About twenty Americans and British medical staff who had been unable to leave Gaza were evacuated from the European hospital in Khan Younis on Friday, although three American members of the medical missions refused to evacuate until Israel allowed aid workers additional to replace them. They remain on the job, alongside doctors and staff from separate medical missions, serving a population stuck in Gaza with no way out.
Missions, as is often the case, were scheduled to last two weeks before a new group of aid workers arrived with new supplies. But after Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, nothing could get in or out, neither supplies nor people.
“If all and only Americans left at once, what would that say about us as a nation?
Among the three Americans who refused to leave was Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey doctor and Army veteran who insisted on staying behind to protect and serve his patients.
“There was a palpable sadness and foreboding that had set in at the hospital. The children and staff ask everyone to be named. All the Americans and British are gone. This cannot be a good sign,” Hamawy said.
“The decision of some of us to stay was consistent with our American values. We arrived as a team and we leave no one behind. If all and only Americans left at once, what would that say about us as a nation?
While serving in the Iraq War, Hamawy was the doctor treating the current senator. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, when her helicopter was shot down. Duckworth credits Hamawy for saving his life and pressuring Israel and the State Department to find a way to release the medical staff.
Hamawy said mission staff found themselves in an impossible situation.
“Even though we felt like we were abandoning our patients, we all understood that this was going to happen from day one,” he said, given the short-term nature of the mission. “We should entrust our patients to a new team. Unfortunately, we must leave this burden to our overworked and exhausted Palestinian colleagues. The three Americans who remained there gave three British people the opportunity to leave. »
Sixteen medical workers remain at the hospital, Hamawy said. This includes nationals of Egypt, Ireland, Australia and Jordan – countries with less political influence than the United States. Other missions, including some staffed by Americans, remain active elsewhere in Gaza.
Staff and patients fear that without the presence of Americans in the hospital to serve as political shields against the Israel Defense Forces, the hospital would be destroyed, as the Israeli army did to every other hospital in Gaza.
“It was an exhausting journey and a very bitter departure,” said Monica Johnston, a nurse who initially opposed leaving without replacing aid workers but eventually agreed to go. “The politics and injustice there make me angry. » Johnston said shelling around the hospital had intensified in recent days.
Rotating to a new mission has taken on added importance given the blockade of medical supplies, as each new mission arrives with its own supplies. “The refusal to allow basic humanitarian aid,” Hamawy said, “is a failure of the international community.”
Dr. Mosab Nasser, who led the FAJR scientific mission to the hospital, took a more optimistic approach in a statement released after his safe arrival in Jerusalem. “I am delighted to announce that the FAJR team (consisting of 12 Americans and 3 British nationals) was successfully picked up by the American and British embassies at the KS crossing point near Gaza,” Nasser wrote, going on to say reference to Hamawy and another volunteer. . “The team will spend a day in Jerusalem before returning to the United States and the United Kingdom on Sunday. Two of our FAJR volunteers remained in Gaza, continuing their rescue work. They will soon leave Gaza as part of the UN ambulance rotation, in collaboration with the WHO. (The third American to stay behind was on a separate mission, as was Johnston, at the same hospital.)
“This achievement highlights the remarkable coordination that FAJR Scientific has accomplished with international entities, including the Department of State, the United States Embassy in Jerusalem and Cairo, the United Kingdom Embassy in Tel Aviv, US Embassy Muscat, Oman, WHO, OCHA, CLA. , and others,” he continued. “Yes, we left Gaza, but Gaza left an indelible mark on us, and it will stay with us forever. We promise we will be back and very soon.
This statement angered some staff members remaining there and at other medical facilities.
Dorotea Gucciardo, an aid worker in Rafah with the medical solidarity organization Glia Equal Care, said the international focus on Western doctors risks obscuring the reason for their presence: the continued occupation and assault of ‘Israel on Gaza. “We have international organizations and national governments all working together to open the borders to this already privileged group of people,” she said. “Our main goal is not that we are stuck here and need to get out. Our main goal is to ensure that patients are taken care of. I think we need to put the focus once again on why these aid workers are here, which is the occupation. And this ongoing siege and war against Gaza.
“I hear some international aid workers saying, ‘Oh, it can’t get any worse than that,'” she said. “And yet, if we really look at the context and if we look at the history, we see that the situation can get worse. The situation has gotten worse and continues to get worse. So we can do our best while we are here to support our Gazan hosts and colleagues. But what we need is for this war to end. We need to end this siege, this blockade and the occupation, so that we too can finally receive help.”
Dr. Haleh Sheikholesami, an American doctor from California who also volunteers with Glia, said the situation highlights the Palestinians’ perilous outlook: “You know I hope this ends and we can go home.” Unfortunately, Gazans do not make such predictions.”
News Source : theintercept.com
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