Inside the Ramallah hotel housing Gaza’s cancer patients | Israel-Palestine conflict

Ramallah, occupied West Financial institution — For greater than 16 months, loss and grief have stalked the granite-floored corridors of the Retno Lodge.

On the night of October 6, 2023, the family-run lodge was near full occupancy. A number of of the 70 or so visitors had been Palestinian Individuals however most had been from Gaza. Anticipating to return residence quickly, that they had introduced simply sufficient garments for every week’s keep.

Amongst them had been Ahmed Ayyash, a 72-year-old civil engineer from Gaza Metropolis, and his 62-year-old spouse, Maha. Forty-four-year-old Shadia Abu Mrahil from Deir el-Balah was there together with her 25-year-old son, Karam.

Like a lot of the visitors from Gaza, they had been common guests to the modest limestone constructing with its 45 double- or triple-bedded rooms. It wasn’t the quiet north Ramallah road that drew them there, nor the small courtyard out entrance with its plastic tables and chairs, though on sunnier days, the visitors would typically sip their espresso there close to a cover of vibrant pink bougainvillaeas.

They had been there to obtain medical remedy – for most cancers, coronary heart issues and developmental issues – that was unavailable in Gaza. Each Ahmed and Shadia have leukaemia.

They’d journey through the Beit Hanoon crossing, managed by the Israeli military and recognized to Israelis as Erez, in northern Gaza to Ramallah. For just a few days at a time, they’d keep on the lodge whereas they obtained their remedy after which return residence to Gaza. Kin would typically accompany them. Some had been doing this for years. For Ahmed and Maha, these medical journeys additionally supplied a possibility to go to Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and to eat kunafa with mates in Nablus, 50km (31 miles) away.

October 6, 2023, was a quiet day, a Friday. Most companies in Ramallah had been closed and lots of visitors on the Retno Lodge took a break from their therapies. Ahmed went out to wish at a close-by mosque with Maha, his spouse of 44 years. That they had arrived in Ramallah the day before today and acquired bread, cheese, chocolate, fruit and veggies for his or her keep. Once they returned to the lodge that night, they ate dinner within the eating corridor, and spoke to fellow visitors earlier than going to mattress.

Once they wakened the next morning, every little thing had modified. Within the days that adopted the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, Israel launched a large bombardment of the Gaza Strip and minimize off meals, water and electrical energy. The Palestinian American visitors on the lodge fled. Those that stayed, hospital sufferers and their members of the family, waited anxiously for information from Gaza. The telephone service was down and lots of had been unable to succeed in their family members again residence. Some crowded into the lodge proprietor’s workplace to look at the developments on tv, questioning what the fast-escalating battle would imply for his or her households and for his or her therapies.

Ahmed stayed in his room watching the information and scrolling via Telegram updates from journalists in Gaza. Friends who managed to contact family members in the course of the sporadic moments when the telephone service returned, shared no matter they discovered with others. Others by no means bought via.

“Among the visitors misplaced their youngsters within the first month of the battle, and I heard information of the martyrdom of many members of my household, comparable to the kids of my cousin and his spouse, and my cousin and her husband … and their youngsters, and a few mates,” Ahmed recalled.

“The dangerous information was fixed.”

Clouded ideas of the long run

Since 2017, the Retno Lodge has housed sufferers and their members of the family from Gaza throughout their medical visits to Istishari Hospital, a 10-minute taxi trip away.

It’s amongst a community of lodging — principally motels, but in addition lodgings together with UNRWA amenities — housing Palestinians granted momentary permits by Israel to depart Gaza to obtain medical remedy in West and occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The remedy is roofed by the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Well being.

Over time, Nawaf Hamed, the 66-year-old proprietor and supervisor of the Retno, has tried to maintain the place cheerful. The widespread areas had been typically stuffed with music – every little thing from Western people to classical Arabic. Friends would typically play the devices – a tabla, guitar, qanun (a Center Jap string instrument) – that Nawaf stored across the foyer. “We might sing, and we [would] dance!” he reminisced wistfully. These joyful nights stopped with COVID lockdowns, and by no means fairly returned.

When the battle started, the allow preparations for sufferers from Gaza shortly broke down. These in hospitals in Jerusalem needed to depart, fleeing to the occupied West Financial institution the place they scrambled to register with the PA and discover a new hospital. None had been capable of return to Gaza.

“The individuals [were] very afraid of the long run,” recalled Nawaf of his visitors.

Right now, 400 sufferers from Gaza are at the moment registered with the PA with some staying in Ramallah in addition to in Hebron, 60km (37 miles) to the south, and Nablus and Jenin, lower than 100km (62km) to the north.

Over the months, extra sufferers have moved into the Retno. Right now, it’s a momentary residence to 33 grownup and 14 youngster sufferers, and 37 members of the family. Seven sufferers on the lodge have died of their sicknesses for the reason that battle began. Because the others proceed to struggle their well being battles, their members of the family have been killed, and their properties and former lives destroyed.

On a November afternoon, Shadia was sitting on a light-weight gray sofa within the nook of the lodge foyer the place many visitors collect. “What the battle has achieved to my household, to my residence, to my Gaza, kills me extra each day than the most cancers ever will,” she stated, sighing.

As frail residents emerged from the elevate, they greeted each other earlier than heading to the hospital in shared taxis. A shuttle bus would convey them again later within the day.

Karam – his hair coiffed and beard well-groomed – sat beside his mom along with his fingers gently clasped in his lap. Close by, Ahmed, wearing a blue sweater and inexperienced button-down shirt, slouched in his chair, whereas Maha smiled warmly at fellow residents as they handed by. Different visitors stopped to ask the entrance desk attendant, a girl in her 30s, for recent towels or to grouse in regards to the noise coming from their neighbour’s room at evening.

“Our emotions are [in Gaza], and it impacts each second in our lives,” stated an exhausted Shadia. “I’m drained and sick already from the most cancers remedy. And our ideas of the long run, of constant day after day, are clouded not solely by our personal life-threatening sicknesses, however the whole destruction that sweeps our properties and households and communities in Gaza.”

They cry at evening

Nawaf, a stout man typically with studying glasses on a twine round his neck, goes about his days operating the household enterprise whereas stopping to speak with visitors.

When inside his small workplace, simply subsequent to the foyer, Nawaf will peer via the glass doorways to see who’s there and beckon them to return inside for a espresso. He has positioned the black leather-based couches in his workplace in a semicircle round a desk to make the place extra inviting. Friends come by to debate their therapies, or to look at the information on tv. On chilly, winter nights, they arrive to take a seat by the hearth. Some wish to discuss late into the evening, others wish to sit in silence.

On one sunny afternoon, when Nawaf was sitting within the courtyard, sipping Arabic espresso, Ahmed approached. He known as out to the older man and shook his hand as he requested: “How are you, my buddy?”

“Peace be upon you,” Ahmed replied with a faint smile earlier than heading inside.

“Might you might have good well being,” Nawaf known as after him.

“That man was an important civil engineer in Gaza!” Nawaf declared, gesturing at Ahmed as he disappeared via the doorway door.

As different visitors walked by, Nawaf bellowed a hearty “good day” and shook their fingers.

Nawaf and his father, Nayef, began constructing the lodge in 2000 and opened it 4 years later. They ran the place collectively till Nayef handed away two years in the past. Nawaf’s 11 siblings are all concerned within the household enterprise, as are his two daughters, of their 20s and early 30s, who assist with administrative duties.

Most motels within the occupied West Financial institution are all however empty as of late with the battle bringing tourism to a standstill and limiting journey. The Retno is a uncommon exception. However even with all of the occupants, the lodge is beneath monetary pressure. Though the PA covers the sufferers’ lodging prices, these funds turned erratic when Israel started withholding the PA’s tax revenues final April, says Nawaf. “Each week, we wrestle to determine tips on how to pay the payments the subsequent week,” he defined as he sat within the courtyard lined with potted citrus bushes. “We don’t know what to do, tips on how to spend cash for breakfast. [Since June], the employees don’t have their [regular] salaries,” he stated, referring to his 20 staff.

From the time breakfast is served, Nawaf tries to maintain lodge operations buzzing as he listens to residents’ considerations, like complaints of a damaged bulb or an issue with the bathroom of their room.

Over time, he has seen some visitors develop stressed. Some get aggressive. Others fear that after 16 months of residing in a lodge at no cost, the association received’t final.

“A few of them don’t allow us to clear their rooms,” Nawaf defined. “They assume we’re simply going to make use of it as an excuse to really kick them out.”

He has tried to place the sufferers comfy, often bringing representatives from the PA or NGOs to supply psychosocial companies and even theatre periods. “Normally, we don’t discuss politics,” he stated. Generally he half-jokingly suggests to single male sufferers to get married, saying they are going to be much less lonely. “If nothing else, perhaps the [PA] will distribute [wives] to them,” he added with fun.

Nawaf typically tries to cheer up his visitors with humour. When, on February 4, the Israeli navy got here to the world of Ramallah the place the lodge is positioned, he requested me over the telephone: “What do you assume they need? Falafel or shawarma?”

However because the battle continued, the despair grew amongst Nawaf’s visitors. “They’re beneath stress, as a result of they at all times wait [for] unhappy information,” he mirrored, his tone changing into sombre. “No one even speaks about completely happy issues. Simply — they’re crying.”

Nawaf leaned again in his chair and regarded out on the empty road. “At evening, in corridors, you stroll, it’s quiet, and also you solely hearken to individuals crying,” he stated slowly, taking a sip of his espresso. He let loose a sigh. “It’s a actually tough expertise.”

Although he tries to remain optimistic, when the temper within the lodge will get too heavy, “I typically go to my workplace, [and] I shut the door simply so I can chortle,” Nawaf defined. He received’t chortle at something particularly; it’s simply how he copes with the stress. Then, he may play some Mozart to attempt to unwind.

‘He’s every little thing in my life’

Shadia and Karam have achieved their finest to make their shared room on the Retno really feel extra like residence. A small donated carpet, darkly colored with geometric patterns, sits in the course of the three-by-three-metre (10-foot-by-10-foot) room. On high of a dresser, an electrical kettle waits – stuffed with water – to arrange Arabic espresso. However it’s a good distance from their residence close to the seashore in Deir el-Balah. Only a 12 months outdated earlier than the battle started, it had marble flooring, chandeliers and brand-new furnishings.

“Round our home had been palm bushes and olive bushes,” recalled Shadia who was sitting subsequent to Karam on his mattress. “The individuals subsequent to us planted cabbage, peas and cauliflower. And once we would look outdoors, all you’d see could be inexperienced areas and all this magnificence.”

Now, on the Retno, shutters block the view of Ramallah’s limestone residence buildings, empty tons and again roads.

In Gaza, Karam hung out outside within the household’s backyard and on the close by seashore.

An solely youngster, he has at all times been near his mom. “Her and my father, that’s all, that’s who I’ve,” stated Karam.

“I don’t really feel like she’s solely my mom,” he added softly. “She’s my buddy and my brother. We hang around collectively. In Gaza, we went to the seashore collectively. I spent extra time together with her than even my mates.”

Shadia checked out her son and smiled. She suffers from joint ache, nausea, fatigue and dizziness, and sometimes speaks in an anxious voice, however she brightens when speaking about her son.

“Karam just isn’t solely my son,” stated Shadia. “He’s my father, my buddy, my sister, my brother. He’s every little thing in my life, and I can’t think about my life with out Karam.”

In 2014, Shadia started to expertise intense ache in her again and joints. For years, medical doctors stored misdiagnosing her illnesses, at totally different factors saying she had a bulging disk, and even that she was imagining the crippling ache. “The painkillers they gave me numbed the ache for a short time, however then it could solely come again a lot stronger,” she recalled.

Lastly, in 2022, she was recognized with leukaemia. “It got here as a lightning bolt to [Karam] and to me,” stated Shadia, “as a result of to assume that I might lose my life and depart him alone, particularly as a result of he doesn’t have a brother or sister to care for him, put me in an excessive melancholy for over a 12 months.”

Shadia began coming to Ramallah for remedy. Her sister and Karam would take turns accompanying her. She has needed to bear varied therapies to attempt to discover the suitable one, and suffered kidney failure and different organ dysfunction. Starting her oral chemotherapy routine only a few months earlier than the battle began, Shadia is meant to keep up a strict food plan that limits what she will be able to eat to fruit and veggies and requires her to keep away from meals two hours earlier than and after taking her twice-daily remedy.

At the same time as she got here to phrases together with her sickness, the stress from the battle has made every little thing more durable, Shadia admits.

“Any dangerous information from Gaza, I might really feel the ache in my physique,” she stated. The debilitating ache means she strikes slowly when sitting or standing.

“In fact, the drugs doesn’t [work] because it ought to, and the [medical] take a look at [results] are dangerous due to what the battle on Gaza does to me.”

‘Dying slowly in our alienation’

Final August, an Israeli rocket destroyed the household’s residence. Karam’s father, Hani, had already fled. Karam recalled how his mom “broke down crying and refused to obtain any calls from her household in Gaza”.

“She sat in her room for every week, not talking to anybody as a result of our home was destroyed.”

Shadia refused to depart even for her hospital go to. Karam stayed together with her, making an attempt to cheer her up by displaying her humorous movies on his telephone and ensuring she ate.

“It didn’t solely occur to us,” Karam instructed his grief-stricken mom, making an attempt to consolation her. “It’s good that we didn’t lose any of our kids or a accomplice, every little thing.”

“An important factor is your well being,” he stored telling her. “Every thing is simple in case your well being is nice. Now we have to just accept it, and God keen, we may have one thing higher.”

“This, we stored repeating to ourselves,” stated Shadia.

Seventeen members of Shadia and Karam’s prolonged household have been killed on this battle.

Hani and the households of Shadia’s sisters whose properties had been additionally destroyed have been residing in tents within the Nuseirat refugee camp.

All through the battle, Shadia has remained for days at a time in her and Karam’s room, nauseous from chemotherapy and overwhelmed with anxiousness.

“I turned homeless and I’m sick, and I’m unable to bear these tough circumstances,” she stated.

With none enchancment to her situation, Shadia, like many different residents, is taking a look at potential choices for asylum or medical visas in Europe.

Though Shadia typically stays indoors, she and different sufferers really feel confined with outings principally restricted to shuttling between the lodge and Istishari Hospital. Many wrestle with boredom.

“It appears like we’re in a jail,” Maha defined.

For the reason that residents have Gaza IDs, they can’t cross Israeli checkpoints within the occupied West Financial institution to enter different cities with out risking detainment by Israeli forces, successfully trapping them in Ramallah.

Although residents say they attempt to maintain one another firm, they speak about their communities again residence with a way of longing, discovering it simpler to share recollections of Gaza earlier than the battle than to speak in regards to the state of affairs at this time.

“The barbecues and picnics on the seashore collectively!” exclaimed Karam at some point within the foyer as others nodded enthusiastically.

“Mashallah! Everybody was simply so sort and pleasant,” added a gleaming Maha.

Even the often restrained Ahmed cracked a smile. “In our neighbourhood of Remal [in Gaza City], there was such a pleasant environment,” he chimed in. “Individuals would at all times invite one another over to their homes, even strangers. It’s very totally different from Ramallah, the place everybody simply comes right here to work.”

The displacement eats away at all of them, notably Shadia. “As a affected person, you consider your therapies, your routines, the employees and medical doctors you get to know, and you then consider Gaza, and you’ll’t assist however really feel this alienation, this foreignness, even in Ramallah,” she stated closely. “We’re dying slowly in our alienation.”

Labored ‘onerous to boost my youngsters proper’

The lodge gives an acceptable breakfast for the sufferers that features bread, fruit and veggies. For lunch, Shadia and the opposite visitors have obtained the very same meal of rice and hen supplied by the PA on the lodge each day for months. It’s a subject that elicits headshakes and sighs among the many residents. Some sufferers wrestle to eat this meals or maintain it down. “Somebody who’s doing chemotherapy can not eat this,” stated Shadia. However residents additionally really feel responsible realizing that their members of the family in Gaza might for a very long time solely dream of consuming a full meal, not to mention meat.

The residents obtain rare stipends from the PA, however they hardly ever have spare cash, sending what they will to their households in Gaza. “Earlier than the battle, the restaurant within the lodge was working,” stated Nawaf, who needed to decrease the price of espresso from seven shekels to 3 for his visitors. “Individuals got here for lunch. However now the [guests], their wallets are tight, so that they purchase a sandwich, not a meal.”

“We’re barely surviving, and we can not even assist [our families],” Shadia stated. She and Karam typically save meals from breakfast to eat at dinner.

With sufferers usually too sick to work, members of the family like Karam have tried to search out work in Ramallah to help their households. Whereas some have discovered employment with the PA, native companies are largely cautious of hiring Palestinians from Gaza, fearing bother if there’s an sudden Israeli navy raid. “I’ve gone to eating places, supermarkets, anyplace I assumed I might get a job, however all of them refused,” Karam defined.

All through, many grapple with what and who, ought to it change into potential for them to journey, awaits them in Gaza. They fear, too, that if they can return, they may lose entry to medical care.

Mohammed al-Assali, a portly 59-year-old, typically shuffles across the foyer becoming a member of conversations amongst visitors to speak in regards to the Egyptian soccer he avidly follows, or crack jokes.

He sat down slowly on one of many couches within the foyer. Prayer beads dangled from his stiff left hand.

Mohammed has nobody left in Gaza to return to. His complete household was killed in the course of the battle, leaving him alone on the earth.

Mohammad had come to Israel as a labourer to color homes simply two days earlier than the battle began. When the battle began, he fled throughout the Inexperienced Line to the occupied West Financial institution. He registered with the PA’s Ministry of Labour, which positioned him in low-cost scholar housing in Jericho.

In November 2023, his household fled their residence in Gaza Metropolis’s Remal neighbourhood to take refuge in a home they believed to be safer. Then, that home was bombed, killing his spouse, their seven youngsters, and all 10 of his siblings.

Upon studying the devastating information, Mohammad had a stroke. He was rushed to the emergency room after which transferred to Istishari Hospital, the place he had surgical procedure.

“I underwent open coronary heart surgical procedure as a result of intense grief after my household was killed,” Mohammed stated.

The stroke left Mohammad with slight paralysis in his left hand and leg, which has prevented him from resuming work or wandering outdoors the lodge a lot. He spends the day in his room or talking with different visitors.

Because the battle proceeded, Mohammed, visitors within the lodge say, would inform others that when there was a ceasefire, he would hand out sweets on the street. However when the deal between Israel and Hamas was reached, Mohammed stayed in his room for 2 days straight, crying in grief.

“I labored actually onerous to boost my youngsters proper and make good individuals out of them. Three of them had been engineers, and two had been attorneys,” he defined in his calm, deep voice. “However now, they’re all martyred, our homes are destroyed, and I’ve nothing there.

“I don’t know why I’d return to Gaza.”

‘Constructed for the entire society’

Ahmed spends his days in Ramallah in his and Maha’s room pouring via an engineering e-book, drafting plans to rebuild Gaza, and visiting the mosque.

When the couple first arrived on the Retno, Ahmed stored to himself with Maha doing the speaking for the couple. However spending greater than a 12 months residing beneath the identical roof with different visitors has compelled him to work together throughout encounters at breakfast, within the lodge foyer, or whereas sharing taxis and buses to and from the hospital.

“You’ve numerous interactions that you’re compelled to have interaction with, and to make pleasantries,” stated Ahmed, shrugging his shoulders. “And so I used to be compelled to have interaction and be a part of a neighborhood.”

“Among the individuals I like, and also you get to speaking about household or information or sports activities,” he mused. “Different persons are annoying, loud or needy. However you simply study to cope with them.”

However more often than not, he likes to be on his personal, finding out arithmetic and physics. “I don’t prefer to learn literature or science fiction,” Ahmed stated pointedly. “I prefer to cope with actuality.”

At the same time as a toddler, Ahmed dreamed of constructing constructions that would profit individuals.

In every of the 4 wars between 2008 and 2021 to befall the besieged Gaza Strip, Ahmed performed a pivotal position in reconstruction. He spearheaded the constructing of infrastructure like al-Shifa Hospital’s surgical wing, Gaza Metropolis’s sanitation system and buildings alongside al-Rashid Avenue in an space which has since been levelled utterly to create the Netzarim Corridor, a closely fortified Israeli navy zone constructed in the course of the battle that till just lately successfully separated northern Gaza from southern Gaza.

“The saddest second in my life wasn’t my own residence being destroyed,” stated Ahmed, referring to the current battle. “It was after they destroyed these main public locations that I helped construct — colleges and hospitals. These had been constructed for the entire society, not only for me.”

All through the battle, Ahmed has battled a uncommon type of leukaemia affecting his abdomen. He requires an injection which he can solely get in Ramallah.

Nonetheless, Ahmed and Maha are amongst those that yearn to return to Gaza, even when they’ve little religion within the ceasefire holding previous its first section, which completed on March 1. There may be nonetheless no coordination by authorities to facilitate a return to Gaza for Palestinians caught within the occupied West Financial institution, and it’s unclear if or when it can change into potential.

“I wish to return, and I’m not hesitant to say that,” stated Maha firmly shortly after the ceasefire deal was introduced on January 15, as she and Ahmed sat alone one night within the foyer. “It’s simply our future if something occurs to us after that. However we have to return.”

Whereas individuals had been celebrating on Ramallah’s streets — waving flags, chanting and handing out sweets — the response within the lodge was muted.

Key sticking factors between Israel and Hamas — together with who will administer the Gaza Strip sooner or later — had been left to be resolved in negotiations in the course of the envisaged three-part ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated Israel reserves the suitable to renew the battle, calling the primary section a “momentary ceasefire”.

“This battle just isn’t going to finish,” stated Ahmed. “Either side are going to maintain [fighting]. However nobody goes again to Gaza pondering that every one issues simply finish. They don’t.”

“That is how life is in Gaza,” stated Maha, a mom of 5 youngsters and grandmother to 19, with a wistful smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

‘Born to rebuild Gaza’

Maha and Ahmed’s residence in Remal was as soon as the gathering place for his or her tightly knit household and Maha would put together feasts of kabsa, maqlooba, and maftool.

In the course of the battle, the couple’s home was destroyed together with these of their 5 youngsters who survived the bombardment with their households.

The lengthy separation has been painful. “Essentially the most tough factor resides with out the kids, as a result of they’re our solely hope,” Maha stated, her voice cracking.

She is determined to dwell in a house once more. “In the event you keep in a lodge for greater than every week, you’re going to go loopy,” exclaimed Maha as she threw up her fingers in exasperation. “I simply wish to be in a house. This isn’t a house!”

Maha has tried to deal with the separation and displacement by specializing in serving to her husband. In October 2021, medical doctors at An-Najah Hospital in Nablus instructed Ahmed’s brother that “there was no profit from remedy and that it was higher for me to stick with my household and await loss of life,” Ahmed recalled. On the time, he was so weak he might barely stroll.

However Ahmed stored making an attempt totally different therapies, finally discovering the injections. He says the battle in Gaza has solely motivated him to get higher. “It motivates me extra to return and rebuild,” he defined.

Regardless of the medical doctors’ earlier prognosis, Ahmed’s situation has improved and stabilised. He’s strolling effectively and now principally goes to the hospital on his personal.

In the meantime, Ahmed’s thoughts has turned to rebuilding Gaza. He’s a part of a world community of engineers discussing and mapping out tips on how to reconstruct the enclave, with 69 percent of all structures destroyed or broken.

For now, his well being prevents him from leaving the Retno Lodge, however he’s decided to beat his sickness.

“I used to be born to rebuild Gaza,” Ahmed stated matter-of-factly. “It’s what I’ve at all times achieved.”