with dr ghazi at al-shifa hospital

I didn’t recognize Dr Ghazi at first. He was sitting behind a desk, wearing a big, black winter hat, his rather long white hair was poking out from underneath it. He wore a brown, worn suit, with a cane resting next to him against the desk he was sitting behind; I had never seen Ghazi in anything other than his typical jalabeya, a white long robe.

Walking through the hospital corridors trying to locate my friend I passed room after room of young and old, women and men, all connected to machines with tubes pumping blood in and out of them. The world I had suddenly entered into, much like a scene from 1984 or Brave New World, was surreal and unexpected. Ghazi turned, identifying me with a smile and without so much as a thought, I entered this room that would capsulate my world for the next two hours.

The room bore in its womb five patients, attached to their lifelines and for these moments united by the common denominator of this temporary habitat. I felt I was entering a private place, which to the five patients and their caretakers was unconventionally made public. The odd silence was interrupted every so often by a private comment, heard by all, or the eerie ring of the dialysis machines dominating the big hospital room. An old Egyptian film played on a TV in one corner of the room and most of the visitors watched it, but only on and off, as they tried to kill the time. Surely those scenes were a reminder of the normal life they had left behind beyond the walls of this room. The beds varied from shabby but comfortable looking recliners to a variety of old hospital beds. The man sitting closest to the door lay on a brown reclining chair and was hidden behind a kofeya, his eyes full of fear poking out from underneath it. When he was done, he would be carted out of the room by a nurse, while most of the other patients upon finishing would pack up their blankets and sheets in a plastic bag and make their way beyond the confines of this room to their private spaces.

Dr. Ghazi had been there since 3 pm and would not get hooked up to a machine until five. It was first come, first serve; no matter that he had had an appointment, or that he was almost 60 and much frailer than most other patients. The first month of his relapse he was confused, did not utter a word and wasn’t able to walk. Today, just two months later, he was in much better condition, although I saw the weakness in his eyes still.

The man closest to Ghazi was dozing, an apple core lay next to him on his bed, he had over an hour left of his three-hour cycle. A girl in the middle of the room had just finished and was having her tubes removed from her very skinny arms. An elderly lady fully veiled took the girls place. Her companion tried to make her feel comfortable, but in a society where women when indoors were usually limited to the kitchen when men were around, it seemed a far cry from reality. Abu Hashim, the only nurse in the room constantly moved back and forth trying to serve all the patients simultaneously until he disappeared all together for 20 minutes for prayers and a break.

The floors were dirty and seemed more like a poorly kept bathroom floor than conditions of a hospital. The nurse was now hooking up the newly arrived lady for her three-hour procedure. She covered her eyes with her scarf and hid her tears as the man connected the tubes just underneath her right shoulder. Minutes later she was chipper again, nursing on a bottle of fruit juice that in conversation with Ghazi’s daughter she confessed she was not supposed to be drinking with her condition.

The man near us finished his time and covered the wound with gauze and medical tape, while the nurse was busy talking to a passing by doctor. He threw away his apple core, packed up his sheets, wished his companions in the room well and left the sanctuary. Now, it was Ghazi’s turn.

His son, Ihab helped him up and over to the bed, covered with a new sheet, and then undid his shirt and covered him with a heavy blanket. Immediately Ghazi began to shiver, it was not cold in the room. For ten minutes the nurse worked to get the machine to function correctly and then reluctantly connected Ghazi to it.

For the first half hour, with the doctor having left the room, the dialysis machine beeped every 60 seconds. The room was now down to just three patients. Sulafa, Ghazi’s daughter and closest companion in life, had placed a red rose on his chest near his face where he could smell the scent of life in the midst of his pain. At times Ihab rubbed his back. I pushed a button every 60 seconds to stop the beeping, which I was told had no purpose unless the wheel pumping the blood stopped turning. I kept my eyes on the spinning wheel until I left.

Life became so fragile in those moments. Dr Ghazi was a man of incredible humility. He was an Arabic scholar who up until three months ago had taught at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City. He also knew Syriac and ancient Hebrew and often quoted from the Torah in Hebrew. After seven years of study in Alexandria he had returned to his hometown of Beit Lehya in the Gaza Strip. He had missed working in the fields and was soon seen once again leading a donkey through the fields with his hoe.

In this room life was reduced to so little. A futuristic nightmare of sorts with young and old waiting their turn to stay alive.

And yet, Ghazi and the others in the room were fortunate. Al-Shifa is the only hospital that provides kidney dialysis in Gaza, its machines run 24 hours a day and yet supplies often run low. All hospital supplies, like anything that enters or exits Gaza is under Israel’s jurisdiction, who control the economic border in and out of Gaza. So in May, when Israel blockaded Gaza, shortly after the Hamas government took over, kidney dialyses were sharply reduced and many lost their lives. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1771404,00.html)

When I left Al-Shifa Ghazi had almost two hours left to go, he would be back there Monday and Wednesday and then again next Saturday night. For this man that I loved, this room with all its nightmares was a vital life support.

the smokescreen of democracy

In Beit Hanoun there is a wall that reads, “vote for your independent candidate for a future filled with hope.” I don’t know if the candidate won this past March, but the wall is broken, much like the rest of Beit Hanoun.

It has been just over two weeks since the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Beit Hanoun. 260 tanks, 5000 soldiers backed by some of the most advanced military arsenal in the world. They moved into this town of 32,000 residents, mainly farmers, most of them poor.

Why is it that I so often see images in the media of Palestinians with big guns, masked men with rocket launchers on their shoulders, images of damage done by homemade rockets that have landed near homes in settlements around the Gaza Strip? So rarely does the media portray the damage done by Israeli tanks, F-16s, Apaches, ground-to-ground missiles, armored bulldozers, snipers and drones, which are used on civilians and militants alike in Gaza. For one, the excess of damage must be difficult to capture and yet, there is more to this story.

According to the Beit Hanoun municipality 80 homes were completely destroyed in the latest incursion, while over 600 were left partially damaged. Homes, schools, colleges, lampposts, shops, streets in ruins, left was a city of rubble. After the initial withdrawal sewage flowed out of broken pipes, rubble of buildings spilled onto streets, the walls around a central cemetery were gone and an 800 year old mosque was a pile of stones and dirt.

The chief of staff at the municipality told me, “Beit Hanoun used to be a garden, today it is a desert.”

Beit Hanoun, being near to the bordering area with Israel is surrounded from most directions by luscious farming land and yet after every incursion the green is less green and more agricultural land is set back five, ten or twenty years. The municipality chief of staff listed this incursion as the 21st on Beit Hanoun, and the most destructive.

The justification for the incursion, during which over 80 Palestinians were killed, was putting an end to Qassams fired into Israel. Recently Israeli and American weapons manufacturers began vying for a contract to create a defense system for Israel to shield it from oncoming makeshift rockets launched out of Gaza. In Gaza you are constantly shown signs that the powers that be have become so near sited that they cannot see the forest for the trees. A good doctor when assessing a patient will determine what the root of the cause is and cure it, a bad doctor tries to quell the immediate pain and sends the patient home with barely any chance of recovery. Our political doctors dealing with the crisis that is plaguing the Middle East are bad doctors.

Back to the writing on the wall.

The Palestinians had democratic elections in February. They elected the candidates of their choice. After the new government took office an embargo was put in place, starting a grueling nine months period of collective punishment for a people making a choice that they were encouraged to make. Most people I know that voted for Hamas, did not do so because of their ideological convictions but because of their actions. In a place with an ailing economy and an 80% poverty level actions speak louder than words. My leftist friend from Beit Hanoun, Ra’ed, told me Hamas did a better job than all other parties in Gaza. While Israel utilized increased measures of suppression on the Palestinians, set up ever new obstacles to its economy, the ruling Fatah party was largely busy filling its own pockets with aid money flowing in from around the globe, while Hamas served the poor over the past 19 years. While the poverty level was still at 40% they went door to door and fed the poor, they looked out for the disabled and for the downtrodden. The only party not strictly looking out for its own interests was Hamas, quietly, but surely serving the people and building up its support base. March’s elections was Hamas’ first participation in the political process and the people voted for an alternative to the status quo that they had come to know and hate.

Despite grievances, few or many one may have with some of Hamas’ policies and positions there is a need, much like Ra’ed, to be honest and give them their due. Whether any outside force like it or not, Hamas was the choice of the people. Yet, counter to every U.S. claim of making the export of democracy a priority, the only ease out of Gaza’s current humanitarian and political calamity is to undo the Palestinian democratic process. If Palestinians give up their vote at the polls they are promised to be graciously conceded the living standards they knew just nine months ago, i.e. a slight ease of the lockdown of the prison they inhabit. Israel’s underlying strategy these past many months has been, anything but subtly, to convince Palestinians that the election of so-called terrorists is not to their advantage. But then what is?

Ra’ed left me with this image. If someone’s legs and arms are cut off, even if the doctor tells him he will be fine and sends him home, it doesn’t mean he will be fine. The Palestinians have lost everything that a human being has the right to keep.

Their hope is broken much like the wall in Beit Hanoun that speaks about the future.