Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Manar Fayyad, 29, an anaesthesiologist at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, has suffered severe psychological trauma since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. The turning point came when he discovered that a man lying before him in the operating room was his own brother Shadi, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on December 27, 2023. He recalled the moment he was summoned into the operating room to administer anaesthesia to a critically injured man before emergency surgery.
I had a strange feeling, so I approached him and uncovered his face. To my shock, he was my brother Shadi, who was 34.” Since then, the hospital has become inseparable from the traumatic memory, and he has been unable to continue to work, ultimately bringing his professional career to a premature end. He continues to struggle with the psychological effects of the experience, trying to cope with it on his own without professional help.
He has withdrawn from social life and avoids people and noise as he searches for peace since his brother died. Sitting by the sea and writing offers him some solace, helping him express his pain and process what has happened. Yet he remains preoccupied with the idea of leaving Gaza, hoping that distance might free him from the reminders of that day.
Having lost his brother, his profession and much of his social life, Fayyad now faces a different battle: one against trauma that he is trying to confront alone. Khaled Raafat, 29, a nurse in the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, stepped away from work for an extended period after losing his wife, children, mother and several siblings in an Israeli air strike on his family home on October 18, 2023. He was at the hospital at the time, trying to save their lives of others injured that day.
The hospital, once associated in my mind with my humanitarian duty, became a reminder of personal pain that was beyond what I could bear. It deeply affected my ability to continue my professional and social life.” Raafat said he eventually decided to rebuild his life. I decided to work towards my psychological recovery, got married and started a new family in an attempt to regain stability and hope,” he said.
These figures do not reveal the deep psychological burden borne by medical workers who have lost family, friends and colleagues and witnessed horrific injuries and death on a daily basis. They have also faced continued displacement, relentless pressure and have been overworked for years. A study found that 41 percent reported losing family members and 46 percent had experienced both personal bereavement and displacement from their workplaces, according to a report on the strain on medical workers in Gaza published in the Public Library of Science.
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