"The best place in the whole of this country"
In preparation for their secret survey of the region of southern Palestine known as the Wilderness of Zin on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), two archaeologists, Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence, reached Jaffa on 5 January 1914 and travelled down the coast to the old town of Gaza which sat on its round hill two miles inland above the maritime quarter. Here they were surprised to discover that the PEF had failed to provide equipment, stores or money for their expedition. They immediately set about purchasing on credit what could be bought in the town with the assistance of Rev. Dr. Robert B. Sterling, of the Church Missionary Society.
Dr. Sterling, who had built what was possibly the first fully functioning hospital in the Holy Land, situated then as now in the south-west corner of the town, was a prominent and important personage in the region, accompanying his treatment of the sick with a liberal dose of Scottish evangelism. Theodore Dowling, a traveller to the town in 1912 describes his arrival to meet the doctor: "On reaching Jaffa I secured a fresh carriage on April 12, for Gaza, reaching that city in nine and a half hours, an unusually quick journey. During my visit of ten days there I was the guest of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Sterling, in the Church Missionary Society's compound. Nothing could have exceeded their kind hospitality, and I am greatly indebted to them for valuable local information."
Dr. Sterling was also an excellent guide to the region and often accompanied visitors on trips to sites of historical interest throughout the town that was once celebrated as one of the five royal cities of the Philistines. The port area was of particular importance. "In company with Dr. Sterling I visited this spot, enveloped in sand, on April 18, where we found broken pieces of marble, ornamented glazed pottery, and ancient glass scattered in every direction... Augustus gave this port to Herod the Great, who rebuilt it, and changed its name into that of Agrippeion, after his friend Marcus Agrippa."
The same traveller describes the continuing saga of the town which has stood at the crossroads of history for centuries: "Gaza was taken by Alexander the Great after a siege of two months. When he subdued it, he ordered all the men to be slaughtered without quarter, and carried away all the women and children into bondage... Gaza must have been at this time a city of great strength, for Alexander's Greek engineers acknowledged their inability to invent engines of sufficient power to batter its massive walls. Alexander himself was severely wounded in the shoulder during a sortie of this garrison."
A formally recognised health service in Gaza did not start until 1882, the first Church Missionary Society work of its kind in Palestine. Starting as a simple dispensary, funds were raised for establishing a
permanent medical mission which soon became a favourite stopover of General Gordon (of Khartoum) who spent many weeks there in 1883 on his way up to Jerusalem to 'discover' his own preferred site for the garden tomb of Jesus. An interesting relic was the iron bedstead on which Gordon slept and was preserved in his name to show visitors.
All this time the medical work was confined to the treatment of out-patients, but in March 1891 a hospital adapted from a native house
was opened. Dr. Sterling arrived in 1893 and expanded the services offered by the hospital to include in-patient care. It's reputation grew and in 1906 the Muslim community presented Dr. Sterling with £100 which they had collected in token of their gratitude for his work among them. The hospital and out-patient hall were now much too small to match its growing reputation and on 1 April 1908 the Bishop of Jerusalem dedicated a new hospital containing forty-six beds followed by the opening of a spacious out-patient block on 22 February 1911.
Patients were drawn from across the community, Muslims, Orthodox Syrians and Jews. They would sit side by side in the out-patient hall waiting patiently to be seen by the doctor, an accomplished Arabic scholar. During 1912 it is recorded that there were 29,581 out-patients, 701 in-patients, 452 visits in town, and 411 major operations. Fees from the in-patients and out-patients during 1912 amounted to just over £326 which went to assist in the upkeep of the hospital.
On the eve of the First World War, Woolley and Lawrence had completed their clandestine mission to provide an archaeological cover to Newcombe's military exploration of the Aqaba hinterland but were delayed in their return to England. Newcombe, however, eager to get his maps back to the Geographical Department of the War Office, arrived back in London earlier and presented their account of the archaeological survey of Zin to the 49th Annual General Meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund held on Tuesday, 16 June 1914.
In concluding his talk, Newcombe praised the indomitable Dr. Sterling whose Church Mission Society Hospital was, he considered, "the best place in the whole of this country," and that full value was obtained for every contribution to the Hospital. He described Sterling’s reputation among the Arabs and the townspeople of Gaza as remarkable and "one to make anyone feel proud of his nationality." Sterling’s work among the Palestinians of Gaza had become legendary and his name was synonymous with the hospital he had helped create, so much so that it was known locally as the English Hospital or even Dr. Sterly’s, an Arabic corruption of his name.
Dr. Sterling spent 20 years in Palestine before his death in 1917. Today, his legacy has been renamed the Al Ahli Arab Hospital and is run by Anglican management, the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip and the only centre for cancer treatment. At 6:59 pm on 17 October 2023, a rocket explosion killed and wounded an unknown number of Palestinians who were seeking refuge from Israeli airstrikes in the courtyard in front of the hospital entrance. Palestinian officials blame an Israeli airstrike for the explosion and Israel says the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denies blame. Yet despite these extraordinary setbacks and under extreme circumstances, the hospital and its resilient, heroic staff remain a beacon of hope in today's war-torn Gaza.
Its website states that despite "constant turmoil, Al Ahli has been the sole fully-functional hospital in all of northern Gaza for over six weeks, serving many more patients than the staff is equipped to accommodate. In defiance of extraordinary, temporary setbacks, intermittent military occupation, and terrifying, life-threatening circumstances, the inspirational medical team and staff at Ahli Arab Hospital continue to persevere and work tirelessly for the sick, injured, and others in need. The stress on these brave individuals and the hospital facility is incomprehensible, and their resilience in fulfilling their mission of healing is exemplary." It seems the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Robert Sterling lives on.
"Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us"
These words were written on 20 October 2023 by Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, on a whiteboard normally used for planning surgeries at the Al Awda Hospital situated just a few kilometers north of Al Ahli Hospital.
One month later Dr. Abu Nujaila was killed by an Israeli strike on 21 November. The same strike killed another Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) doctor, Dr. Ahmad Al Sahar, as well as a third doctor, Dr. Ziad Al-Tatari.
In a text message sent one week before his death, Dr Abu Nujaila described his heartbreak at caring for three patients, children aged eight, seven and four. The only survivors from three different families, the children were brought to the hospital suffering from fractures, burns and deep wounds. Dr Abu Nujaila said in his message: “I take care of them daily. They have become my own children.
“We await at any time the order from the Israeli army to forcefully evacuate to the southern region of Gaza and to leave these children. Tell me, for God’s sake, 'how can I leave them?' I don’t dare even think about it.”
Dr Abu Nujaila and Dr Al Sahar were treating patients on the third and fourth floors when the hospital was targeted. Other medical staff, including MSF staff, were also severely injured. Along with the Al Ahli, the Al Awda hospital was one of the last remaining partly functional hospitals in northern Gaza.
As of December, MSF staff reported that the Israeli Defense Force had surround and seized the hospital and had stripped, bound, and interrogated all men and boys over the age of sixteen. For more than 20 days, no one was able to enter or leave the hospital after it was surrounded by snipers. Medical provision was halted as 170 people trapped inside – staff, patients, and their relatives – fought to survive on increasingly dwindling food and water supplies.
Action Aid, a partner of the hospital, reported that Dr Adnan Radi, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Al-Awda Hospital, had informed them that six healthcare workers died in the final days of the siege, while pregnant women were killed while attempting to access the hospital. The manager of the hospital, Dr Ahmed Muhanna, who was arrested and taken away, is still being held, his whereabouts unknown.
Following the end of the siege, doctors at Al-Awda have once again resumed treating patients despite experiencing a severe shortage of medical supplies, fuel, food and water. With no electricity, surgery is carried out under headlights.
"I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children"
This is the story of 12-year-old Dunia Abu Mohsen who was recovering from losing her leg in an Israeli air strike on 27 October that struck her home in Al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Yunis. Six of her family members were killed in the air strike, including her parents and two of her siblings. During the seven-day truce, Dunia was interviewed in hospital by the Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) and said: “When they shelled us with the second missile, I woke up and was surrounded by rubble,” she calmly tells her interviewer. “I realized that my leg had been cut off because there was blood and I had no leg. My father and mother were martyred, my brother Mohammed and my sister Dahlia, too,” she said calmly. “I want someone to take me abroad, to any country, to install a prosthetic leg, to be able to walk like other people.”
Her dream? “I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children. ” But then she added: “I only want one thing: For the war to end.”
For Dunia, the war ended on 17 December 2023 when an Israeli tank shell burst through the children's ward of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, a so-called safe zone where Israel had told people to evacuate to. Miranda Cleland from the DCIP called Dunia's story the distillation of the Palestinian child's experience in Gaza: "Displaced, bombed, orphaned, maimed, and finally killed by the Israeli military."
WCNSF
Wounded Child, No Surviving Family
UNICEF, the UN’s children’s fund, estimates that minors account for at least 40% of the estimated 24,000 people killed so far, with many more suffering life changing injuries. For this reason, many of the patients filling the hospitals have been assigned a new chilling acronym: “WCNSF” – “wounded child, no surviving family”.
“When we speak of a war on children, it’s not to try to be dramatic. It’s rooted in the data,” said James Elder, UNICEF's chief spokesperson, who spent weeks in Gaza under bombardment. “In ‘normal’ past conflicts, the rate was about 20%, so you’re looking at twice the number of children who have been killed and injured compared with previous conflicts.
“That speaks obviously to the severity and the intensity of the bombardment. We believe it also speaks to the indiscriminate nature of the bombardment, and it speaks to a disregard for civilians, particularly children.”
"Gaza has become a place of death and despair"
Martin Griffiths, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator stated last Friday, 5 January: "Gaza has become a place of death and despair. Tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured. Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies and inundated by desperate people seeking safety.
A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.
For children in particular, the last 12 weeks have been traumatic: no food, no water, no school, nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out. Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence, - while the world watches on."
The above was quoted on 11 January 2023, by Blinne Ni Ghralaigh K.C, an Irish lawyer speaking for South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the genocide case against Israel. She closed by calling this: "the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate so far vain hope that the world might do something."
Healthcare in Gaza, 2024
International medical aid groups including the World Health Organization (WHO) and Doctors Without Borders said last week that the Gaza health system is “completely collapsing" with many operations carried out without anesthesia. With only four hospitals partially functioning in northern Gaza, they remain a lifeline for thousands of desperate people seeking medical aid and shelter. On Sunday, 7 January 2024, the WHO said it had called off a planned mission to bring medical supplies to Al-Awda and other hospitals in the north for the fourth time after failing to receive safety guarantees. It has now been almost two weeks since the agency was last able to reach northern Gaza.
I may occasionally diverge from my normal narrative relating to Stewart Newcombe's life and his active involvement in the region, but if I know anything about the man it is that he would want his voice heard at this critical point in the history of Palestine and its people. In 1914, Newcombe announced that Britain should be proud of the achievements of Dr. Sterly's Gaza Hospital; in 2024, we should all be horrified that healthcare in Gaza has become yet one more battleground where more than 300 healthcare workers have been killed during 100 days of Israel's assault on Gaza.
At the ICJ on 12 January, during their response to South Africa's case of genocide against Israel, a lawyer representing Israel claimed under oath that hospitals "have not been bombed, rather the IDF sent soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure, reducing the damage and destruction." The Indonesian Hospital, Al Shifa Hospital, The International Eye Care Centre, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, The Al Quds Hospital, could all tell a different tale with many more coming under repeated Israeli strikes. Some may never reopen so severe is the damage. The forced closure of many medical facilities stems not just from damage by attacks but from the absence of electricity, fuel and supplies. Ambulances and staff have also been repeatedly targeted. In a rare admission, Israel claimed responsibility for one such attack on an ambulance convey outside the Al Shifa Hospital where at least 15 people were killed and over 50 wounded. According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society all 15 were civilians.
Asymmetrical warfare is messy and lines can be blurred, but there are clear rules of engagement. Article 3 (4) common to the Geneva Convention 1949 stipulates that all parties to an armed conflict must distinguish between persons engaging in hostilities and persons who are not, or
no longer, taking part in them. The latter must be dealt with humanely and, in
particular, they must not be maltreated, taken hostage or summarily sentenced
or executed. The sick and wounded must be cared for.
The resilience of the Gazan people is rooted in history and a deep connection to their land. As Gerald Butt says in his excellent biography of the town, Life at the Crossroads (Rimal Publications, 2009):
"For those familiar with the history of the region, the Israeli bombardment (2008) evoked echoes of previous ones - the two-month-long siege of Gaza and its ultimate destruction by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE to mention just one example".
When Gaza finally succumbed to Alexander, its military commander, a stubborn man named Batis, refused to kneel before Alexander and acknowledge him as the new King of Asia nor submit to the rule of the Macedonians. It was a defiant act of resistance that so enraged Alexander that ropes were inserted through Batis' Achilles tendons and he was dragged behind a chariot around the perimeter of the town walls until he died.
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| The Grand Mosque of Gaza, showing WW1 damage |
Gaza may be in ruins once again, but as Gerald Butt says: "its people have inherited the stubbornness that has allowed the city and the territory to survive so long and under such overwhelming odds." It could be said that the cycle of death and destruction that the Gazans have endured since 1948 - 81% of Gazans are Nakba refugees or their descendants - have shaped their character in a way that has made them tougher and more determined than other Palestinians. They will need those characteristics more than ever in 2024.
Photograph: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
NEXT POST: Part Two - The Long Road to Collective Dispossession
