Far From Violence, Gaza Wounded Find Care at Cairo Hospital

A Palestinian boy receives medical care at Nasser Institute hospital in Cairo, on December 3, 2023, after he was evacuated to Egypt following his injuries sustained amid fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
A Palestinian boy receives medical care at Nasser Institute hospital in Cairo, on December 3, 2023, after he was evacuated to Egypt following his injuries sustained amid fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
TT

Far From Violence, Gaza Wounded Find Care at Cairo Hospital

A Palestinian boy receives medical care at Nasser Institute hospital in Cairo, on December 3, 2023, after he was evacuated to Egypt following his injuries sustained amid fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
A Palestinian boy receives medical care at Nasser Institute hospital in Cairo, on December 3, 2023, after he was evacuated to Egypt following his injuries sustained amid fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

Ilham Majid was praying when bombs fell on her Gaza house, and her husband only found her hours later under the rubble, alive but seriously wounded.

She was one of the luckier ones -- 17 other family members, including two of her children, were killed in that fateful October 31 raid in the Jabalia refugee camp of northern Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants following deadly attacks earlier that month.

Now, like several other Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Majid is receiving medical treatment in Egypt.

"All of a sudden I felt the house crumbling. Three stories collapsed on top of me," the 42-year-old recalled from her hospital bed at Cairo's Nasser Hospital.

"I got shrapnel all over my body. My liver was hit, my leg, ribs and my jaw are all broken. I cannot walk."

Majid said her husband found her trapped under the rubble of the house by chance four-and-a-half hours later, thanks to one of her fingers that was sticking out.

"I almost could not breathe -- almost dead," she said, AFP reported.

Her 15-year-old daughter was killed in the bombardment, and 10 days later the body of her 17-year-old son was pulled from under the debris. It was already rotting.

Ever since the tragedy that ripped apart her family -- 50 relatives were staying at the house when it was hit -- Majid has been looking at pictures of her son on her cell phone.

Since early October, several Palestinians wounded in Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and some suffering various illnesses, have been authorized to leave the besieged territory and travel to Egypt for medical care.

More than 15,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since fighting began on October 7, according to Gaza health ministry.

Israel unleashed an air and ground campaign against the densely-populated territory with the aim of destroying Hamas, after the militants broke through Gaza's militarized border into Israel.

The war on Gaza has devastated swathes of the coastal territory, levelled entire neighbourhoods and destroyed much of the infrastructure, including hospitals.

Even before fighting resumed on Friday after a week-long pause during which Hamas released hostages in exchange for prisoners held by Israel, Gaza's health system was on its knees with hospitals resembling a "horror movie", according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Now it is "catastrophic", the UN agency has said.

Currently, only 18 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even minimally to partially functional, with the three main hospitals in the north barely operative, Richard Peeperkorn, WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza on Friday.

The United Nations says not a single hospital in northern Gaza can carry out surgeries after several were attacked by Israel, while those in the south are overwhelmed by the number of casualties they receive daily.

At Cairo's Nasser Hospital, patients such as Majid are trying to slowly regain their strength far away from the violence and chaos consuming Gaza.

Yussef, 13, lay in a bed staring into the distance, his face puffy.

Dried blood stained his right leg which was held together with metal rods.

"He was in a complete state of shock when I found him," said his older brother, under the rubble of their four-storey home in the Shati refugee camp.

In another hospital room further down the corridor, Lubna al-Shafei, 36, said she was being treated for a "neck wound".

"On October 23, our house in the centre of Gaza City was destroyed. My son was killed and my husband was wounded," she said.

Last week the Egyptian health ministry announced the launch of an initiative aimed at providing medical care for 1,000 children wounded in Gaza.

Already 28 premature babies who were trapped at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest which was besieged and ultimately raided by Israeli forces, have been taken to Egypt.

The United Arab Emirates and Tunisia have also taken in Palestinians wounded in Gaza, namely children in need of medical care.

France and Italy have sent ships to Egypt to serve as hospitals for wounded civilians from Gaza.



Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to Publish Two Books

Narges Mohammadi has been jailed repeatedly over the past 25 years - AFP
Narges Mohammadi has been jailed repeatedly over the past 25 years - AFP
TT

Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to Publish Two Books

Narges Mohammadi has been jailed repeatedly over the past 25 years - AFP
Narges Mohammadi has been jailed repeatedly over the past 25 years - AFP

Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will publish her autobiography and is working on a book on women held like her on political charges, she said in an interview published Thursday.

"I've finished my autobiography and I plan to publish it. I'm writing another book on assaults and sexual harassment against women detained in Iran. I hope it will appear soon," Mohammadi, 52, told French magazine Elle.

The human rights activist spoke to her interviewers in Farsi by text and voice message during a three-week provisional release from prison on medical grounds after undergoing bone surgery, according to AFP.

Mohammadi has been jailed repeatedly over the past 25 years, most recently since November 2021, for convictions relating to her advocacy against the compulsory wearing of the hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.

She has been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, which has left a physical toll.

"My body is weakened, it is true, after three years of intermittent detention... and repeated refusals of care that have seriously tested me, but my mind is of steel," Mohammadi said.

Mohammadi said there were 70 prisoners in the women's ward at Evin "from all walks of life, of all ages and of all political persuasions", including journalists, writers, women's rights activists and people persecuted for their religion.

One of the most commonly used "instruments of torture" is isolation, said Mohammadi, who shares a cell with 13 other prisoners.

"It is a place where political prisoners die. I have personally documented cases of torture and serious sexual violence against my fellow prisoners."

Despite the harsh consequences, there are still acts of resistance by prisoners.

"Recently, 45 out of 70 prisoners gathered to protest in the prison yard against the death sentences of Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi," two Kurdish women's rights activists who are in prison, she said.

Small acts of defiance -- like organizing sit-ins -- can get them reprisals like being barred from visiting hours or telephone access.

- Risks of speaking up -

She also said that speaking to reporters would likely get her "new accusations", and that she was the target of additional prosecutions and convictions "approximately every month".

"It is a challenge for us political prisoners to fight to maintain a semblance of normality because it is about showing our torturers that they will not be able to reach us, to break us," Mohammadi said.

She added that she had felt "guilty to have left my fellow detainees behind" during her temporary release and that "a part of (her) was still in prison".

But her reception outside -- including by women refusing to wear the compulsory hijab -- meant Mohammadi "felt what freedom is, to have freedom of movement without permanent escort by guards, without locks and closed windows" -- and also that "the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement is still alive".

She was referring to the nationwide protests that erupted after the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was arrested for an alleged breach of Iran's dress code for women.

Hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, were killed in the subsequent months-long nationwide protests and thousands of demonstrators were arrested.

After Mohammadi was awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize, her two children collected the award on her behalf.

The US State Department last month called Mohammadi's situation "deeply troubling".

"Her deteriorating health is a direct result of the abuses that she's endured at the hands of the Iranian regime," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said, calling for her "immediate and unconditional" release.