[News] I stayed until the end, Dr Abu Nujaila. We will remember and rebuild

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  I stayed until the end, Dr Abu Nujaila. We will remember and rebuild

/The self-sacrifice of Palestinian doctors in Gaza has inspired a new 
generation of medical students. I am one of them./

  *
    Hend Salama Abo Helow
    <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/hend-salama-abo-helow>
    Medical student at Al-Azhar University in Gaza

Published On 16 Feb 2025 
-https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/2/16/i-stayed-until-the-end-dr-nujaila-we-will-remember-and-rebuild
Doaa Albaz
A man sits in the destroyed building of Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, 
southern Gaza Strip on January 19, 2025 [Doaa Albaz/ Anadolu Agency]

“Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could – 
remember us.”

These were the words Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila 
<https://www.msf.org/remembering-our-colleagues-killed-gaza> wrote on 
October 20, 2023, at al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp. He 
scribbled them <https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1876629867422523392?mx=2> 
in blue ink on a whiteboard used for surgery schedules. They were a 
testament to resilience, a final message of defiance.

A month later, Nujaila redefined the moral dimensions of the medical 
oath not with words, but with his own blood. An Israeli air strike on 
the hospital killed him and two of his colleagues, Dr Ahmad Al Sahar and 
Dr Ziad Al-Tatari.

Nujaila’s words stayed with me for 15 months, as I watched in horror how 
the medical system in Gaza I had hoped to work in was bombed to rubble, 
the doctors I had hoped to learn from – killed, tortured, forcibly 
disappeared.

Every aspect of life was stained by death. Every warm memory was invaded 
by horror. Every certainty was replaced by an abyss of the unknown.

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where I had volunteered in the emergency 
department just a month before the genocide started, was raided, 
ransacked and burned. It was Gaza’s biggest hospital, which provided 
critical care that could not be received elsewhere and which had 
assembled a staff of highly skilled doctors.

It was not only a place of healing but also a shelter for the displaced. 
Ultimately, it was turned into a graveyard.

The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, where I had joined a 
university project on breast cancer awareness, was bombed, then besieged 
and shut down, its patients left to die slowly, helplessly. The fate of 
the only cancer hospital in Gaza was sealed by its location – lying 
within the “axis of death” – what the Israeli military calls the 
Netzarim Corridor, which it had established and occupied to divide Gaza 
into north and south.

Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, where my grandmother had a critical 
surgery performed by Dr Mohammed Al-Ron, a dedicated and skilled 
surgeon, was attacked and shelled. Then it was besieged, cut off from 
the world – its medical staff, patients and displaced civilians trapped 
inside without food or water. Eventually, everyone was forcibly 
expelled, and the hospital was rendered out of service.

I later learned that Al-Ron was forcibly disappeared from another 
hospital in northern Gaza and tortured in Israeli dungeons. When he 
emerged two months later, he had lost 30kg (65lb). He was still one of 
the fortunate ones.


Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, a leading surgeon at al-Shifa Hospital, was tortured 
to death.

Dr Hussam Abu Safia, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, remains in Israeli 
captivity, where he has been tortured and abused.

More than 1,000 medical workers have been killed in Gaza. More than 300 
have been forcibly disappeared.

It is blatantly apparent that healthcare workers are targets in Gaza. 
Practising medicine has become a deadly profession.

Yet I do not feel scared or discouraged. The doctors who have stood up 
for their patients and risked their lives during the genocide have 
become an inspiration: Abu Safia, Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, Dr Mohammed Abu 
Salmiya and so many others.

My own sister Dr Mariam Salama Abo Helow has been a bright example for 
me. She works as a paediatrician at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the only 
remaining functional hospital in the south, overwhelmed and stretched 
beyond its limits. She fights alongside her colleagues, bearing witness 
to the horror – children wounded, orphaned, burned, malnourished, frozen 
to death.

Despite witnessing the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the 
mass murder of Palestinian health workers, my determination to become a 
doctor has only grown stronger in the past 15 months. Gaza needs its 
sons and daughters more than ever. So, it’s my moral, patriotic and 
human obligation to study hard and become the best doctor I can be.

In January 2024, I had the opportunity to leave Gaza, but I refused. How 
could I abandon my home when it needed me most?

Displaced from Nuseirat refugee camp, I carried my medical books in my 
backpack and clung to the dim hope that e-learning provided after all 
six of Gaza’s universities were badly damaged or destroyed.

I was going through research papers minutes before my second evacuation 
order arrived. I didn’t know where I would go. I didn’t know if there 
would be an internet connection. I didn’t even know if I would survive. 
But in that moment, I couldn’t leave my work unfinished.

I begged my father to wait. Just let me finish this one task.

I endangered my life. I endangered my family. And yet, I stayed two 
hours longer – under bombardment, going through research papers.

I am one of hundreds of medical students in Gaza who, despite 
everything, want to stay. We are all in various stages of training, 
eager to start our professional careers amid the shattered remains of 
Gaza’s hospitals, guided by the survivors of this onslaught.

There are medical students and workers desperately waiting to return 
home and serve. One of them is my sister Dr Intimaa Salama Abo Helow, 
who earned a bachelor’s degree in dental surgery in Gaza and then 
pursued her master’s and doctorate in public health and social justice 
abroad.

In December, against all odds, 80 medical students at Al-Azhar 
University graduated and became doctors ready to save lives.

I myself am scheduled to graduate in 2028. I am determined to become a 
neurosurgeon. For Gaza. For my grandmother, martyred last year. For my 
parents, who sacrificed everything to help me pursue this dream. For 
every stolen future. For every destroyed hospital. For every doctor lost.

I made it through, Dr Abu Nujaila. And I will carry your story and those 
of other brave Palestinian doctors with me.

We will not be defeated.

/*The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not 
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.*/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

  * Hend Salama Abo Helow
    <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/hend-salama-abo-helow>
    Hend Salama Abo Helow
    <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/hend-salama-abo-helow>
    Medical student at Al-Azhar University in Gaza
    Hend Salama Abo Helow is a researcher, writer, and medical student
    at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. She has published with We Are Not
    Numbers, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Mondoweiss
    and the Institute for Palestinian Studies. She believes in writing
    as a form of resistance.

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