“We will die here, we will be buried here” a Palestinian woman bellows outside the destroyed Al Shifa Hospital
EDITOR’S NOTE: What follows is pledge from a Palestinian lady, who came to witness the destruction of the Al Shifa health complex just after the Israeli army pulled out after 14 days of mayhem, killing and disaster beginning 18 March, 2024. Her comments are slightly edited for brevity.
“We remain steadfast here and we will not leave our homeland,” a Palestinian lady outside Al Shifa Hospital tells the camera after the Israeli army left the complex after totally devastating the area.
She tells people around her to say “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) which they immediately do as heard in the videoclip.
“We are remaining in this country and we will never leave it,” she emphasizes.
“We will never leave here. We will rebuild it, and we will put it back together again and return to our homes once again.” These are the ones that were decimated by the Israeli war machine since 7 October.
“Anyone who leaves this place is wrong, so please: No one must think of leaving this land,” whilst calling on the people of Gaza, the great majority of whom were displaced from their homes and made into internal starving refugees to “stay steadfast on this land.
We will die here, we will be buried here,” she added defiantly in the videoclip.
“This land is the country of our ancestors, we will never leave it, Inshallah (God willing) we will firmly stay here despite what you see here” (in terms of carnage and destruction).
“The martyrs killed here are martyrs in heaven. My son is a martyr, my husband is a martyr killed in this war. My house of five-stories perished…it was hellish, I went from house to house, wherever we went were missiled. I moved to Al Shifa Hospital, the Israelis trapped me, I went outside, they surrounded me, I came here, they trapped me again, but I remain steadfast, I will never leave my homeland.
We will not wait for the world [to do something], We seek help only from God…we don’t want anything from the world, we have Allah on our side, Our God, there is no despair from the spirit of Allah.”
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer from Amman, Jordan