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As I write this, I am receiving treatment for kidney disease at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. In fact, I don’t know if what I’m undergoing can actually be called “therapy” or if it’s just an attempt to postpone the inevitable.
Gaza has a severe shortage of medicines and medical equipment, so doctors here are making decisions based on what is available rather than what is medically necessary. I am one of them. Some needed medicines and necessary tests are currently unavailable in Gaza.
Today, after new tests, my doctor told me that my condition has worsened and that I need to be evacuated from Gaza urgently. He will write me a letter of introduction so I can be placed on the list of 22,000 Palestinians suffering from pain while waiting to leave the country and receive urgently needed medical care abroad.
My body, like this hospital I’m in, is functioning at its bare minimum.
Pre-war life was difficult, but at least there was a reliable, if unstable, health care system. When medicines and tests were not available in Gaza, they were able to travel to the West Bank for treatment. In 2023, I went to Al-Khalil (Hebron) hospital, where my treatment was covered by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. I returned to Gaza just a few days before the war started.
Over the next two years, it became impossible to receive proper medical care for my condition. My body, like the bodies of many other chronically ill Palestinians, became a new battlefield.
Hospitals were destroyed one after another in Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza. They were attacked and burned, their equipment destroyed, doctors and nurses killed or forcibly disappeared, and critically ill patients pushed out into the streets and left to die.
At the beginning of the war, the nephrology department of Al-Shifa Hospital, where I had been receiving treatment for many years, was severely damaged. Health authorities attempted to repair it but were repeatedly shelled. It is now mostly non-functional and much of the equipment has been lost.
In May 2024, Israel captured and closed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Necessities such as painkillers and antibiotics disappeared.
I can’t find the medicines I need anywhere: methyldopa and amlodipine tablets, which I have to take twice a day.
In parallel, Israeli forces bombed water treatment plants and pipes, cutting off clean water supplies and forcing us to drink contaminated water from wells. That made my condition even worse.
This breakdown was painful and time consuming for me. When I stopped regular check-ups and my prescription drugs wore off, my body started giving out warning signals, but no one had the means to react to them.
I began to suffer from severe swelling all over my body. I couldn’t move all the time and felt extremely tired. My health deteriorated rapidly and I lost 24 kg (53 lb) due to fatigue and hunger. My current state of perfect health is a direct result of a medical system that has been intentionally destroyed and denied the opportunity to provide proper care to patients.
Illness does not wait for the end of hostilities. Kidney does not understand the politics of opening and closing borders. The human body cannot survive on contaminated water and a piece of bread.
Last week, I felt a glimmer of hope when I learned that the Rafah intersection had reopened. And I learned that one of my relatives, who is not sick, was able to make it through the crossroads simply because of a “connection.” Only five critically ill patients were allowed to be discharged on the first day of reopening. My fleeting hope was quickly replaced by intense despair.
This is the double cruelty faced by Palestinians. They are unable to receive proper medical care in Gaza because hospitals have been destroyed, and are then told that connections, not medical need, will determine whether they live or die and receive treatment abroad.
I have no ties to any international organization or local government. I am just a patient whose body is gradually deteriorating.
I don’t know if I can leave in time. Time is always a prerequisite for hope, but time is not on my side.
My son Zachariah is my driving force. I gave birth to him after a long and difficult medical journey, even though I knew I would never be able to have another child as it would jeopardize my health.
In Gaza, the human body is no longer a carrier of life and dreams, but a record of survival. Doctors are no longer medical experts, but warriors who fight with their bare hands. Hospitals are no longer places of healing, but the last line of defense.
In this place on the edge of despair and suffering, I cling to the fleeting hope that the world will hear our cries for help.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
