Al-Shifa was a dream and a nightmare. Israel-Palestine conflict

When I started studying nursing at Al Azhar University, I knew I wanted to work at Al-Shifa Hospital. This 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 will come and provide training and care there as well.

Many people from north to south of the Gaza Strip sought medical assistance in Al-Shifa. The hospital’s name means “healing” in Arabic and, in fact, it was a place of treatment for Palestinians from Gaza.

In 2020, I graduated from nursing school and tried to find a job in the private sector. After several short-term jobs, I came to Al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.

I loved my work in the emergency department. I went to work every day with enthusiasm and positive energy. I would meet patients with a smile, hoping to bring some relief from their pain. I always loved hearing patients’ grateful prayers for me.

In the emergency department, we were 80 nurses in total – both male and female – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my close friends were colleagues at the hospital. Alha was one of them. We worked shifts together and went out for coffee outside of work. She was a beautiful girl who was very kind and everyone loved her.

It was such friendships and camaraderie among the staff that kept me going when the war broke out.

The hospital was filled with casualties from the very first day. After my first shift ended that day, I stayed in the nurses’ room for an hour and cried over all the events we had gone through and all the injured people I had seen suffering.

Within a few days, more than a thousand were injured and martyred in the hospital. The more people were brought in, the harder we worked to try to save lives.

I never thought this horror would last for more than a month. But it happened.

Soon, the Israeli army called my family and told us that we needed to leave our home in Gaza City. I was faced with a difficult choice: to be with my family during this terrible time or to be with the patients who needed me most. I decided to stay.

I bid farewell to my family who fled south to Rafah and I stayed in Al-Shifa hospital, which became my second home. Alaya also remained behind. We supported and consoled each other.

In early November, the Israeli army asked us to evacuate the hospital and surrounded it. Our medical supplies began to dwindle. We were rapidly running out of fuel for the power generators that were keeping life-saving equipment running.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment was when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and could no longer place the premature babies in our care into the incubators. We had to transfer him to an operating room where we tried to keep him warm. He was struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to help him. We lost eight innocent children. I remember that day I sat and cried for a long time for those innocent souls.

Then on November 15, Israeli soldiers stormed the compound. This attack came as a shock. As a medical facility, it should have been protected under international law, but this apparently did not stop the Israeli military.

Just before the raid, our administration told us that they had received a call that the Israelis were about to attack the medical complex. We immediately closed the emergency department gate and gathered around the nursing desk in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. The next day, we saw Israeli soldiers surrounding the building. We couldn’t go and we were running out of medical supplies. We struggled to provide treatment to the patients with us.

We had no food or water left. I remember feeling dizzy and almost fainting. I had not eaten anything for three days. We lost some patients due to the siege and Israeli attack.

On November 18, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa, told us that the Israelis had ordered the evacuation of the entire medical complex. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army did not leave me a single option.

We were forced to leave hundreds of doctors and nurses along with many patients. Only about two dozen staff remained with the bedridden patients who could not be moved. Dr. Abu Salmiya also stayed behind and was arrested several days later. He remained missing for the next seven months.

I, along with dozens of colleagues, are heading south in accordance with Israeli orders. Ala and some others disobeyed these orders and went north to their families. We walked for several kilometers and passed through Israeli checkpoints, where we had to wait for hours until we found a donkey cart that could take us some distance.

When we finally reached Rafah, I was overjoyed to see my family. There was a lot of crying and relief. But the joy of being with my family was soon ended by shocking news.

Alaa was able to return to her family in Beit Lahiya, who had been displaced to a school shelter. But when he and his brother went to their abandoned house to collect some belongings, an Israeli missile struck the building and they were martyred.

The news of his death came as a huge shock. A year later, I still live with the pain of losing my close friend – one of the sweetest people I ever knew who loved to help others and who was always there to console me in difficult moments. Was present.

In March, Israeli troops 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 is not damaged or burnt. From a place of healing, Al-Shifa was converted into a cemetery.

I don’t know how I will feel when I see the hospital again. How would I feel knowing that my best professional achievements and most cherished moments shared with colleagues have also become a place of death, enforced disappearance and displacement?

Today, more than a year after losing my workplace, 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 used to be – grand and beautiful.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.