195 days surviving Israel's genocide: Gaza doctors struggle to save their patients, families and themselves

Over 195 days after the launch of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Saad al-Din, a Palestinian doctor, used to move between local hospitals in the Gaza Strip to provide essential treatment to the injured and sick and doing what he could to keep them alive. 

Often, Saad al-Din, along with other doctors, is forced to work long shifts without sleep to deal with significant mass casualty events from each of Israel's strikes. 

But the most challenging thing for him, he expresses, is trying to balance his professional and humanitarian duty with his private life and securing the safety of his family in light of Israel's war, in which a civilian and a soldier, a doctor or a journalist are targetted indiscriminately.

Speaking to The New Arab, Saad al-Din said, "This is the first time I have witnessed such a deadly and devastating war. The Israelis were targeting everyone. Often, I found myself trapped between performing my professional duty towards patients and working to secure my family."

The doctor adds, "I was constantly afraid that I would be killed, as happened to a large number of doctors, and that I would leave my family alone without a breadwinner, without security, or a future for my children."

During the first two months of the war, Saad Al-Din worked in hospitals in Gaza City, moving between Al-Shifa Medical Hospital and Al-Baptist Hospital, as well as the city's private medical centres.

But when the Israeli army forced many of the city's residents to flee to the southern regions, the doctor says that he and his family joined the exodus and sheltered with the staff of doctors at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Dier al-Balah City in central Gaza.

"The decision to leave was very difficult for me, especially since a large number of patients still needed us as doctors to save them (...) At the same time, my family also needs me. I struggled a lot before I decided to leave Gaza City," he recalled to TNA. 

Saad al-Din's suffering did not end. Israeli attacks intensified in the central areas of the city and in areas that were supposed to be safe. 

In each attack, the doctor had to leave his family alone in the tent for days to help treat patients. 

"When the Israeli army committed massacres against civilians and the victims arrived at the hospital, I prayed to God that my family members would not be among the victims. (...) I was and still am suffering from nightmares warning me that I will be a witness to a massacre against my family," he said. 

"It is terrifying. I do not want to lose anyone from my family. I want this war to end soon and for us to be able to continue our work without living in this cycle of terror," the doctor said.

Ibrahim is a Palestinian doctor from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. For months, he remained in the north of the besieged enclave, working to provide medical services to his patients at the Indonesian Hospital and Kamal Odwan Hospital.

Ibrahim, a Palestinian surgeon who preferred to keep his family name hidden for fear of being targeted by Israel, told TNA, "The matter was not easy for us, especially in light of the staggering increase in the number of casualties, which we had never witnessed in previous Israeli wars. We frequently performed operations along the hospitals' corridors due to insufficient spaces to treat the injured and sick." 

"We faced many difficulties and challenges, the most important of which was the significant shortage of medical personnel and the restriction of movement and access between areas of the Gaza Strip," he added. 

Ibrahim, with several doctors, was targeted by Israeli forces while they were inside an ambulance and trying to save one injured patient.

"On that day, we were surprised to hear the sound of a strong explosion, and we were surprised that another ambulance that was driving in front of us was hit," he recalled. 

"We knew that we would be the next target and that we had no immunity from Israeli death (...) I remembered my children and what would happen to them if we were killed and who would take care of them. I was terrified that I would die and leave my children alone in this situation," he described. 

Israel has been launching a large-scale war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, after Hamas-led forces carried out an unexpected military attack on Israeli military bases and civilian settlements within and around the Gaza envelope. 

Since then, Israel has been deliberately attacking hospitals and medical centres, claiming that Hamas uses them to carry out its military activities. Israel's attacks have destroyed dozens of hospitals, ending many essential healthcare services for people.

The Israeli army also killed more than 390 Palestinian medical personnel and wounded more than 900 others were wounded in the Gaza Strip. According to official data issued by the Ministry of Health, dozens of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff have been detained, and there is no further information about their fate.

As a result, the Gaza Strip suffers from a significant shortage of doctors in rare specialities, such as thoracic surgery and blood vessels.

Israel destroyed the four most important large central hospitals in the Gaza Strip: the Al-Shifa Complex, which covers Gaza City; the "Indonesian" Complex, which covers Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia; the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis; and the European Gaza Hospital, which provides care for people living between Rafah and Khan Younis.

This prompted doctors to work in several small field hospitals, including private, charitable and governmental hospitals, to reduce pressure on larger hospitals.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, told TNA that "the Israeli occupation deliberately destroyed the health system in Gaza by committing brutal massacres and carrying out direct executions of medical personnel and patients, like what happened in the Shifa Medical Complex and hospitals in northern Gaza."

"We lost specialised medical personnel who formed the backbone of medical services, including examining tumour samples and kidney transplantation," he added.

"The destruction of Al-Shifa Medical Complex was a devastating blow to the health system in Gaza," al-Qedra explained. He called for immediately establishing field hospitals and sending international multi-specialised medical teams to Gaza.