The north of Gaza is an open cemetery

As the world watches, Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a deliberately engineered humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions that is getting worse by the hour. In recent weeks, Israel has completely laid siege to northern Gaza and intensified its bombing here, with reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is pursuing a policy of hungry to force the remaining Palestinians south. Israel has already destroyed much of Gaza, but if the international community does not take immediate action, there will be nothing and no one left in the north.

The past year has tested our endurance in ways we never imagined. But in recent weeks we have reached the limit of anything that can be described as ‘life’.

Until October 22, I worked in the emergency room of the now destroyed Indonesian hospital. As a doctor who graduated last year and returned to Gaza after ten years abroad, I dedicated my life to healing. But that mission was taken away from me.

I worked in the hospital for eight months before I was forced to leave by Israeli soldiers besieged the complexcausing the hospital to lose power. Medical supplies were running low and there was no way to treat the wounded. Ambulances struggled to reach the injured, with their drivers risking their lives to navigate streets reduced to craters and rubble.

In the hospital the scenes were more than tragic. We had to make impossible choices: who to save and who to let die, not because their injuries were too serious, but because Israel’s siege meant we simply did not have the resources to help them. I’ve seen children die because we ran out of something as simple as antibiotics.

Many of my colleagues have been murdered simply for doing their job. Others are stranded in dangerous areas and cannot reach the hospitals where they are so desperately needed. Every day we risk our lives knowing that even the places meant to heal have become targets.

The north of Gaza is an open cemetery. There is no longer a place of refuge for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still here. Seventy-two members of my own family were murdered. Hospitals, schools and homes – places meant to shelter and protect – have been wiped out. Every space that once promised safety has turned to dust. The scale of the destruction is immeasurable and the human toll is staggering.

The streets where children once played are now filled with bodies, and those of us who remain are trapped, surrounded by death. If the explosion of the bombs doesn’t get us, the fires they cause will.

The Palestinians here are cut off from food, water and medical facilities. Families gather whatever they can find to stay alive: rotting flour, expired canned goods, anything that can be consumed. Fresh vegetables, meat and milk have been distant memories for more than a year, especially for our children, whose bodies have become vulnerable due to malnutrition. Hunger is one weaponand it is being used to slowly kill us. Parents watch helplessly as their children waste away, growing weaker by the day, their tiny bodies no longer able to fight off the infections spreading in the overcrowded shelters.

I have lost count of the times my own family and I have been displaced. We are forced to flee from one destroyed building to another, seeking safety that does not exist.

We now live in a UN school near the Jabaliya refugee camp, but even here, in what is supposed to be a refuge, we are not safe. Bombs fall so close we can feel the walls shaking. Classrooms meant for learning are filled with the screams of children too young to understand why their world is crumbling around them. The overcrowding is unbearable; dozens of families are crammed into small rooms, desperately clinging to the hope that we will survive the next strike.

What is happening in Gaza is an attack on childhood itself and a war against the essence of what it means to be human.

The Biden administration and the international community must open their eyes, and more importantly, their hearts. What Israel is doing in Gaza violates every standard of international law, every ounce of human decency, and sets a dangerous precedent. The siege, the bombing of houses, schools and hospitals, the mass murder of civilians are crimes that require more than condemnation. They demand immediate action to stop them.

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After a year of continued horror, Israel’s attack must finally end. I swore an oath to save lives, but that sacred mission was taken from me. The tools I need to heal are being destroyed, and the lives I swore to protect are being decimated. The Palestinians in Gaza don’t ask for much. Simply the right to live in freedom, dignity and security. To see their children grow. To have food and medical care. These are not luxuries; they are basic human rights. Rights being ripped away while the world watches in silence.

Now is the time to act. The Biden administration and other Western governments must stop enabling our suffering.

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Ezzideen Shehab

Dr. Ezzideen Shehab is a 28-year-old doctor in northern Gaza, born and raised in Jabaliya, where he is currently sheltering.

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