For the around 2,000 Gazans residing in Doha, the Al Thumama complex is an oasis of peace and a safe haven. In its streets, mothers pass by with strollers and children on bicycles who make the V for victory with their fingers when they see a camera. Apart from their voices and laughter, nothing can be heard. The explosion of bombs and the overflight of Israeli warplanes and drones is far away.
But it is not easy for Palestinians who have been able to leave Gaza to forget what they have left behind, including their relatives. Sirin, 27, traveled to Qatar to undergo surgery and left her husband behind because he did not obtain permission to leave the Strip. Her only daughter died in the bombing in which the young woman was injured in February 2024.
“When they bombed us, we were near the border [con Egipto]in southern Gaza. We were all asleep and when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t move and my daughter was dead. We were supposed to be in a safe area, where there was no risk or reason for them to bomb us, but they bombed us,” he remembers with sadness, anger and a certain resignation. Still thanking God, Sirin says that it was very difficult to recover from that blow, physically and psychologically.
In April, Sirin was able to travel to Qatar, where she underwent two operations, on her head and legs, and now, in the month of December, she claims to feel much better thanks to the medical treatment she has received. She tells elDiario.es about her experience at the Al Thumama complex clinic, where she herself offers psychological support to other Palestinians, since she studied psychology in Gaza. “When I arrived, I came to a psychological therapy session and then decided to volunteer,” she says.
“They have treated us very well in Qatar and have shown solidarity with us, they give us all the services that we did not have in Gaza. Even from a psychological point of view, I am much better here; It is not only the medical treatment, but also the psychological situation,” explains Sirin, dressed in an elegant dark blue tunic that matches her hijab. “There are people here who still suffer, who still receive treatment and they are not well: they have suffered a lot of trauma. But thank God they feel safe, after the things they have experienced and seen in Gaza.”
Despite living in a safe place, the woman admits to being worried at all times. “Almost all my family and my husband are in Gaza, at any moment the news can arrive that someone is dead or injured… A month or so ago I was notified that my husband’s brother had died.” More than 45,200 Gazans have lost their lives and more than 107,500 have been injured, according to the latest figure from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
“We are safe, but they are not. When I try to push the worry away, it immediately comes back to me because of anything I see on social media or remember,” Sirin laments.
“When the war ends and reconstruction begins, I will return to Gaza, God willing,” says the young woman in whose eyes melancholy and hope are mixed. “For us injured it is difficult, we cannot yet return to a place that is contaminated, where there is no electricity or water or what is necessary to live. But when possible I will return, there is no doubt!”
Dr. Mervat, originally from Yemen, works at the Al Thumama clinic alongside other health professionals who care for residents in the complex, among whom there are almost 500 injured, of which 350 have suffered amputations. The most serious cases were admitted upon arrival in Qatar in one of the capital’s hospitals and underwent operations or other specific treatments. Some have had to remain hospitalized for months, others continue to go to hospital centers for periodic check-ups.
Al Thumama staff follow up on all the injured and know each case, what they need and how they have evolved. Dr. Mervat tells elDiario.es that one of her patients had lost his hearing, but in about four months he recovered it. He gives it as a positive example, but deals with other more complex cases, such as that of a 10-year-old child who cannot read.
In the complex, Gazans who suffered amputations or injuries carry out their recovery and rehabilitation process. Anas is one of them: the 24-year-old suffered a spinal cord injury while playing soccer in Gaza three years ago. He himself says that he is not a war wounded, but after the beginning of the Israeli offensive on October 7, 2023, he had to leave to continue the therapy that he could no longer do in the Strip.
“I need rehabilitation every day,” Anas tells elDiario.es. “The war forced me to leave Gaza, with my mother, my sisters and older brother,” explains the young man, whose father stayed in the Palestinian enclave. “Of course I am worried about him, the situation is very difficult in Gaza,” says Anas, while waiting for his turn to do the rehabilitation in one of Al Thumama’s buildings. In Gaza “there are no hospitals, there is no education, there is nothing at all to live on. Our house was also destroyed, so we have nothing to return to,” he laments, adding that they will return as soon as possible.
The physiotherapist who treats him, Abdelrahim, says that Anas has improved a lot since being in Qatar and is regaining the ability to stand up and walk. “He can get up on his own and come to his rehabilitation sessions alone, without any apparatus or assistance,” he says proudly. “His goal is to play football again and, although it is very difficult for him to achieve this, we try to do everything we can to get his life back,” says Abdelrahim.
Among the health professionals there are some who have been working with Gazan patients since the beginning and others who have joined more recently. The Al Thumama complex has been turning into a Palestinian village over the past ten months, after having been built to house visitors and fans during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Its facilities are in perfect condition, although a little bleak. . There is even a swimming pool – which is used for some physiotherapy sessions –, a tennis court, other sports courts and swings.
In total, the Qatari authorities have facilitated the evacuation of 2,500 Palestinians, most of them in the first months of 2024, until May – when the Rafah border crossing was closed, after the Israeli Army took over its control-. Since the closure of the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, very few wounded and sick people have been able to leave the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel and taken to Jordan to receive medical treatment in this country or in others.
Hayat is one of the first to arrive in Doha, after being injured in a bombing in October 2023. Her mother and father died and she was evacuated with her grandfather. “After the missile arrived at our house, I couldn’t walk anymore,” explains the 15-year-old teenager, whose legs are paralyzed and needs a wheelchair to get around. “I still can’t walk, only when the nurses help me,” Hayat tells this newspaper.
“When I finish rehabilitation I hope to return to Gaza,” he says. His two sisters and a brother are in the Strip. Meanwhile, he has resumed his studies in Qatar, at the Palestinian educational center where all school-age evacuees attend. The older ones have returned or have started studying at one of Doha’s universities. The goal is for them to be able to continue with their lives and for it not to stop until they return to Gaza, since that moment still seems very far away.
Despite the traumatic experiences they have lived through, the evacuees want to return to Gaza, to their towns of origin and to their homes, which in many cases are destroyed. And they want to be reunited with their loved ones who have been trapped under the bombs and the Israeli siege, without enough food, water, or the care they receive in Qatar.
Little Yazid will still have to go through a long therapeutic journey: he lost one eye and the sight in the other eye due to a bombing, which also affected his ear, for which he had to undergo surgery; He also has burns on his head and his jaw does not work well. Since April he has been in Doha with his aunt Halima because his mother and sisters died in that attack that almost cost him his life on the last day of last year. His father survived, but has not been able to leave Gaza to accompany the 7-year-old boy, who does not leave his aunt’s side and only responds timidly when he hears her voice or that of Dr. Mervat.
Halima tells elDiario.es that Yazid was transferred to Al Shifa Hospital – which was the largest in the entire Strip before the Israeli Army destroyed it – but it did not have the capacity to care for all the wounded. “The situation was very bad in the hospital, there were no free beds and there were not even doctors,” he explains. He was admitted for about ten days in January in Al Shifa and, due to the lack of resources, his father took him to the European Hospital in the south of Gaza. Finally, at the end of March he was able to leave the Strip and reach Egypt, where he spent about two weeks in Intensive Care, until he was evacuated to Qatar.
In Halima’s opinion, the boy has experienced an 80% improvement after operations and rehabilitation. He still has to undergo plastic surgery and improve the mobility of his jaw, all of this paid for by the Government of Qatar, like the rest of the expenses that Palestinian evacuees have during their stay in this country. “Ever since we left Gaza, he has been with me,” the woman says, as her nephew squeezes her hand. She can’t help but shed a few tears when she thinks about Yazid’s father, who is still in Gaza, and that they will not be able to return as long as the war continues and the boy needs specialized care.
#Palestinians #evacuated #Gaza #receive #treatment #Qatar #finish #rehabilitation #hope #return
