Palestinian painter Maram Ali
By Hassen Lorgat
O Doctors of Gaza
O Doctors from Gaza, saviors of Palestine—
What a shame—
Doctors jailed by Israel
(not to speak of those maimed and murdered),
their crime?: loving and serving their people.
O people of our civilized world,
do not ask Palestinians to forgive and forget those mediciders
For their industrial-scale killing of healers, patients, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and emergency vehicles—
someone must tame this beast. At least…
For close to a year, they bombed those who took the oath to serve,
and the home where care and health once flowered—
a homeland scarred by the greed of usurpers.
They came to break the back of their leader.
Dr. Safiya, your name says it all: Safr—
the chosen one.
Taken two days after Christmas, in ’24,
torn from your beloved home away from home:
Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Seized by the usurping ones.
You were born to serve,
and you served to the music of drones, bombs, missiles, and intimidatory gunfire.
You refused to leave your post—
even after they killed your beloved son, Ibrahim.
You refused to leave.
Ibrahim’s janazah was barely complete
when you went straight back to perform surgery.
You refused to leave the hospital,
remaining to shield the besieged children and medicine.
So they had to arrest you—
and place you on the path of a slow death.
It is you, Safiya.
Because of who you are,
they refused to treat your injuries,
starved you—
and as many of us fear, physically tortured you.
Solitary confinement and torture has become their daily prayer.
…they have tried to break you—
and the hospital you directed.
For you and the hospital were the last man standing.
But like Gaza, you have the heart of sumud.
Over one hundred doctors like you are birds in their cages.
And some of those caged birds sang.
The songs from your comrades at Al-Awda Hospital and Al-Shifa Hospital
could be heard long after they were gone—
singing the song you knew and loved:
Sauf Nabqa Huna.
We too hum it now, in your memory.
سوف نبقى هنا .. كي يزول الألم
(We will stay here … so the pain ceases)
موطني موطني .. موطني ذا الإبا
(My homeland, my homeland … home of pride)
سوف نسعى إلى .. أن تعم النعم
(We will endeavor that graces may prevail)
و نكون حقا .. خير أمة بين الأمم
(And be truly a better nation among nations)
You kept saying: They have burnt our hearts.
They have burned out our hearts.
This must end.
It must end so
that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya
and all those upholders of the oath to serve
return dressed in their pure white robes—
without the stains of war.
Hassen Lorgat
