Before the eyes of the whole world, Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing a deliberately organized humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions, which is getting worse by the hour. In recent weeks, Israel has imposed a total siege on northern Gaza and intensified its bombing there, with reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will implement a policy of famine to force the remaining Palestinians to move south. Israel has already ravaged much of Gaza, but if the international community does not act immediately, there will be nothing and no one left in the north.

The last year has tested our endurance in ways we could never have imagined. But the last few weeks have pushed us to the limits of anything that can be described as “living.”

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

I worked at the hospital for eight months before I was forced to leave when Israeli soldiers besieged the complexleaving the hospital without electricity. Medical supplies were virtually exhausted and there was no way to treat the injured. Ambulances struggled to reach the injured, their drivers risking their lives to navigate streets reduced to craters and rubble.

Inside the hospital, the scenes were beyond tragic. We had to make impossible choices: who to save and who to let die, not because their injuries were too severe, but because the Israeli siege meant we simply did not have the supplies to help them. I have seen children die because we lacked something as basic as antibiotics.

Many of my colleagues were killed simply for doing their jobs. Others have found themselves stranded in dangerous areas, unable to reach hospitals where they are so desperately needed. Every day we risk our lives, knowing that even places meant to heal have become targets.

Northern Gaza is an open cemetery. There is no longer any sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still here. Seventy-two members of my own family were killed. Hospitals, schools and homes – places meant to shelter and protect – have been destroyed. Every space that once promised safety has been turned to dust. The scale of the destruction is incalculable and the human toll is staggering.

The streets where children once played are now lined with corpses, and those of us left are trapped, surrounded by death. If the explosion of the bombs does not take us away, the fires they cause will take us away.

Here, Palestinians are deprived of food, water and medical supplies. Families collect whatever they can find to stay alive: rotten flour, expired canned goods, anything that can be eaten. Fresh vegetables, meat and milk have been distant memories for over a year, especially for our children, whose bodies have become fragile due to malnutrition. Hunger is a armedand it is 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 that spread in overcrowded shelters.

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

We now live in a UN school near the Jabaliya refugee camp, but even here, in what should be a place of refuge, we are not safe. The bombs fall so close that you can feel the walls shaking. Classrooms intended for learning are filled with the screams of children too young to understand why their world is collapsing around them. The overcrowding is unbearable, with dozens of families crammed into tiny rooms, desperately clinging to the hope of surviving the next strike.

What is happening in Gaza is an attack on childhood itself and a war on the very 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 norm of international law, every basic human decency, and sets a dangerous precedent. The siege, the bombing of homes, schools and hospitals, the massacres of civilians are crimes that demand more than simple condemnation. They demand immediate action to stop them.

Ad Policy

After a year of incessant horror, we must finally put an end to Israel’s assaults. I swore to save lives, but that sacred mission was taken away from me. The tools I need to heal are destroyed and the lives I swore to protect are decimated. The Palestinians in Gaza are not asking for much. Just the right to live in freedom, with dignity and in security. To see their children grow up. Have food and medical care. These are not luxuries; these are fundamental human rights. Rights that are taken away under the silent gaze of the world.

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

Can we count on you?

In the next election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights will be at stake. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are attempting to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision at all levels of government should he win.

We have already witnessed events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism. The nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, analyzed JD Vance’s superficial right-wing populist appeals, and debated the path forward to a Democratic victory in November.

Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical moment in our nation’s history. Now more than ever, we need independent, lucid and in-depth journalism to make sense of the headlines and separate fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and elevating the voices of grassroots advocates.

Throughout 2024 and what is likely to be the defining election of our lives, we need your support to continue publishing the insightful journalism you rely on.

THANKS,
The editors of The nation

Ezzideen Shehab

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

More than The nation

What are the effects of today’s conflicts on the children they entrap?

Nick Turse

After Trump and Vance spread unfounded claims about Haitian migrants in the small town, this photographer went to see who and what was really there.

Jerome Sessini

Halting offensive weapons transfers now would put the administration on a new path and align Harris with the majority of Democrats who support the terms of arms aid to Israel.

Walid Shahid For The nation

Their importance in the ongoing struggle for human rights has been met with fierce state repression.

Bahar Mirhosseni