Medical Workers Evacuated From Gaza, but 3 Americans Refuse to Leave

The missions, as is often the case, had been scheduled to last two weeks before a fresh group of aid workers would rotate in with new supplies. But after Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, nothing could get in or out, neither supplies nor people. 

"If all and only the Americans left at once, what would that say about us as a nation?"

Among the three Americans who refused to leave is Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey doctor and Army veteran who insisted on remaining behind to protect and serve his patients.

"There is a palpable gloom and foreboding that had set in at the hospital. The children and staff are asking for everyone by name. All the Americans and Brits left. That can't be a good sign," said Hamawy.

"A decision for some of us to stay was consistent with our American values. We came in as a team and we do not leave anyone behind. If all and only the Americans left at once, what would that say about us as a nation?"

While serving in the Iraq War, Hamawy was the doctor who treated now-Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., when her helicopter was shot down. Duckworth credits Hamawy for saving her life and put pressure on Israel and the State Department to find a way to free the medical workers.

Hamawy said that the mission staff had been put in an impossible position.

"Although we feel we are abandoning our patients we all understood that this was going to happen from day one," he said, given the short-term nature of the mission. "We would have to turn over our patients to a fresh team. Unfortunately we have to leave this burden on our overworked, burnt out Palestinian colleagues. The three Americans that stayed behind opened the opportunity for three Brits to leave."

Sixteen medical workers remain at the hospital, Hamawy said. That includes nationals of Egypt, Ireland, Australia, and Jordan — countries with less political sway than the United States. Other missions, some staffed with Americans, remain active elsewhere in Gaza.

The staff and patients fear that without Americans in the hospital to serve as political shields against the Israel Defense Forces, the hospital will be destroyed, as the IDF has done to every other hospital in Gaza.

"It was a grueling trip and very bitter departure," said Monica Johnston, a nurse who initially held out against leaving without new aid worker replacements but eventually agreed to go. "The politics and injustice in it enrages me." Johnston said the bombing around the hospital had ramped up in recent days.

Rotating in a new mission has taken on additional importance given the blockade of medical supplies, as each new mission arrives with their own supplies. "The refusal to allow in basic humanitarian aid," said Hamawy, "is a failure of the international community." 

Dr. Mosab Nasser, who led the FAJR Scientific mission to the hospital, took a more upbeat approach in a statement issued after he arrived safely in Jerusalem. "I am thrilled to announce that the FAJR team (comprising 12 Americans and 3 British nationals) has been successfully picked up by both the US and UK embassies from the KS crossing near Gaza," Nasser wrote, going on to reference Hamawy and another volunteer. "The team will spend a day in Jerusalem before flying back to the US and UK on Sunday. Two of our FAJR volunteers have remained in Gaza, continuing their life-saving work. They will soon exit Gaza as part of the UN rotation of EMTs, in collaboration with the WHO." (The third American to stay behind was part of a separate mission, as was Johnston, at the same hospital.)

"This achievement highlights the remarkable coordination FAJR Scientific has accomplished with international entities, including the Department of State, the US embassy in Jerusalem and Cairo, the UK embassy in Tel Aviv, the US embassy in Muscat, Oman, the WHO, OCHA, CLA, and others," he went on. "Yes, we left Gaza, but Gaza has left an indelible mark on us, and it will remain with us forever. We promise we will be back again and very soon."

The statement rankled some staff who stayed behind there and at other medical facilities. 

Dorotea Gucciardo, an aid worker in Rafah with the medical solidarity organization Glia Equal Care, said that the international focus on Western doctors risked obscuring the reason they are there: Israel's ongoing occupation and assault on Gaza. "We have international organizations, we have national governments all working together to open the borders for this already privileged group of people," she said. "Our main objective is not that we are stuck here and we need to get out. Our main objective is to ensure that the patients are being taken care of. I think that the focus should be put back onto once again the reason why these humanitarian workers are here to begin with, and that's the occupation. And this ongoing siege and war against Gaza."

"I'm hearing some international aid workers saying, 'Oh, it can't get worse than this,'" she said. "And yet, if we actually take a look at context and if we take a look at history, we see that it can get worse. It has gotten worse and it's continuing to get worse. And so we can do the best that we can while we are here to support our Gazan hosts and our colleagues. But what we need is for this war to end. We need this siege to end, this blockade to end, the occupation to end, so that we can finally have aid too."

Dr. Haleh Sheikholesami, an American physician from California also volunteering with Glia, said the situation put the perilous prospects of the Palestinians in stark relief: "You know that hopefully this will end and we can go home. But, unfortunately, the Gazans don't have such predictions."