Médecins Sans Frontières’ nursing director, Emily Callie Callahan, who was evacuated from Gaza last Wednesday and returned to the United States over the weekend, described the conditions she witnessed in the Strip and the steadfastness and calm that characterized the medical teams in the Strip despite their knowledge that they might be exposed to death. She told CNN.
“(We were) either going to starve or run out of water,” Callahan said. “And they’re the ones who negotiated all of this. They – Gaza is a small town. So everyone knows each other, and they would go ahead and call their friends and say, ‘Who do you know has food? Who do you know whose store is open?’ “Where can we get this or that? They were wandering everywhere looking for water. When we ran out of bottled water in Gaza, they were the ones who knew that the water truck was coming at the appointed time.”
“(Some of them were saying) ‘I know this guy works at a grocery store,’ and they still have the energy sometimes. I think maybe I can get something from them,” she continued. “When I say we would have starved to death without them, I’m not exaggerating. And in moments of utter despair.” For the civilians, they were steadfast and calm, talking to them and telling them that these people are also in the same situations, they don’t have supplies, they don’t have food and water, they’re also sleeping outside on the concrete, and they did it in such a beautiful way that they were able to calm them down with love and kindness. There was no violence. In their hearts, it calmed everyone around them as well.”
When asked if she would return to Gaza, Callahan replied: “Immediately, absolutely immediately. My heart is in Gaza and will remain in Gaza.”
“The Palestinian people I worked with – both our national staff in the office as well as the staff working for the Indonesian hospital were some of the most wonderful people I have ever met,” she noted. “When everything went down and we got notice to move south of Wadi Gaza, I was texting the nurses in The Indonesian hospital and I said – we had lost a nurse over the weekend. He was killed when the ambulance exploded outside the hospital. I was texting them when we got the evacuation orders and I said: Have any of you moved to the south? Did any of you get out? Are any of you coming? “To this side? And the only answer I got was: ‘This is our community, this is our family, these are our friends. If they’re going to kill us, we’ll die to save as many people as possible.'”
“And I said, ‘If I could get an ounce of what was in your hearts, I would die happy.’ They were unbelievable.”
Callahan concluded her comment by saying, “I would like to send a reminder that there are civilians seeking shelter out there and that the doctors and nurses have not left because of their loyalty to their community. I know that there is an idea being promoted now that anyone who falls behind will be seen as a threat of some kind.” “And I want to remind people that the people who stayed behind are heroes. The people who stayed behind knew they were going to die and chose to stay anyway.”
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2023-11-08 17:08:50
