Inside Gaza’s Hospitals: Nurse Ghada and Israel’s War on Medical Workers
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.