Jamal Salaha, a doctor Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza, has told Al Jazeera that it feels “surreal” to see the hospital’s reception and the emergency department empty.
“For the first time, I slept without being worried about more wounded people, about mothers arriving to the hospital. This is unbelievable,” he said.
Salaha had just started his practice at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital when the war erupted. He volunteered in the neurosurgery department for 33 days before being forced to leave due to Israeli attacks.
“Every day we received wounded people, some of them, or most of them, were critically wounded, said Salaha, who had volunteered at al-Aqsa hospital ever since.
“We haven’t slept well. We did a lot of surgeries, and we have dealt with wounded patients without operation room. We did some operation on the floor, because we didn’t have any capacity,” he said.
“People think that this ceasefire will bring life back to normal. But this is not the case. The state of the hospitals is very chaotic. We need a lot of medicines and medical supplies in order to deal with all [the remaining] cases.”