I chose to stay as a witness
For two years I have not thought much about my own survival in this madness. If I had, I would have left Gaza from the beginning. I chose to stay as a witness, a hand, a heart, a mind, and a soul for anyone who might need me. But everything I try to do to help another human being feels so small, close to nothing, just like this post. Still, I am sharing it anyway.
Just as newborns were left to die in incubators, just as thousands of children were killed, limbs amputated, and tens of thousands wounded; those who remain are still being killed one after another. Children die in pain in their mothers' arms, only because the world refuses to pay the price of saving them.
This evening is suffocatingly heartbreaking. I look at my family and all they endure without a single thing that is normal, and I cannot stop thinking of the patients I know personally; those in urgent need of painkillers, advanced treatment or surgery to save their lives, yet have nothing.
I am tired of repeating that we are human and deserve life. And though my sense of humanity grows each day with the suffering, I feel the world does not take me seriously, as a human being waiting to be killed in a massacre. That, too, is another cruel form of dehumanization.
The world sends me love and prayers, as if what we live through is something ordinary, something that can be overcome with feelings. But two years of genocide have not been enough for them to understand that our mere survival inside this hell is itself a damning indictment of all humanity; its leaders, its civilizations, its nations, its religions, its very soul.
I do not need to be told that I am human, brave, or strong. I never wanted to be seen as something extraordinary, because I am not. But I am certainly not worthless either, to need reminders of my dignity.
My soul is exhausted from endless calls for help. I have carried far beyond my strength, millions of times over, watching people suffer in every corner, sometimes without even a full corner to suffer in. The hospitals here; including the one where I work, are not places I would wish on any patient in the world.
Nidal, a child born with a congenital liver disease, was in desperate need to leave Gaza for treatment. But he has starved for two years like all children with special needs, and he may lose his life, while his family holds on to what remains of hope as they wait for his turn on the World Health Organization's travel list. If Palestinian children must die, why are they left to suffer to the very end? And if the world wants them to live, then it must act now, through every possible and impossible step, to save them.
Children must never die this way. This is absolute evil. And such evil, so clear and undeniable, should terrify every human being into stopping it at any cost.
This is an appeal to everyone: to every medical worker, to every health organization and institution, and especially to the World Health Organization, which stands paralyzed before this injustice; press with everything you have, at every cost, to allow Nidal and all the other children and patients to travel for treatment before it is too late.
Nidal is the only child of his parents. They have done everything possible for him, and now they wait for a place on a list that barely moves.
Tag everyone who might make a difference.
If you believe you can help, reach out to me directly; I have all the necessary information. And if you are able to support Nidal and his family financially, to help them survive, you can donate to their campaign. The donation link is in my bio under the title "Support Nidal's family."
