Al-Shifa was a dream and a nightmare | Israeli-Palestinian conflict

When I started studying nursing at Al Azhar University, I knew I wanted to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.

It was the largest and most prestigious hospital in the Gaza Strip. Some of the best doctors and nurses in Palestine worked there. Various foreign medical missions will come and provide training and care there as well.

Many people from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip sought medical help in al-Shifa. The name of the hospital means “healing” in Arabic, and indeed it has been a place of healing for the Palestinians of Gaza.

In 2020 I graduated from nursing school and tried to get a job in the private sector. After several short-term jobs, I ended up at al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.

I loved my job in the ER. I went to work with passion and positive energy every day. I met patients with a big smile, hoping to ease some of their pain. I have always loved to hear patients' prayers for me in gratitude.

There were a total of 80 of us nurses in the emergency room – women and men – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my closest friends were colleagues at the hospital. But he was one of them. We worked shifts together and went out for coffee outside of work. She was a beautiful girl who was very kind and loved by everyone.

It was these friendships and the camaraderie among the staff that helped me cope when the war started.

From the first day, the hospital was overwhelmed with victims. After my first shift ended that day, I stayed in the nurses' room crying about everything we had been through and all the injured people I had seen suffer.

Within days, there were more than a thousand wounded and martyrs in the hospital. The more people that were brought in, the harder we worked trying to save lives.

I never expected this horror to last more than a month. But he did.

Soon, the Israeli army called my family and told us that we had to leave our home in Gaza City. I was faced with a difficult choice: to be with my family at this terrible time or to be with the patients who need me the most. I decided to stay.

I said goodbye to my family, who fled south to Rafah, and I stayed at al-Shifa Hospital, which became my second home. Alaa also stayed. We supported and comforted each other.

In early November, the Israeli army told us to evacuate the hospital and they besieged it. Our medical supplies began to dwindle. We were quickly running out of fuel for our electricity generators that kept life-saving equipment running.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment was when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and could no longer keep the premature babies we were caring for in the incubators. We had to move them to an operating room where we tried to warm them up. They were struggling to breathe and we had no oxygen to help them. We lost eight innocent babies. I remember sitting and crying for a long time that day for those innocent souls.

Then, on November 15, Israeli soldiers stormed the compound. The attack came as a shock. As a medical facility, it should have been protected by international law, but that apparently didn't stop the Israeli army.

Just before the attack, we were told by our administration that they had received a call that the Israelis were about to storm the medical complex. We quickly closed the emergency room gate and gathered inside around the nurse's desk in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. The next day we saw Israeli soldiers surrounding the building. We couldn't leave and we were running low on medical supplies. We struggled to provide treatment for the patients we had.

We had no food or water left. I remember feeling dizzy and almost passed out. I hadn't eaten anything for three days. We lost some patients to the siege and the Israeli attack.

On November 18, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa, came to tell us that the Israelis had ordered the entire medical complex to be evacuated. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army left me none.

Hundreds of us doctors and nurses were forced to leave, along with many patients. Only about two dozen staff were left with bedridden patients who could not be moved. Dr. Abu Salmiya also stayed behind and was arrested a few days later. He disappeared for the next seven months.

I, along with dozens of colleagues, are heading south on Israeli orders. Alaa and a few others defied these orders and headed north to their families. We walked many kilometers and passed through Israeli checkpoints where we were made to wait for hours until we could find a donkey cart to transport us part of the way.

When we finally arrived in Rafah, I was overjoyed to see my family. There was much crying and relief. But the happiness of being with my family was soon overshadowed by shocking news.

Alaa was able to return to her family in Beit Lahiya, who were displaced in a school shelter. But when she and her brother went to their abandoned house to collect some belongings, an Israeli rocket hit the building and they were killed.

The news of her death was a huge shock. A year later, I still live with the pain of losing a close friend of mine – one of the kindest people I've ever known, who loved to help others and who was always there to comfort me in difficult times.

In March, Israeli soldiers returned to al-Shifa. For two weeks they ran amok through the hospital, leaving death and devastation in his wake. There is not a building left in the medical complex that has not been damaged or burnt down. From a place of healing, al-Shifa became a cemetery.

I don't know how I'll feel when I see the hospital again. How will I feel knowing that the site of my best professional achievements and most cherished moments shared with colleagues has also become a site of death, enforced disappearances and displacement?

Today, more than a year after I lost my job, I live in a tent and take care of the sick in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is uncertain. But in the new year I have a dream: to see al-Shifa as it was before – grand and beautiful.

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