It is getting harder

I used to think it was easy to distinguish between someone who is simply sad and someone who is seriously ill. But that line is becoming confusing. In moments when multiple cases arrive at once, I sometimes find myself uncertain, should I treat a psychological trauma response, or consider a possible cardiac event?

It is getting harder.

One patient, in particular, stayed with me, a man with chronic kidney disease who has been refusing dialysis. When he presented with chest pain, he also refused cardiac evaluation. He said he was too exhausted from being sick, and too afraid that further testing would reveal yet another problem. His case made me reflect on how much pain a person can carry before they begin to refuse even the possibility of help.

Transportation has become inaccessible for many, including myself, forcing people to rely on unsafe carts pulled by damaged vehicles. As a result, we are seeing increasing numbers of trauma cases caused by falls from these carts.

| saw a wWoman who fell from one of them and sustained a severe brain injury.

| saw elderly patients unable to afford essential medications.

saw people physically assaulted, left with permanent damage.

And I saw it in us too, my colleagues and myself. The fatigue, the anxiety, the emotional strain. At one point, I found myself laughing in front of a patient's relatives as we were discussing cases under visible stress. I apologized, explaining that we were simply overwhelmed.

What we are witnessing is devastation, frustration, pain, and profound human suffering.

This is what a genocide does. This is what the world is allowing.

Professionally speaking, about 90% of the cases my colleagues and I dealt with today were trauma related, physical, psychological, or emotional. The proportion of people suffering from psychological trauma is devastating.

Men, women, young people, adults, and the elderly all arrive affected. Some come in

unconscious, while others present with symptoms that closely mimic life threatening conditions such as heart attacks or strokes.

What we are witnessing feels far more complex than anything we were taught. It makes me believe that significant changes in the field of psychiatric medicine may emerge from realities like this. Every day challenges what we thought we understood.

Everyone here is being made to believe that the war is coming back, and that this time, it will leave nothing behind.

I just treated an injured man whose tent was struck by a drone, an attack that left several martyrs.

The news reported four martyrs in the north. Last night, in a single moment, more than seven people were killed in my camp.

The trauma is getting worse with each passing day. This is not a ceasefire, it is an escalation, a continuation of destruction and killing.

I can't save lives the way I once believed I could. I can no longer be the safe person I once thought I could be. I stare closely at something I can neither see nor understand. I look at the sky and find it blurred, mirroring my suffering.

I am a survivor of humanity and its most exhausted; living through the worst era of the worst collapse.

l am a survivor of the most anxious state humans have ever endured, and of heartbreaks that would shake even mountains. I survived by simply being myself, and still they chased my existence, and my very right to be well.

You cannot imagine the horrific mistreatment innocent children endure here, day after day. Parents are powerless to shield their own children from the abuse of war.

As for me, I am busy doing the smallest things, breathing, and waiting for change. And still, your eyes see nothing, only light.

Yedioth Ahronoth, quoting officials from the Security Cabinet: The recent events in the Gaza Strip do not constitute a crisis. Every day brings challenges. The plan is ongoing. We wake up every day to chaos and problems, and it was clear this would happen, but there is nothing dramatic.

They don't wake up to chaos and problems, they are the chaos and the problems. Hundreds of families wiped out isn't something dramatic.

It hurts when people imagine me dead, when all I need is for them to believe that I will survive.

I witness what I witness during my shifts, then wake up wondering what has gone wrong with me, as if surviving nights like these shouldn't change a person. But one night is enough to change everything.

I'm alive, but that doesn't mean I'm okay.

I'm not okay, not because I'm a weak man, but because nothing around me is okay. Nothing here is okay. Nothing.

Even lying down, in one piece, Ifeel like I am divided into many, sore, and unable to get comfortable in my skin.

It is catastrophic for any human being to live with physical and/or mental pain so severe that it steals hope from their life. How many painkillers does it take to silence that kind of pain? How many tablets have my patients swallowed, trying to escape what hurt them, only to discover there is no peaceful escape? There is no peace here. Not for us.

The more tired I become, the more sensitive I feel. It is shaping me into someone strong, almost hardened, yet at the same time, unbearably gentle. I cannot tolerate more oppression, more assault, more injustice.

I don't like speaking about my own suffering anymore. it makes me feel as though I am exaggerating mine while diminishing someone else's.