It usually comes to mind that only general life-saving surgeries are at the forefront of the scene, but the horror of injuries in the Gaza Strip imposed a different medical reality.
In a step fraught with great danger, the Egyptian doctor, carrying delicate medical equipment and consumables, headed through the Rafah crossing to the European Gaza Hospital in the south of the Strip, to face extremely complex critical cases that included retinal detachments and fragments lodged inside the eyes.
Through the documentary film – which is shown on the Al Jazeera 360 platform, and you can watch it by clicking here – the Egyptian doctor narrates through the witness’s voice how the journey turned from a mere human choice into a “divine facilitation” and the fate of a director who put him in front of cases of women and children who, if neglected for a few hours, would lose their sight forever.
Available statistics indicate that about 700 people in the Gaza Strip lost their eyes during the war, including 600 injured people who lost one eye, while approximately 100 people lost both eyes, according to the hospital director.
Defining moments
The film goes through dramatic and humanitarian stations that confronted the Egyptian doctor, most notably the story of a Gazan child no more than 5 years old who was sitting in his tent playing and watching a movie before the bombing hit him and injured both his eyes.
The doctor describes with great emotion the longest walk he took in his life, which was walking from the operating room to the child’s parents to inform them of the permanent loss of his sight and that fate preceded the surgeon’s hand.
In contrast to this, divine wisdom is evident in another situation with a woman who ran to him in astonishment at his presence in the hospital after the occupation army’s closure of the crossing delayed his travel by a week. The mother was asking him to examine the condition of her daughter, who had severe pus in her right eye after a previous operation he had performed on her two days earlier. If he had left on his appointed time, the girl would have lost her sight forever. The doctor points out that this forced delay made the doctor realize the depth of the wisdom of his survival to deal with these impossible cases.
The Egyptian doctor says that the second visit to the Gaza Strip was planned to last one month, but it was forcibly extended by an Israeli decision preventing departure.
Humanitarian lessons
Despite the harsh conditions, the total number of surgical operations performed by the Egyptian doctor during his two visits amounted to about 500 (150 in the first, and 350 in the second), recording a paradox that caught his attention, which was that his first visit was free of any cases of pus, compared to one difficult case in the second that was destined to be cured.
According to the film, this exceptional journey left a deep impact on the soul of the Egyptian surgeon, according to what those close to him said, and he concluded his story in the film with an honest admission that the cruelty of Gaza and its human fabric had changed a lot in him, and made him a calmer and less stressed person, and aware of the lasting meaning of the doctor’s mission to preserve the light of people’s eyes.