Life-genocide balance

It has been more than a month since a “ceasefire” took hold in Gaza. That, of course, does not mean that the killing of Palestinians has stopped. It simply means that it has been reduced to a rate that allows international media to ignore it.

And so, the world has largely moved on from the story. But I haven’t. In July 2024, I joined a medical mission to Gaza and spent 22 days there, volunteering at hospitals. What I came back with is something I cannot easily explain.

The man my family knew, the son, brother, and husband they laughed with, the father who played with his children, feels lost to them now. I call him the “previous Talal”.

My children, wife, siblings, parents, friends and colleagues, they all see the change. They tell me I have become distant, quiet, detached, and sometimes hard to reach. My emotions are messy and raw in ways words often fail to capture. It is not a single feeling, but a swarm of emotions that is not going away despite the news of a “ceasefire” and reassurances of “reconstruction”.

After witnessing human tragedy of indescribable proportions, I still feel anger bubbling at the injustice of it all, guilt for leaving behind the vulnerable, and a constant, aching helplessness at not being able to do something to stop this continuing annihilation.

I still feel uneasy when I see a lavish buffet meal on a table in front of me, knowing people continue to starve in Gaza.

The faces and scenes I have witnessed continue playing like a never-ending movie in my head: Starving children reduced to skeletons, parents who held onto body parts of their beloved children, completely charred humans, cozy blankets used as shrouds for human body parts, a bombed hospital, levelled buildings emitting the odour of decomposing bodies buried in their rubble.

I am still haunted by the choices I had to make: which patient to treat because there were not enough dialysis machines, or what words to use to explain to a child why their parent will not wake up.

Gaza has transformed me from a nephrologist to a journalist, storyteller, and humanitarian. Since I came back, I have written articles, spoken at mosques and universities, led talks at fundraisers, stood at marches, and met lawmakers, advocating for the oppressed people of Gaza in every way I can. Just like other colleagues who have been on medical missions to the Gaza Strip, I have tried to turn bearing witness into action so that Gaza is not forgotten.

I have tried to go back several times. Each time, Israel has denied me entry. Each denial has made my heart ache worse.

The distance between what I can do here and what is needed there feels unbearable. I constantly ask myself, “Am I doing enough? Have I failed?”

Is this sadness? Trauma? A conscience that refuses to be at peace? I do not know the proper label, and labels do not lessen the load.

Excerpted: ‘No medical training could prepare me for a ‘life-genocide balance’. Courtesy: Aljazeera.com