Fear, pain and hope few: volunteer doctors in Gaza Israeli conflict news

In the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis in Gaza, a volunteer doctor is collapsing while talking about the things he saw during his mission here.

It is impossible to overcome the scenes of children who are starving, shocking and wounding.

“The scene of a child stands at the door, confusing that they lost his entire family in a bombing, I have never forgotten that,” he added with a stumbling voice while tears fill his eyes.

“He will never feel enough.”

Massad is a member of the medical mission by Rahma Worldwide, one of four doctors working in Qatar to join.

He says: “I feel that regardless of what we do for (the people of Gaza), he will never feel enough,” he says.

“(However), the feeling that is unable to be outside Gaza and watching the news has now disappeared; at least I feel I am doing my role.”

It is a feeling that the other three doctors have echoed to the island. Orthopedic surgeon described a long line of doctors who participated in medical tasks to Gaza, and some had to wait for up to five months to get a place in a mission to open up.

Dr. Dia Rashidan, the ophthalmologist, is struggling to keep his voice steadfast because he told Al -Jazeera that Tuesday was the last day of the mission and the doctors will return to their hospitals the next day.

“But I hope that there are longer trips to Gaza in the future,” he added.

Their work in Gaza is not easy, but this is not the reason that these doctors are sad to leave their mission behind them. On the contrary, every day is a struggle as they try to deal with the size of deaths, diseases and injuries that do not simply have the equipment to be treated.

Israel has often prevented hospital supplies to Gaza during its 19 -month war on the besieged pocket. Medical missions are not allowed to bring anything with them.

Therefore, doctors struggle with the equipment they can find, and sometimes they re -use “available” medical tools again and again, despite the danger that poses, because there is no other option, says Dr. Rashidan.

At the back of their minds, many doctors tell Al -Jazeera that the idea is always that people in Gaza die from wounds and diseases that can be easily treated in any other hospital that has sufficient supplies.

“Sometimes, we cannot cover the patient or take precautions to maintain the infertility of the operating room,” says Dr. Hajjawi.

“Sometimes, I don’t have the right panels or screws that I need to fix the ends. I had to use the wrong size component … just to get better enough so that one day they can travel for more treatment.”

The things that happen to people in war

While doctors coming to Gaza often follow the developments there closely before arrival, nothing, as the island says, they could prepare them for the level of destruction that the Gaza people had to deal with.

“Words cannot describe the pain in which people are here, or the level of exhaustion of medical teams. They have worked around the clock for a year for a year and a half now, despite their personal pain and tragedies,” says Mohamed Al -Maraqa in Qatar.

There is an allocation in the voice of Dr. Almanaseer as he talks about the issue that affected him in the deepest, the story of a young boy about two years old was brought to the emergency room after Israel and his family bombed him.

“I have done the usual recovery attempts with him, but he needed immediate surgery. I was in the operating room, helping the surgeon of the children, but it became clear to us that the child may not survive.”

The child died the next morning.

“He was at the same age of my son, and even had the same name. Kennan, Little Kennan, may God and your mother, who were killed in the same shelling, were next to him.”

Extreme and urgent injuries such as Kennan are what deals with the medical teams with day after day, which leads to a large group of patients who need less urgent care and who continue to pay the list.

Like patients who were waiting for months or years to surgery, some of whom helped Dr. Rashdan during this task.

The people of Gaza were forced to continue during the genocide war on their existence. This force inspired a kind of confusing consideration among visiting volunteers.

Dr. Hijjawi tells an afternoon chat with the operating room nurse who was explaining how he is struggling to work every day and how he says a final goodbye to his wife and children every day, because he never knows what may happen to any of them.

“Then, we heard the upcoming ambulances,” Dr. Hajawi continued, “and we went to a crowd in the emergency room. Suddenly, the nurse came through us, and they strongly asked for an ambulance to go to his home because he heard that he had been bombed.

“It took some time … but they finally went out and returned with his parents, who were killed, and the rest of his family, who were wounded among them. And you know what just two days later of it happened, he is here working on the upper floor.”

Shock

All four doctors seem to have a soft spot for children’s patients. It is the pain of children that affects them more than others, and their suffering will take away with them in their memories.

Al -Jazeera follows Dr. Almanaseer in his rounds as he visits a little girl in intensive care. She recovers from severe burns to many of her face and body. In quiet tones, ask him whether they will be left with large scars of burns.

The doctor answers her calmly and seriously, and takes time to talk to her so that she seems reassured for today.

Dr. Hijjawi is also on his rounds, spoke to a little girl, gently examining her leg and asking her “lift both feet from bed for me.” Then the young boy is asked to fluctuate his toes so that he can check how to recover.

Next is a little girl lies under the recovery blanket in a room on her own. Her right arm is a dressing, which is there to look at it.

He was sitting on the floor near her bed and moving her arm, then each of her fingers. It is worried because it seems to have lost the feeling of two fingers and feels that the problem should be surgically exploring, as one of the relatives concerned.

Children are calm and wide eyes and do as they were told and do not say much.

Hijjawi says: “There is a lot that they deal with. Being in the hospital is frightening, but moreover, many of them lie there, waiting, in the hope, that one of them visits – one of the parents, grandfather or brother. Some of them do not know who left his family outside the hospital walls.

“All this add to their physical pain, yes, they are very calm for very long periods, or their minds seem to be wandering,” he says quietly.

Dr. Rashidan holds one memory for the children of Gaza that he seems to want to preserve him as he is preparing to leave: “One of the things I do not think I will never forget is the scene of children in Gaza who continue to play, despite the destruction.

“They make kites, play the ball, despite the tragedy that surrounds it. I will always remember it.”