Every day I desperately try to contact my colleagues in Gaza: Doctors, nurses, paramedics, therapists and healthcare administrators, all part of the Palestinian American Medical Association’s programs in the tiny besieged coastal enclave that’s been under merciless Israeli bombardment for over a month.
A few nights ago, I finally reached my friend Riham. She told me about her family’s dilemma: Do they all remain in one house and risk the whole family being wiped out in one Israeli airstrike? Or should she and her husband split up and divide their kids between them to increase the chance that some will survive?
Riham told me that she and her husband decided to hunker down in separate places, hoping that at least one of them will remain alive to care for their children who make it through.
My hand shook as I hung up the phone. I am a doctor and my frequent travels to Gaza focus on health care. I’m also a father. I can’t imagine my wife, kids and me being forced to make a similar choice.
From my California home, I watch news of the Israeli bombardment of a trapped population of 2.2 million people, over half of them children.
4,100 children dead
At least 4,100 children are among the more than 10,000 people that have been killed in Gaza in the past month, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday. Hundreds more are buried beneath the rubble, presumed dead.
U.S. President Joe Biden called humanitarian assistance “a critical and urgent need.” Yet he continues to send weapons to Israel to continue pummeling Palestinians in Gaza, while uttering toothless statements about the importance of protecting civilian life, which Israel ignores.
I personally knew hundreds of children in Gaza from the psychosocial rehabilitation work we do there. I laughed with them; they told me their hopes and dreams. I hugged them goodbye before I departed after my last trip, just five months ago.
How could killing these children possibly be justified as “self defense?” This justification can only happen in a world that has so thoroughly dehumanized Palestinians that our children are no longer seen as children.
Growing up under brutal Israeli military occupation in the West Bank city of Nablus, subjected to checkpoints and curfews, I experienced first-hand being treated as less than human. The escalating Israeli rhetoric and violence against us has gone ignored and unchallenged by Western governments for decades. And now, our children are paying the price with their lives.
Father and a doctor
I keep imagining how Dr. Mohamed Abu Musa must have felt when he learned that his home was bombed and his son killed. The doctor, whose story has been internationally broadcast, works at the emergency room of Nasser Medical Complex in Southern Gaza. He had been at the hospital for 10 days straight, treating countless critically wounded people.
I imagine being in his shoes, overwhelmed with the horror, not able to go home and see my family. I can feel the wave of panic that would wash over me as I spot my wife, frantically describing our son to the ER nurses. “His name is Yousef, he’s 7 years old, he has fair skin with curly hair, he’s handsome.” I imagine a nurse locating my child’s body under a shroud, one of many corpses piled up in the corridor.
And then, I need to block out those images. I am a father, yes, but I’m also a doctor. Even before the bombardment began, Gaza’s health care was in a dire situation due to 16 years of Israel’s illegal siege and naval blockade and 55 years of Israeli military occupation.
Hospitals and clinics had chronic shortages of medication, medical supplies and diagnostic equipment such as X-ray machines. Limited electricity impacted everything from surgeries to dialysis. The siege restricted every aspect of daily life including preventing Palestinians from being able to travel, and controlling what goods could enter Gaza.
As Israel began bombarding Gaza, the Israeli government further tightened the siege, cutting off water, food, electricity and fuel. In the past four weeks, Israel killed 192 medical professionals, including many of my friends and colleagues, and many more have been displaced, forcing hospitals to function with a fraction of their staff. In addition, Israeli bombs damaged or destroyed 120 health care facilities and 40 ambulances. One-third of the hospitals and two-thirds of primary health care clinics are no longer functioning. Others are on the verge of closing. The rationed fuel for generators is almost gone.
Health care crisis
People’s daily medical needs don’t stop during wartime. But with the collapse of the health care infrastructure combined with the overwhelming number of severely injured patients, my colleagues in Gaza can scarcely provide crisis care, let alone routine medical interventions. Sewage is running in the streets. Gaza is now a breeding ground for infectious diseases. We are in a full-scale health care crisis.
If the Biden administration is serious about protecting civilians, it must insist that Israel’s complete siege and blockade be lifted, and safe corridors for sufficient humanitarian and medical aid be established, so that the most vulnerable of our population — children — can be reached without delay.
Most important: Biden and the entire world must reject the systematic dehumanization of those children. After all, children in Gaza would not need humanitarian aid if the world did not permit Israel to bomb and besiege them.
Dr. Yousef Khelfa is an oncologist in Sonora, California, and co-founder and former president of the Palestinian American Medical Association.
