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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-battle-hardened-medics-always-duty/25381">https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-battle-hardened-medics-always-duty/25381</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Gaza's battle-hardened medics always on
duty</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/amjad-ayman-yaghi">Amjad
Ayman Yaghi</a></span> <span class="field
field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-08-30T10:56:00+00:00">30 August 2018</span></span>
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<p>Since the beginning of the Great March of Return at
the end of March, the Israeli military has left no
doubt that it will not feel restrained in dealing with
Gaza’s demonstrations.</p>
<p>With rules of engagement that have left <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-kills-two-palestinians-gaza">at
least 125</a> demonstrators dead, more than 5,000
wounded by live fire, among them over 800 children,
the message is clear: Protest and risk death and
injury.</p>
<p>But even those not protesting are not safe. Israeli
forces have killed <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/icc-must-investigate-israels-crimes-against-journalists">two
journalists</a> and at least 90 have been injured. <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-medic-during-gaza-protests">Three
medics</a> have also been killed.</p>
<p>Still they come: <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-we-continue-march-gaza/25291">demonstrators</a>,
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-snipers-targeting-journalists-gaza/24081">journalists</a>
and, of course, medics.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.facebook.com/Ashraf.ability/posts/1059731907537738">According
to</a> the Gaza Ministry of Health, there have been
at least 370 instances of paramedics being injured
during the demonstrations and nearly 70 ambulances
have sustained damage.</p>
<p>“I believe in the saying, he who saves a life, saves
all humanity,” said 43-year-old Muhammad al-Hissi, a
paramedic with two decades of experience.</p>
<p>Al-Hissi, now director of emergency medical services
at the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestine-red-crescent-society">Palestine
Red Crescent Society</a> in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/khan-younis">Khan
Younis</a>, in the southern Gaza Strip, is an
ever-present figure at the demonstrations of the Great
March of Return. And his 20 years on the job also make
him a veteran of the entire second intifada and all
three Israeli wars on Gaza.</p>
<p>He has the scars to prove it.</p>
<h2>A sense of duty</h2>
<p>He was first injured, he told The Electronic
Intifada, in an Israeli airstrike 2002 that left him
needing several surgeries to remove shrapnel from his
right hand.</p>
<p>In 2014, during Israel’s 51-day offensive on Gaza, he
was injured again in the same hand in another
airstrike, and this time needed a metal implant that
he still carries around. And during the latest
protests he was hit in the chest by a tear gas
canister leaving him out of action for five days.</p>
<p>Yet he is not discouraged.</p>
<p>“Our humanitarian work is greater than the Israeli
occupation,” al-Hissi told the Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>A sense of duty, he said, carried him through the
tear gas, the blood and rubble.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to save people from buildings that have
been shelled. The rubble keeps coming down over our
heads. When that happens, I try to remember the
injured, and I decide to pull myself together,”
al-Hissi said. “My job is to save people’s lives.”</p>
<h2>In the line of fire</h2>
<p>Al-Hissi said he has been shocked at the number of
casualties and not just among protesters. He has
reached out to international organizations including
the International Committee of the Red Cross and the
World Health Organization to help them pressure Israel
not to target paramedics doing their jobs.</p>
<p>Among the many injured multiple times in the line of
duty during the Great March of Return is Ibrahim
Talalqa, 23. Talalqa volunteered in a civil defense
medical services team for three years to become a
certified paramedic.</p>
<p>He has been wounded three times in the past three
months, most recently on 3 August when he was strafed
by shrapnel while attending to an injured youth. The
shrapnel, he said, came from an exploding bullet that
detonated near his ambulance as it was approaching the
injured person.</p>
<p>“In Gaza, paramedics leave home not knowing if they
will ever come back to their families,” Talalqa said.
He does his best to ease his family’s concerns, he
added. “My mother worries about me, but she stands
strong before me and supports my choice. When I get
injured, I do not tell her until I am back home.”</p>
<figure id="file-68741"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Talalqa remembers the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-slaughters-palestinians-marching-return">14
May protests</a> as the worst – these also claimed
the most casualties of any of the series of
demonstrations to date. He was not wounded on this
occasion, but it was close.</p>
<p>At one point, he had to crawl on his stomach to reach
a youth who had been injured near the boundary. When
he finally got there, he had to try to carry the young
man, who had a chest injury, back to an ambulance. Yet
he initially could not reach the ambulance because of
the intense shooting. Talalqa ended up having to drop
to the ground and wait with the wounded man until an
ambulance could finally pick them both up.</p>
<p>Perhaps worse was when he saw a colleague shot in the
leg as he was carrying an injured 12-year-old who was
then again wounded with a shot in the back. Eventually
the medical teams nearby succeeded in extricating both
child and medic from the scene. Both survived.</p>
<h2>Battle-hardened medics</h2>
<p>Adel al-Masharawi is another veteran paramedic. The
41-year-old began in 2000 and says the situation has
only become worse.</p>
<p>He has fainted four times during the recent protests
as a result of inhaling tear gas and is convinced that
the chemical composition of the gas has changed over
the years. He worries that too much exposure will
result in future diseases.</p>
<p>But, like the other medics, he is determined to carry
on.</p>
<p>“We are part of the Palestinian struggle,” he said.
“It is our duty to work and save lives whatever their
injuries and where they may be.”</p>
<figure id="file-68746"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>It may be a duty for these battle-hardened medics,
but those who are rescued will always be grateful.</p>
<p>On 3 August, Bashar al-Muzaini, 18, found himself on
the edge of the protests waving a flag and wearing the
distinctive black-and-white Palestinian <em>kuffiyeh</em>.</p>
<p>He and friends were staying at a distance of 500
meters from the boundary, a distance they thought
would be safe. But at one point, as a thick cloud of
tear gas descended on the group, al-Muzaini found
himself alone, nauseous and disoriented.</p>
<p>Eventually al-Masharawi found his way to the confused
youth, helping him get away from the gas and providing
him with medicine to take away the nausea.</p>
<p>Al-Muzaini later realized that he had been lucky to
escape only with tear gas poisoning. The area had been
the site of heavy shooting while he was lost in the
fog. But when he tried to thank al-Masharawi he was
almost rebuffed.</p>
<p>“When I went to thank the medic he told me this
happened every day,” al-Muzaini told The Electronic
Intifada. “I wasn’t the first, and I won’t be the last
that he will rescue like this.”</p>
<p><em>Amjad Ayman Yaghi is a journalist based in Gaza.</em></p>
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