News | Sunday, 01 February 2009

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My shattered dream

38-year-old doctor Samir El Nahhal from Gaza arrived in Malta last Thursday after his sister, Sanaa, went to visit him and the rest of their family. He speaks to Karl Schembri about the 22-day Israeli siege, and about his concerns for his children’s future

As the Israelis were bombarding Gaza, Samir El Nahhal convinced his three children Lina, Nader and Dima – the oldest aged five – that the bangs outside that were making them cry were only fireworks.
“They would be crying and I would tell them, ‘no, no, they’re not bombs … they’re fireworks’,” he says now.
Two bombs fell next to his house in Rafah, less than 100 metres away. As a doctor working with the Palestinian Red Crescent, he says he has never seen anything like the injuries he saw in this war.
“The Israeli army used white phosphorus. It blows up in the air and falls like a rain of small burning sponges. Upon touching people, their skin starts peeling off. They keep burning for days. They catch fire again even after you extinguish them. I had many, many patients in extreme conditions because of the phosphorus. It’s so difficult to treat, so destructive.”
That’s only the phosphorus, he says. Then there are the bombs from the tanks and the fighter planes.
“No area is safe. You might be in your house and a rocket hits you. You wouldn’t know from where.
“I didn’t keep numbers, but I guess I saw between 100 and 150 children and adults die. We were helpless. People were dying in front of us, and there was nothing we could do. It was extremely depressing. We had no medical supplies. The central hospital is in Gaza City, and the Israelis had cut the Gaza Strip in three parts. We don’t have specialised hospitals in the villages, and serious cases are sent to Gaza City. In the war, 90% of our patients died.
“Our ambulances had no fuel. We had no gas and no electricity. However I managed to receive some fuel from the Red Crescent for the hospital generators in Khan Younis. In the last week of the war, the Egyptian government finally supplied us with fuel from Rafah.”
Born in Benghazi, Libya, to Palestinian parents, at the age of 20 Samir El Nahhal went to Romania in 1989 to become a doctor. He recalls his time there enjoying the good life with friends from many countries. With a career in front of him, he would come to Malta for his holidays where his sister, Sanaa’ had settled.
His family then moved back to Gaza in 1996, when the Palestinian Authority established itself there. That was when he decided to leave everything behind him and return to his country, when things were still promising.
“I had lived 28 years out of my country. Everyone loves his country, and yet I hadn’t even seen it yet. I had to go there. At that time there weren’t such big problems in 1997. The problems began in 2000, with the Al Aqsa Intifada.
“When the Intifada started, I was in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. I lived there for two years, as I wasn’t allowed into Gaza City yet because the Israelis, who are in between, wouldn’t let me pass. I was working at Beit Jala Hospital. The injuries I saw were mild next to what I saw now. In the Intifada, Israelis were shooting mostly rubber bullets. They are painful, but not deadly. After Sharon came into power, they started the real shooting with fatal bullets. We started getting patients with multiple fractures and severed limbs.
“I faced death three times. Once I was in an ambulance and a tank shot at us. I was the only person inside as my colleagues were bringing in a patient. The ambulance flew 20 metres but I remained alive. In another incident, we were told by Israelis to get out of the ambulance, in which we were carrying injured people, and then they blasted it. They thought we were carrying weapons but ambulances are never used for that purpose.
“In these last five years, in Gaza I’ve felt like in prison. I lost my freedom. That is how I feel.
The last time Samir went out of Gaza was in 2004. “After that, I couldn’t get a visa. The Egyptian government would not issue us with visas to enter Egypt for tourism or any other reason, not even in transit. They don’t give you any reason for the refusal, just ‘no’. You don’t even have a right to speak. On the other hand they were very helpful and good with the sick and the dying people in the war. And of course, there’s no point even considering getting out through Israel.
“At times I regret having gone back to Gaza. It’s nothing like I ever expected. I had a dream of going to my country, enjoying a nice life, having my family. But when the Intifada started, all my dream crumbled. It was shattered.
“Now I’m married and I have three children: Lina, Nader and Dima, the oldest aged five. I want to provide a good future for them, but now I don’t know how. What future can I give them in Gaza? You can’t dream in this situation, knowing that the situation changes every two days.
“I don’t know how I managed to get out of Gaza. It was sheer luck. I had no luggages or bags with me. I didn’t even have a mobile. I just ended up on the Egyptian side, so I thought I might as well move on to Cairo. I must be one of a handful of Palestinians to be allowed to come out.
“I’ll stay here maybe a month or two… My wife told me to go back soon, but she agrees to move out of Gaza if the opportunity arises. It’s for our children. Right now I don’t think of myself but of my children.”

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