Hospitals and health facilities are not romantic places where love stories usually begin, but that is precisely why the Baptist Hospital in Gaza – the oldest hospital in the besieged Strip – was more than just a hospital.
Hammam Farah tells the story of the Farah family with this building, from the beginning of his grandfather Elias Farah’s work in the hospital, when he was 17 years old.
Elias started out as a waiter in a restaurant during the British Mandate of Palestine more than 80 years ago, and later became purchasing manager, responsible for purchasing food, medicines, and supplies.
One day, he saw for the first time the woman who would soon become his wife, known to many as Mrs. Sree.
Thara was a principal at the primary school near Al-Shati camp administered by UNRWA, and she often visited the hospital, and that is where their love story began.
Elias and very wealthy Hammam Farah in an old family photo (archive)
Table tennis, dinner and games
The ruins of the destroyed hospital – as a result of an Israeli bombing that led to a massacre that killed at least 500 people last Tuesday night – have become witness to vanished human memories and stories.
“The hospital was a whole community,” Hammam tells Al Jazeera English correspondent Orouba Jamal.
Although Hammam has not been able to visit Gaza – his birthplace – for 23 years, the psychotherapist currently residing in Toronto, Canada, clings to his childhood memories there.
His grandfather often took him to the hospital during his work time.
Hammam recounts his memories with nostalgia: “There were children playing, and a ping-pong table. The hospital was a social center, and dinner parties were held there.”
Hammam’s grandparents lived a story of love and marriage, and Elias worked for a long time at Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital (archives). The hospital – which was founded in 1882 and is located in the Zaytoun residential neighborhood in Gaza and is managed by the Diocese of the Evangelical Church in Jerusalem – also contained a church, a large courtyard, and a tennis court, where Hammam’s grandfather often played. .
The hospital was founded by the missionary mission of England, and was managed by Reverend Eliot, who was succeeded by Dr. Bailey, then Dr. Stirling. It was the only hospital in the region between Jaffa and Port Said in Egypt, providing its services to approximately 200,000 people.
The hospital is surrounded by the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the Al-Shamaa Mosque, which was built in the 14th century AD, and the cemetery of Sheikh Shaaban.
Elias with a visiting American doctor at the hospital, which was known for attracting medical specialists (archives). 40 years after her first meeting with her grandparents in the hospital’s corridors in 1983, Hammam himself was born in that hospital, as was his sister.
In World War I, Al-Maamdani was destroyed, stolen, and looted. It was then rebuilt and called the Arab National Hospital in 1919. It remained under the management of Dr. Stirling until 1928, then its management was transferred to Dr. Alfred until 1948.
At that time, the Evangelical missionary mission affiliated with England decided to close the hospital with the end of the Mandate for Palestine, but the Baptist mission took care of the hospital, so it took it over and its management was transferred to it, and Gaza at that time was administratively affiliated with Egypt.
A dispute occurred over the ownership of this hospital in the 1940s and 1950s, after the Egyptian administration abolished the civil endowment law in Gaza, which exposed the hospital’s property and lands to an ownership dispute.
It continued to provide its services despite the Israeli occupation of the area, and its officials also continued to develop it, building a second floor that included an office for two doctors, a laboratory, and three rooms allocated for various therapeutic purposes. The laboratory also included services for training local students and accrediting them as laboratory technicians. The hospital established the first physical therapy unit in the sector.
In 1976, UNRWA cut off aid to Al-Maamdani and stopped its support for the hospital’s nursing school, so its work declined and the number of its employees was reduced. At the beginning of 1977, the number of its doctors was only 3 and 28 nurses, and the number of patients it received began to decrease. By the end of the seventies, its ownership returned to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.
At that time, the United Palestinian Society in America funded it, and it continued to provide its services and receive patients and injuries during the various wars, starting with the first Palestinian Intifada (December 1987).
“They smell burning bodies.”
Now, the roads of Baptist Hospital are filled with bodies and body parts lying in piles, and the hospital is damaged.
Upon hearing the news of the explosion and massacre, Hammam collapsed. He still has family and relatives in the Gaza Strip, and relatives holed up in a church near the hospital.
He said he tried desperately to contact them, and only began to pull himself together when he learned that they were not harmed by the explosion, but that they “witnessed the destruction up close.”
“They can smell the burning bodies,” Hammam added.
His family in the Strip (uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives) survive on a meager diet of canned tuna and dried pasta, as food and other supplies quickly ran out, with Israeli forces preventing humanitarian aid from arriving.
The day before, Hammam’s mother spoke to one of his aunts there, and she told him, “It’s not normal.”
The homes of all his relatives were destroyed within approximately two weeks of Israeli bombing. He and his mother are currently thinking about how to move their family until they have the opportunity to leave the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel began its aggression against the Gaza Strip nearly two weeks ago, the mental health therapist has been unable to do anything other than work.
“My eyes never leave my phone or the TV,” he says, adding that his entire schedule revolves around waiting every day for news from his relatives, trying to check on them.
An old photo of the Hammam Farah family at Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital (archive)
“They died one by one”
Hammam visited Gaza for the last time in 2000, without knowing that it would be his last visit. His family lived in the Emirates for many years, and they made trips there every summer.
He was always amazed by the reaction of his relatives when they intended to leave at the end of each summer.
“There was painful screaming and crying, as if it would be the last time we would see each other,” Hammam says.
In 2000, he was only 17 years old. He left the Strip, thinking that he would return the following summer, as was customary, but this opportunity did not come.
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007, making return difficult.
Since then, Hammam has hoped to visit Gaza, especially to see his grandmother and grandfather, but he has not yet had that opportunity.
“They started dying one by one,” Hammam says sadly. Now they are gone, and their memories are only engraved in his heart. He adds that his grandmother, Thara in particular, still has a profound influence on his Palestinian identity.
In a letter he addressed to his grandmother after her death, Hammam wrote: It will be easier to see you in the afterlife.
2023-10-19 16:05:35
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