[News] Inside Gaza’s Hospitals: Nurse Ghada and Israel’s War on Medical Workers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

palestinechronicle.com
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/inside-gazas-hospitals-nurse-ghada-and-israels-war-on-medical-workers/>
Inside Gaza’s Hospitals: Nurse Ghada and Israel’s War on Medical WorkersJune
3, 2025
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Israel continues to carry out massacres against Palestinian civilians in
Gaza.(Photo: via WAFA)

*By Noor Abu Mariam
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/noor-abu-mariam>*

I hesitate to call Ghada a hero—because she rejects that label herself. “We
are human,” she told me. “And it’s our duty.”

In Gaza, the war doesn’t only unfold on the frontlines or in the skies. It
seeps into hospital corridors, overwhelms emergency rooms, and takes aim at
those trying to save lives.

Among the many stories of unimaginable suffering and quiet heroism is that
of Nurse Ghada—a woman who survived four sieges at Al-Awda Hospital in the
Tal Al-Zaatar area and continues to carry the weight of those days.

Ghada remembers it all clearly. During one of the sieges, she and eight
colleagues were holed up in the operating room, struggling to secure even
the most basic food supplies.

“At that time, we could still reach a small supermarket near the hospital
to get basic food supplies. I was with eight colleagues in the operating
room, struggling to secure just the essentials we needed to survive. We
knew we were on the brink of starvation,” she told the Palestine Chronicle.

Then came November 18. Ghada was inside the operating room with several
doctors when they realized they were surrounded. They locked the doors,
hoping to shield themselves. Within minutes, Israeli forces began pounding
aggressively, flashing laser lights into their section of the hospital.

All male staff were ordered out, forced to strip, searched, and
interrogated. What followed was chaos. According to accounts gathered later
by hospital staff, Israeli soldiers opened fire without distinction. Some
men suffered light injuries, others collapsed from heavy bleeding.

“They opened fire without mercy. Some sustained minor injuries; others bled
heavily and lost consciousness. No one was spared. Those who were still
breathing were executed on the spot,” Ghada told us, adding:

“Several of the wounded were forced onto the cannon of a military tank,
which began to rotate. Some fell beneath its wheels. Others died from sheer
terror. It was, as one survivor later described, an act of pure brutality.”

A few were still alive—but anyone showing signs of life was executed on the
spot. Some survivors were thrown onto the cannon of a military tank, which
then began to rotate. Several fell beneath its wheels. Others died from
sheer terror.

Medical workers—already drained, already broken—became victims of the very
violence they were trying to heal.

Among the memories that haunt Ghada most is that of her colleague, Nurse
Ola. The news reached the hospital during one of the sieges: Ola’s entire
family had been killed. Her screams echoed through the ward as she cried
out for her children. There was no time to grieve. The wounded kept
arriving, and she had to keep working.

Then the bodies started coming in—first Ola’s husband, then her daughter
Lama, then her son Mohammad. Ola collapsed. Only one of her children was
missing—13-year-old Amr.

They found him hours later, sitting silently in a corner of the hospital,
too shocked to speak. He had survived the massacre, but not the trauma.

The next day, another house near where he had been sheltering was bombed.
Peace never returned to Amr’s days or his nights. “My brother Mohammad was
still breathing under the rubble… he was alive… I can’t believe he’s gone,”
he keeps telling his mother.

Ghada often finds herself reliving those days, still in disbelief that she
survived. She tries to suppress the memories, to push down the flood of
emotions—but the psychological wounds linger. Her faith is her anchor. It’s
what gives her the strength to believe that, one day, healing might be
possible.

On May 18, at exactly 3:00 p.m., she was on her way to work—just as she had
done so many times before—when a quadcopter targeted her team near the
hospital. She survived the strike. But something inside her shifted. She
hasn’t been able to return to her duties since. What remains now is a
weight she carries every day: a heavy guilt for surviving, for being able
to move freely, while others cannot.

Her colleagues are still inside Al-Awda Hospital. They have no access to
food. Their situation grows more desperate with each passing day. I sat
with her often as she cried—tears of fear, of powerlessness, of anguish for
those she left behind. The sense of injustice burns deep: that she, by
sheer chance, got out, while others are still trapped in a place that was
once a center of healing, now turned into a prison.

Still, she keeps in touch with them daily. She prays for them constantly.
She clings to the hope that those horrific days will not return—that
somehow, this time, the worst is behind them.

And yet, people like Ghada rarely make the news. Their names don’t
circulate in headlines or trending hashtags. But their resistance is real.
It happens not with weapons, but with compassion. With endurance. With the
quiet act of showing up every day to care for the wounded, the grieving,
the dying.

I hesitate to call Ghada a hero—because she rejects that label herself. “We
are human,” she told me. “And it’s our duty.”

Still, we must remember her. We must remember all those like her. We must
not let their suffering be silenced. We must not let it be forgotten.

*(The Palestine Chronicle)*

*– Noor Abu Mariam is a 20-year-old Business Administration student at the
Al-*
*Azhar University in Gaza, specializing in English. As Gazan, she is
currently focused on using writing as a powerful tool to share her story
with the world, aiming to shed light on the experiences and resilience of
her community. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.*
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