Mohamad Abdelfattah was alleged to land at LAX on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., the place his spouse, their child and younger son can be ready for him, and they’d have a good time his protected return from Gaza.
However Tuesday got here and went, and Abdelfattah, a critical-care physician, was nonetheless within the southern metropolis of Rafah, with no manner of leaving.
He was on the finish of a two-week journey volunteering in one of many few hospitals that has remained open within the besieged metropolis, days on finish attempting to save lots of lives as Israeli airstrikes pummeled neighborhoods.
Then final week, after a rocket attack by Hamas killed 4 Israeli troopers, the border crossings with Egypt and Israel had been closed.
Abdelfattah’s spouse, Donya Salah, waited at residence in Orange County together with her telephone shut at hand.
“May you please watch out?” she texted him Wednesday morning after he requested her to cancel his appointments for subsequent week at Martin Luther King Jr. Group Hospital in South Los Angeles.
“Sure,” he replied. “Doing my greatest.”
Salah, 30, knew then that he, too, was nervous.
Talking with The Occasions on Tuesday, Abdelfattah, 37, described his rising frustration because the Israel-Hamas battle has intensified a humanitarian disaster that’s pushing Rafah, a city sheltering close to a million refugees who have fled fighting in the north, deeper into chaos.
Israel ordered the evacuation of neighborhoods to the east and south of the hospital, in what it’s calling a “restricted operation” however many consider is the start of a more significant incursion.
Palestinians take shelter from the Israeli bombardment on the European Hospital on Dec. 26, 2023.
(Hatem Ali / Related Press)
Greater than 35,000 Gazans have died in Israeli retaliatory assaults since Oct. 7. Practically the entire Gaza Strip‘s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, with about half at imminent threat of famine, worldwide well being officers say.
After arriving on the European Hospital with a workforce of 19 volunteers from the Palestinian American Medical Affiliation, Abdelfattah was surprised to see so many individuals — by his estimate, hundreds — sheltering inside the ability and on its grounds.
Households had been residing within the corridors, their privateness maintained by mattress sheets hung from the ceiling.
“Children had been working out and in of the sheets,” he mentioned. “Infants had been crying. You may odor cooking.”
Educated as a pulmonary and ICU doctor, Abdelfattah had been at MLK for 3 years. The reminiscence of the pandemic and the second wave of Covid infections was nonetheless contemporary in his thoughts: drowning within the 12-hour shifts, a number of codes directly, cardiac arrests. He thought he can be ready for a battle zone.
However the intensive care unit right here was in a state of “full chaos.”
Dr. Mohamad Abdelfattah, 37, proper, oversees the remedy of a affected person on the European Hospital within the southern Gaza Strip.
(Courtesy of Dr. Mohamad Abdelfatah)
“Affected person screens had been consistently ringing,” he mentioned. “There was no an infection management, no hand cleaning soap, no contact robes. Flies had been in every single place, touchdown on wounds. The workers was exhausted and burned out.”
Considered one of his first sufferers was an toddler lady whose leg was lower open to the bone by shrapnel. One other little lady with head trauma was intubated; her mom close by saved saying she wished she might commerce locations together with her daughter.
Abdelfattah was not used to pediatric instances; he hadn’t anticipated seeing so many youngsters. He was reminded of his personal.
His second son had simply been born in December. His 2½-year-old was simply studying to trip a scooter. The little boy loved enjoying on the swings on the park close to their residence.
After the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Hamas assailants that killed about 1,200 folks, Abdelfattah feared for Gaza. He knew from expertise that the retaliation can be brutal.
He had first visited the slender, densely populated strip of land in 2009 with a convoy of humanitarian support, which allowed him to see firsthand the destruction from urban battles with Israel months earlier.
His grandfather had emigrated to america from the West Financial institution within the Seventies, and as a university scholar at UC Irvine, Abdelfattah was lively with the Muslim Pupil Union, bringing consideration to the plight of the Palestinian folks.
“To develop up with no future, no hope,” he mentioned, “that isn’t an surroundings you wish to be raised in.”
A colleague of Dr. Mohamad Abdelfattah holds the hand of 5-year-old lady — with pink glitter on her nails — who arrived on the European Hospital within the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike. Abdelfattah, who stood close by and lives in Orange County, is a pulmonary and ICU doctor at Martin Luther King Jr. Group Hospital in South Los Angeles.
(Courtesy of Dr. Mohamad Abdelfatah)
Quickly after Oct. 7, Abdelfattah co-founded Orange County for Justice in Palestine with the objective of profitable help for a cease-fire amongst native politicians.
However after weeks of campaigning and demonstrating with little outcomes, he wished to do extra.
When the Palestinian American Medical Assn. put out a name for docs to volunteer in Gaza, he informed Salah that he wanted to go.
Their dialog was tough, as he recounted. They had been settling into a brand new residence in Tustin, and with the infant she wanted him close by.
They talked about the Israeli attack that killed seven members of the World Central Kitchen, and what she would do if he died.
Not wanting to fret their households, they shared his determination solely two weeks earlier than his departure.
Flying from LAX to Istanbul after which Cairo, he and the medical workforce crossed into Rafah with almost 250 suitcases full of remedy, female hygiene merchandise, sweet, coloring books, water purification tablets and different provides.
The group paused for an image in entrance of an “I LOVE GAZA” signal, and Abdelfattah, for a short second, felt joyful. “That is the place I wished to be,” he mentioned.
On the European Hospital, sounds of explosions from airstrikes had been inescapable. Drones buzzed relentlessly overhead. The severity of the accidents was made worse by infections and the shortage of provides.
Within the evenings, Abdelfattah would name Salah and share a few of what he was experiencing. She might inform he was attempting to not fear her.
Outdoors the European Hospital within the southern Gaza Strip.
(Courtesy of Mohamad Abdelfattah)
He informed her he was exhausted, sleeping not more than two hours at a time. He and 40 others on the medical workers had been staying in a dormitory on the nursing faculty. They slept on mattresses on the ground. Hospital workers ready no matter meals was accessible.
After morning prayer, he would go to the emergency room and begin his shift.
Every week into the two-week rotation — on Might 6 — got here information that Hamas had accepted the terms of a cease-fire proposed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Abdelfattah recalled the celebration — youngsters singing, fireworks — however inside an hour, explosions within the distance could possibly be heard. The bombing was persevering with. There was no cease-fire.
Israel had ordered an evacuation of Rafah’s jap neighborhoods for a “restricted” operation. For Abdelfattah and others, the motion appeared like the start of the long-awaited invasion of the town.
After an extended journey from Los Angeles through Istanbul and Cairo, Dr. Mohamad Abdelfattah, 37, arrived in Rafah with different medical professionals who had signed up for a two-week rotation on the European Hospital. On the border crossing, the group paused for an image in entrance of the “I LOVE GAZA” signal, and Abdelfattah for a short second felt joyful. “That is the place I wished to be,” he mentioned.
(Courtesy of Dr. Mohamad Abdelfatah)
He had heard that tanks had rolled over the I LOVE GAZA sign, and a United Nations convoy on its option to his hospital had come underneath assault, leaving one dead and one wounded.
Buses started transporting folks from the hospital to a security zone on the coast, he mentioned, and the corridors of the hospital grew much less crowded. The bombing continued. He felt the jolts because the blast waves shook the home windows.
He additionally observed that the majority Gazans didn’t even flinch.
“Folks have been so traumatized during the last seven months,” he mentioned, “and so they all have tales: properties being destroyed, dropping a number of members of the family, shifting and evacuating 4, 5 occasions. Nothing is protected.”
On Friday morning, Dr. Mohamad Abdelfattah and some of the American medical personnel volunteering on the European Hospital in Rafah had been in a position to depart the besieged metropolis. On the Kerem Shalom border crossing, they had been confronted by an Israeli tank, which finally backed down and allow them to cross. Abdelfattah is now in Jerusalem and intends to return to Los Angeles this weekend.
(Courtesy of Dr. Mohamad Abdelfattah)
Sufferers continued to reach, principally with extreme burns, principally youngsters. After one current strike near the hospital, he went to the intensive care unit, the place docs had been treating a brother and sister, each underneath 2.
“The prognosis will not be good,” he wrote in a textual content.
Then late Thursday evening, the medical workforce discovered that the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem had organized for his or her evacuation. They might be leaving at 6 a.m. the following morning.
A number of the docs determined to remain. Abdelfattah was torn. However he had promised Salah he would depart when given an opportunity. His son had been asking for him.
The drive to the border took them via neighborhoods that had been destroyed. The minaret of each mosque they handed was toppled, he mentioned.
On the remaining checkpoint, an Israeli tank blocked their manner earlier than lastly backing down.
As soon as in Jerusalem, Abdelfattah went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to hope. The serenity — so palpable, he mentioned — was surreal: for the primary time in two weeks, no drones, no bombs.
“I want this had been the case in Gaza,” he mentioned.
