Tuesday 31/10/2023

There’s a woman screaming at the hospital, begging the nurse to get her operation to start earlier. She's due to bone surgery, a plate implant in her left arm. My father hasn’t been operated on yet, 3 days after the house was bombed with us inside, he still needs to be operated on. Two days ago, the nurse asked him to fast in preparation for surgery. 

I went to ask the doctor when the surgery would start, he said he didn’t know, maybe in an hour, maybe tomorrow, the number of injuries is growing by the minute and we have to stop surgeries for emergencies. Another nurse in the corridor next to me told the medical team that he wouldn’t work if there were no pain killers for the patients, that he doesn’t want to torture people. 

70 cases of broken bones that need implants PER DAY. And everyone is waiting for their turn. This place is more of a morgue, catching its breath to eat even more flesh. 

Nurses and doctors have grown numb to the patients' demands for pain killers. The Palestinian people are going through soul skinning. A graying. You want to cry but you can’t and at the same time, you can’t even collapse. Today is the first day I eat something (bread) since the shelling. The hospital we’re in is far from the center of Khan Younis, the patients need healthy food - the occupation army issued a missile warning to a restaurant at the center because it was giving away food for free. 

My father says he doesn’t want to take anyone’s turn. If the surgery happens today, I'll continue fasting. If it happens tomorrow, I’ll have some biscuits. Again, I feel like, in writing about them, I’m cheating those feelings. And they’re much bigger than any words, they only need for us to scream.