As I entered her room, my patient abruptly asked, “Where are you from?” Stunned, I wondered how she knew that, behind my quiet demeanor, I was a young female doctor who wanted to declare her origins to everyone. “Palestine,” I said, with a blend of pride and pain. Her smile widened, and she replied, “I am the descendant of Black slaves and I stand with the people of Palestine.”
I smiled, grateful for the unexpected sense of solidarity. As a Palestinian physician, I consider Palestine and medicine integral to my identity, one by heritage and one by choice. Sadly, both have been gravely threatened in the past months.
Courtesy of Dana Hassneiah
The author with her "Teta."
My Palestinian grandmother, whom I call “Teta,” was a tailor; her traditional dresses displayed the intricate embroidery of Palestine. She told stories of Gaza from long ago—a warm breeze of air blowing into a family gathering with knafeh, dabkeh folklore dancing, and mint tea. Listening to her, I would daydream about Gaza’s beaches, picking olives from the trees of my grandparents’ farm, and praying in the sacred Al-Aqsa mosque.
Yet, I have never set foot in Palestine. I am one of the many Palestinian refugees born in exile after 1948, the year of Al-Nakba, during which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their ancestral land to make way for the formation of Israel. I have not met most of my extended family, as they are scattered all over the world. Under the current system—defined as apartheid by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—we are denied the right to return to our ancestral land.
Gazans have been renowned for centuries for their weaving skills. My Teta was one of them, weaving cloth as well as she could weave a story. In fact, due to Gaza City’s renown in weaving, the word “gauze” comes from the name “Gaza.” I aspire to be a Gazan in my own way, to apply my city’s gauze on others as a healer.
To me, medicine has represented an alternate reality to my own, where humanity prevails, morality governs all actions, and all human beings are considered equal. During my residency in Miami, the Black Lives Matter movement erupted, and I found myself standing hand-in-hand with colleagues, proudly echoing medicine's call for equality and justice for all.
Recent months have unfurled a harrowing chapter in history as the world continues to bear witness to the ruthless assaults on Gaza. I feel sorrow not only for the indescribable suffering inflicted on civilians, but also for the desecration of what was my Teta’s perfect city. When the attacks targeted more than 100 cultural and heritage sites in Gaza, including the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza, consecrated in 1150 and deemed the third oldest church globally, my grief overwhelmed me.
Even half a world away, I feel the threat of extinction.
The words “kill them all,” “finish them,” and other dehumanizing rhetoric that labels Palestinians as “inhuman animals” and “subhumans” have cut deep through my soul. The pain is even worse knowing many of these words have emanated from leaders in the very country I currently reside in and that my taxes fund crimes against my own people. I arrived in the United States with the desire to serve all human beings, unaware that a day would come when I would have to remind those around me that I too am human, and so are my people. At the end of October, at least forty-seven family names — entire members of multi-generational extended families — were crossed off the Gaza registry. As that number has certainly risen since then, a pervasive fear lingers: What if my family name is next? Even half a world away, I feel the threat of extinction.
The direct assault on Gaza’s hospitals has breached a major line, violating the principle of medical neutrality and the Geneva Conventions. Hospitals are a sacred place of compassion and healing, and so I believed that the first time a hospital was bombed would stir the conscience of healthcare workers globally, including in the United States. Yet the moment was met with silence from the leaders of U.S. institutions, including my own, despite the pleas of healthcare workers in Gaza, and international organizations like Doctors Without Borders, WHO, and the United Nations.
I have since lost faith and trust in most prominent medical institutions that were fast to condemn the October 7 attack, yet turn a blind eye to the months of atrocities, including targeted attacks on medical facilities and personnel, that have followed it. It becomes clearer with each day of silence that these institutions and associations do not view all human life as equal, and Palestinian lives, including my own, are not considered worthy of their attention or efforts. For the first time in my life, I have felt that my chosen profession is yet another area in my life that is also beholden to imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy, despite attempts to cloak it in the modern rhetoric of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This is the core of what medicine should be—placing the sanctity of human life indiscriminately above personal gain and individual interests, even at the peril of one’s own existence.
Today, I stand with the essences of my identity attacked and my wounds laid bare. Yet, in the same tenacious spirit with which Palestinians endure to safeguard our existence against a world intent on erasing us, I am still committed to upholding the sanctity of medicine in my heart. And echoing Palestinians’ perseverance to decolonize our land, I am devoted to decolonizing the field of medicine beyond mere rhetorical efforts.
The medicine I believe in is the medicine of Dr. Hammam Alloh, a nephrologist in Gaza, who was killed in November by an Israeli artillery shell. In the days preceding his killing, he was asked why he didn’t flee south with his family. He replied, “If I go, who treats my patients? . . . Do you think this is the reason I went into medical school, to think only about my life?”
This, to me, is the core of what medicine should be—placing the sanctity of human life indiscriminately above personal gain and individual interests, even at the peril of one’s own existence.
The ongoing tragedy in Gaza demands more than passive observation; it requires our collective voices and efforts. This is especially true for healthcare professionals and institutions worldwide, all of whom must work toward a system that values every human life.