Stranded in the West Bank: The leading Gazan doctor desperate to return to his family

Must ReadMedical crisis in Gaza

Dr Jehad Attal has been at the forefront of efforts to draw attention to the ongoing medical crisis in Gaza.

This article is part of a six-day series exploring the realities of life inside the West Bank, from a reporting trip carried out by Eimer McAuley, news correspondent with The Journal, in the week between Ireland’s two football matches with Israel. 

HOTEL STAFF QUICKLY remove any items with branding that might be in shot before Dr Jehad Attal and I begin our interview.

We’re in central Ramallah, which is Area A of the West Bank, meaning that it’s under the control of Palestinian security forces, but still, the manager feels there could be consequences of being associated with speaking to press.

“It’s like that now, people are very afraid to speak out,” Attal tells me.

It’s risky for Attal to be speaking too – Gazans in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are at risk of being targeted by Israeli security forces, and some have been forcibly deported to the strip according to human rights organisations.

Attal came to the West Bank in 2023 as part of efforts to unify the doctors’ association here with the one in Gaza. He’s been stranded here since. 

“I came on the 6 October 2023. I woke up, I saw the news of the attack, I could not believe it. I thought maybe 10 days would pass, something like that, and I would be able to go back to my family. That’s not how it happened though,” he says wearily. 

His wife and children remain in the Gaza Strip. None of them have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, which the International Court of Justice has found to be a genocide, but extended family members have died. So have many of his colleagues. 

“We have around 4,000 members. We’ve lost over 150 specialists that we know of in the strip. More than 50 doctors have been illegally held in Israeli jails,” he says. 

“It’s not a big community. Some of these people were my friends. Others have had to practise in terrible conditions,” he adds. 

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Attal has been involved in efforts to try and raise awareness of the medical crisis in Gaza, including efforts to send blood and equipment from the West Bank.

Watching from relative safety here has not been without its difficulties.

I would go there, but my family tell me that it’s impossible to get a packet of paracetamol.

“In Gaza my children are telling me: father we don’t advise you to come here at the moment, we are living in a tent, we have become accustomed to this life… you have diseases like diabetes, it would be very troublesome for you,” he said. 

Recent reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that only 19 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, with none operating at full capacity.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) highlights the ongoing medical crisis, reporting that more than 18,500 Palestinians, including 4,000 children, require medical evacuation for specialised treatment unavailable in Gaza.

Attal has kept in touch with colleagues who are struggling to provide frontline services in Gaza, where he says many have had to perform surgeries without anaesthesia. 

“My friend had to amputate his own son’s leg with a kitchen knife, with no pain relief,” he said. 

“Believe me, I can barely believe this myself. He did this himself. Imagine the relationship now between this father and son. I spoke to him, and I said, ‘I pity you,’ and he cried, and he told me ‘What could I do?’, that’s the reality there right now,” Attal said. 

Attal said that his son, whom he speaks to daily, yesterday told him, “I challenge you to recognise our home in Gaza when you come back here.” 

“I won’t be able to,” he says. “It is gone.” 

Doctors from the occupied West Bank have been trying to reach Gaza to provide urgently needed medical care, but restrictions have made this impossible, Attal says. 

“Still people have managed to get through aid, to get through blood. And when we can, we will go there and do what we can,” Attal said. 

He added that medical services are extremely stretched in the West Bank too, and that as a gynaecologist he would like to practise here, but he fears his status as a Gazan could put him at risk. 

“My focus now is to go back to Gaza and my family as soon as I can,” Attal said.