Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) offers care to almost 5,000 people suffering burns or traumatic injuries in Gaza. The wounds and accounts of the patients offer a window into their daily life.
By Médecins Sans Frontières | Feb 26, 2018
“When I don’t have enough money for food, I ask around. Sometimes my stepmother lends me 15 shekels. I feel so ashamed. But she says we’re family, that I’m like her son and we have to support each other.”
— Abdel Raheem, a 30-year-old patient
First off, Gaza means confinement. A strip of land 42 kilometres long and 12.5 kilometres at its widest, it takes just an hour and a half to drive from north to south.
Gaza is hemmed in by the sea to the west, a “security barrier” — a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire — to the east, while in the north a wall several meters high has been erected to prevent people from crossing the border. And yet another wall, this one underground, is under construction. This is home to close to two million people.
Many of Gaza’s inhabitants have never been able to leave, particularly since a blockade was imposed by Israel after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2007.
“I’ve only ever left Gaza once. It was for an operation in Egypt when I was eight. I don’t remember a thing!” says 22-year-old Hassan, who was shot on the border in December.
Continue reading “Gazans’ wounds bear witness to their living conditions”
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