Pat Taub
GUEST POST BY SALLY BOWDEN-SCHAIBLE
Dr. Jehad Hasanain is a friend and has been for nearly five years. Jehad is an emergency room physician with a young family and has lived in Gaza all his life. For a week now, he has been sending messages whenever he can, describing the horrors of death, injuries, displacement.
A flattened portion of Gaza, bombed unrelentingly by Israel. (Haaretz)
Providing humanitarian assistance to poor children and families has been his mission throughout the 16 years of a prison-like siege by Israel and throughout the many deadly attacks it has perpetrated during this time. With a distressed plea no emphasis can communicate, Jehad says “The world knows everything, but nothing is happening to stop it! Please tell our story. Please pray for us.”
I promise Jehad, “I will share photos and stories and appeal to people’s humanity.”
An overworked hospital in Gaza a few days ago. Presently hospitals in Gaza are operating without electricity and water, while pain killers are running out.
“That is the sole hope for us” he replies—“that stories and photos being shared will appeal to people’s humanity.
I don’t know which is better, to live or die in a genocide. If we do die, we hope all of us as a family, will die at once. I need to see my family, touch my daughters, talk in a calm voice, to feel normal.
“I am still at the hospital, doing my work and more than my work. I need to sleep, but I can’t close my eyes for more than a few minutes. Honestly, I don’t know when exactly I will break. At times I become paralyzed. At times I feel that I can’t even walk a single step. I feel that I’ve turned into a robot.
Doctors in a Gaza Hospital trying to save a badly injured child
I hold a paradox of feelings: I am a human being, and I am full of feelings (fear, love, sadness) But at the same time, I can’t cry all day. I must work to help the innocent people who are injured. I must continue to help my people. Despite my pain, tears, broken heart, I will do everything I can. I don’t want to send you all the photos because they will disturb you. Oh, the children!
Among the 1,000 plus children killed by Israeli bombs in the recent onslaught, averaging one child every 15 minutes
The numbers of displaced people are everywhere. Now people are displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, and they are moving to the south. It is horrible! I can’t adequately describe– and you cannot imagine what is happening. The smell of death is everywhere. There are no borders between us and death!
Jehad echoes the many crying, screaming voices from Gaza pleading for the violence to stop.
Without question what is happening to the people of Gaza is genocide. Not opinion—fact.
A mother and her traumatized children seeking safety during the recent bombings in Gaza
Media voices are placing responsibility for the awful violence in Gaza on Hamas alone. Let’s be clear: violence is not a vehicle for peace. The violence perpetrated by Hamas cannot be condoned—it was wrong for so many reasons. But did the violence begin there? No it did not. Injustice against Palestinians has bred numbing and enraging despair. And despair predictably produces both spiritual death and violence. We must look at the larger picture if we want to understand the present and have hope it will never be repeated.
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After 10 days of the attack on the Gaza Strip:
Gaza residents are drinking contaminated water.
Electricity, water, and internet are permanently disrupted.
Over half a million people have been displaced, and the number continues to rise every moment.
The death toll is increasing constantly, with an estimated number of around 2,500 casualties and over 10,000 injured, but precise statistics are unavailable.
Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed.
The people of Gaza, civilians, have no protection from any attacks; everyone is failing in their responsibilities.
Gaza is on the brink of a real famine as goods in stores are running out, and no aid is reaching the remaining residents and displaced individuals.
There is no designated safe zone for civilians in Gaza
To donate to Dr Hasanian’s relief fund for food, blankets, medicine and clean water: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/drjihad
Sally Bowden-Schaible is a psychotherapist, educator, human rights advocate and Buddhist student/practitioner. She views social action through human rights advocacy as an integral part of her spiritual practice. Her particular focus for nearly two decades has been on promoting full human rights for all people in Israel and Palestine. Sally has traveled to the Israel and the West Bank of Palestine several times and has developed friendships with both Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
