Children Aren’t Crying In Gaza

“There is nobody in Gaza that hasn’t lost a loved one, a relative.”

Palestinian Doctor Belal Dabour working at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital summarizes the entire war with this one sentence. Dr. Dabour told bianet about trying to practice medicine in the middle of the war, and life under the bombs.

The death toll of the Israel’s ground and air operations on Gaza reached 805 this morning [July 25], with 5,200 people injured. 169 of the deceased are children.

Al-Shifa Hospital where the severely wounded are brought has been on non-stop duty since July 8 when the attack began. Doctors say, power and water shortage aside, they have run out of medical material.

Dr. Dabour is one of those doctors that occasionally have to do surgery by the light of his cell phone. He experiences trauma anew with each severely wounded child that comes to the hospital. But he does not have the time to stop and be sad because the bombardment never stops.

Lastly this morning, lots of Palestinians made up mostly of children taking refuge in the UN school bombed by Israel were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital in wounded condition or dead.

“For as long as my battery lasts”

“I am going to try to respond for as long as my battery lasts…”

bianet had emailed Dr. Dabour and asked him questions about the situation there. About ten days later, we got a response: He started by saying, “he would love to make their voices heard, but that he is experiencing problems charging his phone due to limited electricity, but that he would reply to our questions so long as his battery lasts.”

One hour of electricity a day

He explained the working conditions in the hospital as follows:

“Hospital personnel has been separated into three groups, after 24 hours of duty you get two days off.”

“Electricity is supplied for only an hour every 24 hours in Gaza. Water is also provided for a limited period.”

“Food stocks are running out.”

“We try to get by at the hospitals using generators.”

Hundreds of children wounded

bianet asked Dabour about the state of children that personally affect him the most. He summed up as follows:

“We get hundreds of very seriously wounded children every day. What’s interesting is that most of the kids aren’t crying.”

“Some are in shock, some are still sleepy because the bombardment caught them while still in bed, and some are in a state where they haven’t understood what’s happened to them. For instance one of the injured babies that came was oblivious to having lost its entire family, and hadn’t woken up from its deep sleep even during treatment.”

“And the five siblings that lost their family sat in the hospital’s waiting room quietly for a long time.”

“Children with very severe physical injuries come in, but even with that aside, they will all have to receive psychological treatment for a long time...”

His loved ones dead

Dr. Dabour recounted how he realized he had lost his cousin after his relatives come to the hospital:

“A nine-months pregnant woman came, she had been killed, she was taken to the morgue. I found out she was my cousin when our relatives came to the hospital.”

“There isn’t anyone in Gaza that hasn’t lost a loved one or a relative.”

What gas does Israel use?

Norwegian Doctor Mads Frederick Gilbert working in the same hospital as Dr. Dabour said they noticed strange symptoms in the injured, which could be the traces of chemical weapons. We asked Dabour about this claim:

“I haven’t seen evidence of chemical weapons. However, extremely disturbing gasses have covered the empty areas of town. These gasses burn the eyes and make it difficult to breathe. I don’t know what it is.”

Out of medication and medical materials

The hospital conditions are getting worse and worse:

“Medication and medical materials have almost completely run out. We are having trouble even procuring the most basic material needed for treatment. We need everything. There is no room in the morgue closets, the bodies we get are put on the floor.”

“Pray for us”

Dr. Dabour thanked the peoples of Turkey for their support and finished his words with, “Please pray for us.”

Whistles, explosions and flying shrapnel

Dr. Dabour is trying to inform he world about Gaza from his Twitter account as well.

Last night he shared these from his Twitter account:

Israel killed 2 Palestinians in West Bank tonight. There are no rockets there and no Hamas. There's only Israel, and that's enough.

— Belal - Gaza (@Belalmd12) July 24, 2014

And this morning he wrote the following:

Finding sleep difficult to achieve.. Artillery makes 3 sounds: The whistle, The boom, The flying shrapnel. Each one equally terrifying!

— Belal - Gaza (@Belalmd12) July 25, 2014

And then he says that he hasn’t lost hope despite it all:

This too shall pass. Have a blessed day.

— Belal - Gaza (@Belalmd12) July 25, 2014

(AS)