Hardly any electricity, too many wounded, too little material, fear of disease: the medical conditions in Gaza are increasingly deteriorating. A doctor about his everyday life in the badly damaged Nuseirat.
Ahmed Shehada lives in the Gaza Strip with his wife, seven-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. He studied medicine in Gaza City and works as a doctor for the UN. Our author exchanged messages with Ahmed via Facebook from Tel Aviv for several days in the short windows of time when there was internet. Shehada authorized the call transcript.
My name is Ahmed Shehada, I am 36 years old and I live in Nuseirat in central Gaza. I work as a family doctor for the United Nations. What we have been living through since the war in Gaza began is hell on earth. Maybe the world has gotten used to the news from here by now. But for us it’s not just images, for us it’s reality from which we have no way to escape. In Gaza you currently have to reckon with the fact that you could die at any moment. My wife’s uncle, his son, his son-in-law and his grandson all died in the bombing of the mosque next to our house. No matter how well we describe what is happening here to the outside world, I think it will always be impossible to truly understand it.