Earlier than this disaster started, I used to be residing the happiest days of my life, surrounded by the heat of my household, the love of my associates, and goals that felt inside attain. I spent most of 2023 getting ready for my commencement and on the brink of transfer from lecture halls to sensible coaching fields, rotating between the laboratories of the Islamic College in Gaza and the attention hospitals unfold throughout the Gaza Strip.
On the night of October 6, I used to be organising my books, instruments and white coat, preparing for an extended coaching day at Al-Nasr Eye Hospital in Gaza. My emotions had been a mixture of pleasure and nervousness, however I had no concept that evening would mark the top of my peaceable life. At 6am the following morning, October 7, it wasn’t the sound of my alarm that woke me, however the sound of rockets. I opened my eyes, questioning, “Is that this a dream or a nightmare?” However the fact was unimaginable to disclaim. A struggle had begun, turning our once-bright lives right into a endless nightmare.
On October 8, I obtained the devastating information that my college had been destroyed – its laboratories, its school rooms and each place the place I had discovered easy methods to assist sufferers. Even the commencement corridor, the place I had pictured myself celebrating on the finish of the yr, had turned to rubble. I felt a pointy ache in my chest, as if part of my soul had collapsed. Every part fell aside so abruptly. In a single day, all that I had dreamed of was diminished to ashes.
On December 27, 2023, the bombing in our neighbourhood intensified, and we had been pressured to depart our house and flee to the so-called humanitarian zones in Rafah. There, we took shelter in one of many lots of of tents that had change into the one refuge for survivors.
There was one factor I nonetheless held on to: my data and modest expertise within the area of eye care. I started to note kids and ladies affected by persistent eye infections, attributable to inhaling smoke and dirt and fixed publicity to filth. Even I developed an an infection in my very own eyes. I checked out them, then at myself, and I knew I couldn’t simply stand by and watch. I wished to be a purpose somebody healed, a purpose the sunshine returned to their eyes.
In December 2024, I volunteered at Al-Razi Well being Heart, working within the eye clinic below the supervision of a remarkably compassionate physician. At first, I used to be afraid and hesitant. The struggle had taken a toll on my reminiscence and shaken my confidence. However the physician informed me phrases I’ll always remember: “You might be hardworking. You’ll bear in mind every little thing. And you’ll change into a instrument for therapeutic others.”
Sufferers began arriving from all over the place: north, central and southern Gaza. The clinic wasn’t geared up for such numbers, however we did every little thing we may. I witnessed circumstances I had by no means seen earlier than:
A four-year-old woman misplaced her imaginative and prescient fully as a consequence of extreme corneal burns attributable to an explosion close to her house. She screamed in ache. She was far too younger to endure such struggling. Regardless of the dearth of assets, she underwent surgical procedure to take away her broken eye and substitute it with a synthetic one.
A person in his late 30s was struck by shrapnel within the face and suffered cranium fractures. He had a torn higher eyelid and a deep corneal damage. He wanted delicate surgical procedure, but it surely was postponed a number of instances as a result of it required repeated basic anaesthesia, which was unimaginable below the present situations.
A younger girl in her 20s had taken a direct hit that prompted an orbital fracture and muscle tears across the eye, resulting in hypotropia and facial asymmetry. She broke down emotionally at each go to. As a younger girl like her, I felt her wound as if it had been my very own.
There was additionally an aged man affected by eye most cancers. The illness was consuming away at his eye, and there was a robust chance it might unfold to the opposite one. However we couldn’t assist him. Assets had been unavailable, and he couldn’t journey for remedy as a result of closure of the borders. At each go to, I did my greatest to raise his spirits, hoping that perhaps, simply perhaps, I may ease his ache, even when solely somewhat.
Most youngsters had been affected by continual conjunctivitis and the looks of chalazion (fatty cysts on the eyelid), as a consequence of mud, touching their eyes with their palms, and a scarcity of hygiene within the camps.
The aged, most of whom suffered from cataracts, a situation that results in gradual lack of imaginative and prescient, wanted lens removing surgical procedure and intraocular lens implantation, however all such operations had been postponed as a result of disruption of communication with northern Gaza, the one place within the Strip the place the required tools was out there.
Throughout these months, the working rooms became actual educating labs for me after the occupation destroyed the college’s lab. I accompanied the physician to each surgical procedure, performing them by the sunshine of hope and the sounds of bombing. One time, a rocket hit a home subsequent to the centre whereas we had been contained in the working room. Regardless of the panic, we held ourselves collectively. We didn’t break down. As an alternative, we accomplished the operation efficiently.
Within the few moments of spare time, there wasn’t solely room to speak about drugs. We spoke in regards to the ache, about our misplaced properties, about our lacking family, about postponed goals. The struggle spoke from each nook of the clinic.
We confronted extreme difficulties as a result of scarcity of medicines. We needed to prescribe options whose negative effects we didn’t totally know, however what else may we do? There was no different selection. The crossings had been closed, and the medicines had been unavailable.
Sooner or later, throughout a surgical procedure, I felt dizzy and had extreme chest ache. I couldn’t bear it, and fainted from excessive exhaustion, malnutrition and psychological strain. I used to be only a particular person attempting to carry on. However I didn’t surrender. I returned the identical day to proceed my work on the clinic.
In January 2025, with the announcement of a brief ceasefire, the college resumed classes on the European Hospital. I went solely 4 instances. The highway was lengthy, and the place was desolate, full of the remnants of struggle. Only one kilometre (two-thirds of a mile) from the clinic’s window, tanks had been stationed. I puzzled: Ought to I flee or keep? The ceasefire was no assure. Certainly, days didn’t move earlier than the struggle returned and the classes had been cancelled, after the occupation took management of the realm.
We returned to sq. one.
I’m nonetheless right here, transferring between well being centres, therapeutic, listening and attempting to deliver gentle again into folks’s lives, actually. My goal shouldn’t be forgotten. My spirit shouldn’t be damaged. I used to be made to assist. And I’ll proceed, even by means of smoke and rubble, with regular palms and an unshakable coronary heart, till the sunshine returns for all of us.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
