we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

Tent camp in Rafah, with strong sun.

The artery of life has been severed

With the Rafah Crossing closed, injured and sick patients — as well as families waiting to reunite — are losing hope.
Faress Arafat.

 

Tent camp in Rafah, with strong sun.
The refugee camp in Rafah, before the Israeli Defense Forces’s bombing and occupation of the Rafah Crossing. Photo: Faress Arafat

 

After all the efforts taken to stop this bloody war, we had hope that it would end soon. But the negotiations failed almost immediately. They not only failed, but the Israeli Defense Forces also announced the beginning of its ground military campaign against the city of Rafah, an area considered the only salvation for the refugees of the Gaza Strip.

Children waiting in line for food in Rafah.
The displaced children of Gaza at the Rafah refugee camp, waiting in line for food. Photo: Faress Arafat

Before the attack on Rafah, which began May 6, 2024, the number of refugees there totaled approximately 1.4 million. It was the only place that had hospitals and medical services and so was the only hope for sick and injured patients who needed to receive aid to stay alive.

The army began dropping warning flyers on the east of the city, telling the refugees to evacuate. People began dismantling their tents and migrating back to the center of the Gaza Strip, the smallest area in the region. Here, there was no space for 1.4 million people to rebuild their tents, nor any medical services to cover their needs. They flowed away from Rafah like the stream of a river, knowing what their fate would be if they remained: They would die.

Within less than 24 hours, the army began throwing hundreds of bombs into the city, onto homes and mosques, crazily, erratically, resulting in dozens of martyrs and injuries. Then the army published videos showing its troops walking around on the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing and announcing their control over it.

After we heard this news, the dreams and hopes of thousands of injured and sick patients — hoping for medicine and supplies to be delivered through the crossing, or for them to be able to cross the border to obtain treatment in Egypt or elsewhere — were shattered. The Gaza Strip became a very small prison with no connection to the world.

The occupation means that no medicine or food will enter Rafah and no infected or injured person will be discharged for treatment.

To describe it simply, the entire population will gradually die.

Many of the painful stories from patients affect me and crush my heart. Let’s start with the story of my 15-year-old niece Sondos. She has been suffering from a tumor in her left foot since the beginning of the war.

I have been trying to find treatment for her, but unfortunately it is not possible to perform surgery to remove this tumor. Surgical priority is reserved for the newly injured, and there is already a general lack of the specialists required for this type of procedure.

Before the Rafah Crossing occupation, her only option was to travel abroad for treatment; otherwise, Sondos would lose her foot or her life. Her tumor was getting horribly worse and began secreting blood. We succeeded in registering her for travel, but we were not in time. Now the border is closed and no one can do anything for her.

Doctors operating on a patient.
Inside a hospital in Rafah. Photo: Faress Arafat

We waited for her to be added to the list of people approved to travel into Egypt; now, she is waiting to be added to the list of the dead.

Perhaps Sondos’s condition is much better than that of other injured people who have already taken their last breath. How long will we wait for this war to end? Every day we lose dozens of innocent lives, lives of people with no fault or involvement in this war.

Another tragic story that hurts to tell is about a doctor — one of my colleagues. His story also unfolded following the occupation of the Rafah Crossing, which separated hundreds of families who were waiting for the moment they could meet and reunite.

My colleague was waiting with bated breath to meet his family in Egypt, but he remained working in Rafah hospitals, moving from one hospital to another to help the injured. He had real hope that the date he’d meet his family was approaching. He is a father and a husband, and he was consumed by yearning and longing for his children and wife. Unfortunately, once the army occupied the crossing, he could not meet them, and his hope was destroyed.

How did his children and wife react, knowing he would not be able to come to them due to harsh circumstances beyond his control? How will they continue their lives? They will remain in constant, endless fear, feeling heartbroken, experiencing immense loss.

This is the case for hundreds of Gazan families waiting to be reunited, including those living in the diaspora. They know about their families’ situations only through news channels and do not know what to do.

And what about the people who are killed, or who went missing, whose families are waiting to join them and the only way to meet them is in Paradise? Life in war is a miserable life, and the suffering worsens day after day.

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