“We had one chance to leave Gaza, early in the war. At that time our lives had grown very difficult. We’d been displaced. We sat down and had a family discussion, and the consensus in the family was not to leave. We’d just learned that our house was still standing, so we thought: ‘We’re luckier than others.’ One month later the Philadelphi corridor was closed, and the option to leave was exhausted. But we still thought we would be OK. We thought the war would end soon, as we think now, as we thought a year ago, as we thought two years ago. And at least we were together. Our family has always been extremely close. I care for my patients, I care for my friends, but not the way I care for my family. Especially my mother. All people say that their mother is a saint, but she was actually a saint. She hated no one. She loved everyone. When I was a child she worked as a schoolteacher, and her school was next to mine, so in the mornings we would walk to school together. I don’t know why I remember this—but she’d always walk between me and the sun. So that I could stand in her shadow. It’s a simple memory, but it means a lot to me. I was always the most attached to her. Maybe everyone in our family feels the same way, but this is my feeling. I told jokes only for her, so that she would laugh. I specialized in medicine just to make her happy. I was a resilient teenager. I wanted to be a writer. But she confronted me. She told me: ‘Life on Earth is a short journey, and you should help people. Because we believe in God. And we believe there is more than just this life.’ Everything, all the things I have done, I have done to please her. And I let her down. I let her down. Because it was my decision. Three days before she was killed, I evacuated her to a safer place. And the safer place got bombed.” -------------------- Dr. Mohammad Kullab graduated from Al Quds University as a doctor in 2019. He’s worked at Nasser Hospital and the European Gaza Hospital. At the outbreak of the war, he had just returned to Gaza from a clinical attachment in the UK with the intention of returning. His passport was in transit to be certified when it was lost in the action and he was unable to leave. He joined Doctors Without Borders in the beginning of 2024, where he now works as a medical doctor. Dr Kullab’s job is to deal with patients directly and coordinate their care across various specialists. Dr. Kullab’s story is part of a series featuring the Palestinian staff of @MSF_USA in Gaza. I will be sharing these stories over the next several days.

“When I entered Gaza the Israeli military had a rule: I was only allowed to bring in three kilos of food. As I was weighing out protein bars, trying to get under the limit, I said to my husband: ‘How sinister is this?’ I’m a humanitarian aid worker. Why would there even be a limit on food? I’ve worked in many places with extreme hunger, but what’s so jarring in this context is how cruel it is, how deliberate. I was in Gaza for two months; there’s no way to describe the horror of what’s happening. And I say this as a pediatric ICU doctor who sees children die as part of my work. Among our own staff we have doctors and nurses who are trying to treat patients while hungry, exhausted. They’re living in tents. Some of them have lost fifteen, twenty members of their families. In the hospital there are kids maimed by airstrikes: missing arms, missing legs, third degree burns. Often there’s not enough pain medication. But the children are not screaming about the pain, they’re screaming: ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” I hate to only focus on the kids, because nobody should be starving. But the kids, it just haunts you in a different way. When my two months were finished, I didn’t want to leave. It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced in nearly twenty years of humanitarian assignments. But I felt ashamed. Ashamed to leave my Palestinian colleagues, who were some of the most beautiful and compassionate people that I’ve ever met. I was ashamed as an American, as a human being, that we’ve been unable to stop something that is so clearly a genocide. I remember when our bus pulled out of the buffer zone. Out the window on one side I could see Rafah, which was nothing but rubble. On the other side was lush, green Israel. When we exited the gate, the first thing I saw was a group of Israeli soldiers, sitting at a table, eating lunch. I’ve never felt so nauseous seeing a table full of food.” ------------------------------------------------------- Aqsa Durrani is a pediatric doctor and board member of Doctors Without Borders USA, with nearly twenty years of experience in humanitarian projects. During our interview Aqsa repeatedly expressed a desire to center the voices of her Palestinian colleagues. To this end I’ve spent the past week collecting stories from the Palestinian staff of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza. I will be sharing these stories over the next several days. I’m so grateful for the time that these people gave me; they were sleepless, hungry, traumatized, and often working 24-hour shifts. Because of the unreliable internet connection their images are sometimes grainy. Their words, however, will be crystal clear.