When burning hospitals are no longer news | Israel-Palestine conflict

This morning I opened social media to look for news from Gaza. I had to scroll through the newsfeed for a while before I saw the first mention of my home country.

Yet the news we receive from Gaza through friends, family and social media is no less grim than it was a year ago. His people are still crying out for help, hoping the world will hear them.

For three months, dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, sent calls for help to the world as the Israeli army besieged the hospital, cut off supplies, bombed it, slaughtered people nearby and injured some of the medical staff and patients inside.

ua video to the appeal published on December 12, dr. Abu Safia lamented: “Now we are without any capacity and we are providing a low level service. I hope he has ears to listen. We hope that there is a living conscience that hears our plea and allows a humanitarian corridor to the hospital so that Kamal Adwan Hospital can continue to provide services.”

But his cries for help fell on deaf ears. The day after Christmas, Israeli bombing killed a woman at the entrance to the hospital and five medical workers: dr. Ahmed Samour, pediatrician; Esraa Abu Zeidah, laboratory technician; Abdul Majid Abu al-Eish and Maher al-Ajrami, paramedics; and Fares al-Houdali, maintenance technician. Shrapnel shattered the skull of nurse Hassan Dabous at the hospital, putting his life at risk.

Yesterday, Israeli soldiers broke into the hospital and set it on fire, expelling 350 patients and kidnapping dr. Abu Safi and other medical staff.

This terrible news barely made it to the international media; there was no reaction from foreign governments or leading institutions, except for a few Middle Eastern countries and the WHO. Israel has apparently been successful in normalizing its brutal attacks, destroying Palestinian hospitals and killing Palestinian patients and medical staff.

There was also no reaction from the world when earlier this month dr. Said Joudeh, the last remaining orthopedic surgeon in northern Gaza, killed on his way to work at the barely functioning al-Awda hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp. dr. Joudeh was a retired surgeon who felt compelled to return to work because of the desperate shortage of doctors caused by Israel’s targeted killings.

Only a week before the murder, he found out that his son Majd had been killed. Despite his sadness, dr. Joudeh continued his work.

Israel seeks to eliminate all aspects of civilian life in northern Gaza as part of its depopulation policy. For this reason, it targets civilian infrastructure throughout the north and disrupts its functioning. A few medical facilities were the last remnants of civilian life.

In addition to trying to exterminate medical workers, the Israeli military also systematically blocks civil protection teams and life-saving ambulances in the north, often beating and killing them when they try to do so.

And appeals from the north are not the only ones being ignored.

All of Gaza is affected by famine as Israel has dramatically reduced the number of humanitarian and commercial trucks entering the Gaza Strip. Hunger is pervasive and affects even those who may have something to buy food but cannot find it.

My cousin, a UNRWA teacher, recently told me about his visit to his sister, who was sick and displaced in Deir el-Balah. While he was visiting, he could not sleep. He did not eat bread for 15 days, but he was not consumed by his own hunger as a diabetic. It was the cry of the sister’s children who were begging only for a piece of bread. Desperate to comfort them, my cousin told them story after story until they drifted off to sleep. But he stayed awake, haunted by their hunger and his own.

In addition to food, Israel is also blocking the delivery of much-needed materials for the construction of shelters. They already have four babies frozen to death since the beginning of this month.

In the midst of famine and harsh winter, the Israeli bombardment of the homes and tents of the displaced does not stop.

On December 7, a distant relative, dr. Muhammad al-Nairab, lost his wife and three daughters when the Israeli army hit their house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Two of his daughters, Sally and Sahar, were doctors and helped save lives. I can’t do it anymore.

When my niece, Nour, a mother of two, reached out to her uncle, Dr. Muhammad, to express her condolences, she found the pain of his loss unbearable. I spoke to her shortly after. Her words broke through the despair like a scream: “When will the world hear and see us? When will these massacres matter? Aren’t we human?”

On December 11, another family was hit not far from the house of dr. Muhammad in the neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan. That Israeli attack killed Palestinian journalist Iman al-Shanti, together with her husband and three children.

Days before her murder, Iman shared video himself reflecting on the reality of genocide. “Is it possible for this level of failure to exist? Is the blood of the people of Gaza so cheap to you?” she asked the world.

There was no answer. Just as war crimes against Palestinians have been normalized, so has Palestinian death and pain. This normalization not only silences their suffering but also denies their humanity.

Yet for Palestinians, the pain of loss is anything but normal – it remains, sinking into the soul, raw and unrelenting, carried by the echoes of those they have lost, inside and outside Gaza. It is a transnational pain, a grief that crosses borders and defies borders, connecting Palestinians in exile with those suffering the horrors of genocide.

In a December 3 social media post, journalist Dayana al-Mughrabi, who is currently displaced in Egypt, noted the endless grief of people in Gaza: “Our loved ones don’t die once, they die many times after their actual death. The man died the day he died, and then he died again the day the watch I’d worn on my wrist for years broke. He died again when the cup he was drinking from broke. That person died once again on the day that reminds us of his actual date of death, and after the burial, when the coffee residue was washed off his last cup, and when I saw someone gathering up the rest of his medicine to get rid of. Those we love continue to die many times over – they never stop dying – not even one day.”

Although this repetition of death occurs more than 45,000 times, the world seems ready to move on from Gaza. Fifteen months after this genocide, advocates and activists around the world are devastated and exhausted by the endless destruction in Gaza and the overwhelming silence and acceptance of it.

As a native Palestinian and a third generation Palestinian refugee, despite the indelible marks left on my soul by the genocide – marks that time cannot erase – I refuse to lose hope. The words of the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel come to mind: “Hope is definitely not the same as optimism.” It’s not the belief that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

The case in the Republic of South Africa against the apartheid regime before the International Court of Justice and the work of the International Criminal Court are not only significant – they are crucial in establishing Israel’s status as an exile, one of the nations that sought the eradication of entire peoples. The world must not forget Gaza. Now, more than ever, her cries must be heard and the call for justice must be answered.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.