We hope this will end soon, to restart again. Build ourselves up. Refresh our minds. Get up from this worst dream. And look forward to a new future. Because there is still light at the end of the tunnel.”
Mahmoud*, unfailing in concluding his messages with dogged hope, writes, “This time will pass. It will certainly take some precious things with it. But surely what remains will be the force to keep oneself going.”
*Names have been changed.
