Haifaa Younis – Stories From Gaza
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their experiences with the media and the importance of avoiding frustration and not giving up. They also talk about the difficulties of their journey through Egypt, including a wall, gate, and road with no lights, and how it affected them. They also discuss the importance of living in comfort and avoiding stress, and the impact of a tragic death on their family. They emphasize the importance of praying and staying healthy to avoid leaving a sad story.AI: Transcript ©
It's always,
it's a good feeling to be back home,
as you always call this, VRRC.
I was told from day 1, you always
greet people by saying welcome home. So it's
definitely feel home.
This is gonna be our last meeting till,
throughout the whole
summer.
So basically I was asked based upon your
request
to talk again about Gaza, because I was
told the last time I shared with you
the time was short.
So I'll share with you again, especially with
everything,
is happening.
There
I will start by saying this. It's now
today is the,
7 16.
It's absolutely about 6 weeks since we landed
back.
We landed back on April 11th.
Life can never be the same,
SubhanAllah.
You go back to your routine, you go
back to your
usual,
but there's something
changed,
And this is I wish, and I have
said this so many places, I wish I
can take everybody, especially our youth,
and take them with me to live this
8 days that I lived there.
And I'm not gonna talk about the the
the casualties and and what what we saw
from the medical field. What really impacted me
is what I saw from the human side.
And
Gaza taught me
many things, and I will share it with
everybody. And I am sure
if any one of us here in this
room
went, you
will probably feel the same way.
Teaches you from looking around you,
with how the people are living, reacting,
that we human beings
in general,
we use maybe
10 to 20 percent of our potentials.
We say I can't.
And if you look at your vocabulary, this
especially the young,
they're gonna say I can't. I can't. This
is too much. I can't do that.
Gaza teaches you.
Yes, we can.
There, they are extreme.
I'll give you an example.
1
actually, one of the
the few people I spend more time than
the other that really impacted
me was that resident,
the orthopedic resident who showed me showed us
actually a video of how he
from
basic things. I just can't can't remember the
details now. He made,
a kind of a wounded dressing,
because you don't have it there.
So the first thing
again, what I saw, what do we learn?
When you tell yourself, even now, when I
see something difficult, for example,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala decided I am with
you, because last night
the airline I'm not gonna say the name
at 12:11
o'clock PM, I'm coming to check-in,
and they suddenly changed my plane to 4
PM.
And I had so many things I had
to do 4 PM,
4:40. I come here daily by Maghreb. So
if anything
changed,
I'm not gonna be here.
Normally,
what we our normal reaction,
we get upset, we get frustrated. Why didn't
they tell me, right, look at me, and
even I was packed ready because normally I
pray Fajr and I leave and come to
you.
SubhanAllah, the first thing in me says Qadralla,
Masha'fah.
Literally,
I said Allah is not, Allah doesn't want
me to go this time.
I texted the outreach
coordinator,
and I said this would happen. I don't
know what happened, but when I come to
check-in,
they are putting me on the later flight.
If you can call them and text the
VRIC, tell them this what happened.
At all. Nothing.
No frustration.
Because anytime
something happens that is out of the comfort
that we are all used to, their faces
come to me,
and the scene in that hospital comes to
me,
and what are you complaining about?
This is how I say to myself.
For us all,
this should be the same because you are
seeing,
I saw it live, you are seeing it
and still seeing it.
There has to be changes
for us as a human being, by the
way. Gaza changed
humanity. It didn't change only Muslim,
changed people. I mean, if you I'm sure
you've been here to all these encampments. Last
Thursday, I was in UCI.
60%
of the people that were listening to the
talk with them were non Muslims.
So the first thing I remember
when I was seeing
is within 8 days how Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala can change the human being
and subtle changes, and it's when an incident
comes in you see it.
I still remember
the day
or that before
I I went,
I wanted to go.
Nobody called me. I begged people to take
me.
And every application I filled I didn't get
an answer since February.
No answer. And then I was in Makkah,
it was Ramadan,
And I kept asking Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
this Ramadan is different. And I'll say this
with everyone, even those online.
When I used to look at the Kaaba,
and this is Ramadan, and the Haram is
packed,
packed, this was one of the busiest years.
And you look and you say, all these
people,
all of us
couldn't do anything,
couldn't stop.
And I was like, you Rabbi, how many
people are making duha?
And how many people are begging you?
There has to be a reason that you
are not answering it the way we want
in this time, and I kept saying this
Ramadan is very different.
And SubhanAllah to get the story
short, Allah opened my eyes to someone I
knew, actually I didn't know, but it was
on the group of the Muslim physicians that
she went to Gaza in February.
And something in me says call her. I
don't know the woman. I just texted her.
And then she responded right away. It says,
the,
and I normally don't like that.
Honestly, I don't. I mean, we're all human
beings at the end. We're all under the
the ground. But at that moment, because I
really wanted to go, I said, yes.
And then she said, I can't you want
to go? Okay. But we can't now. The
next group leaving on April 1st is already
full because they take very limited number
for many reasons. But I can take but
the group leaving on the 15th April, we
can add you. And I said I can't.
SubhanAllah, everything has a reason.
And I said I can't because this is
my only vacation.
On 15, I have to be back to
work, and I have programs. In fact, I
was coming to you last time when I
came.
This was Sunday.
She said, okay, let me see what I
can do. I have to take the approval
from the United Nation to add 1 person,
and we have to clear you through the
WHO, and we have to clear you through
the
Egyptian government and the other governments. And we
this is less than a week.
And then she said, wait till I tell
you to buy your ticket.
So now we are Wednesday, the group leaving.
Sunday, everybody has to be in Egypt.
And Wednesday, she texted me and says, buy
your ticket,
but
that doesn't mean you are going.
I said, what does that mean? She said,
get ready. You may get to Egypt, and
they will send you back. You may get
to Rafah, the Egyptian, they will send you
back. You may get to the Palestinian one,
they get you back. Are you ready to
go through this? I said, I'll go.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, if I didn't,
Allah will reward me.
We get to Egypt,
and everybody was telling, be careful, whatever, alhamdulillah,
was very smooth.
The next day was the challenge. This is
Ramadan, of course, we're all fasting.
When we went to the UN,
and we had this meeting, it's debriefing, preparing
everybody.
All the meeting was,
you're going to a war zone. You're going
to a war zone. You need to be
very careful. They put the whole map in
front of us. Don't you go there. Don't
you go there. Don't leave in the night.
I mean, everything is very scary.
They really wanted us to take it very
seriously, you know, because we're coming from the
West.
Yeah. They said and I remember they were
telling, there's a mosque across from the hospital.
You are not gonna go in the night.
So Alhamdulillah, Rubai Amin came out.
You know when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala put
a Sakeena inside you?
Everything you hear is scary,
but you're absolutely fine.
SubhanAllah.
Next morning we left at 4 AM from
the hotel. We had to go to another
we are in Egypt still in Cairo. We
had to go to another place about 30
minutes. Again, with the UN, they cleared everybody,
checked your passport. You are now ready, back
to the hotel, and then at 7 o'clock
the journey starts.
It took us
10 hours to get to the Rafah, the
Egyptian, many
checkpoints.
But, alhamdulillah, I mean, we didn't go through
a lot of difficulty, but you stop and
then,
we get to Rafah, the Egyptian,
again, maybe an hour,
you get your luggage and everything, then we
get that's the most beautiful.
I'm gonna share with you the most beautiful
and the most painful.
The most beautiful is after we we you
get to the Rafah, the Palestinian. So the
Rafah Egyptian, there there is a big wall,
gate, the gate open. We are here with
Egyptian drivers. They can't get in. We all
get out and there is a Palestinian drivers.
You get into the Palestinian
bus less than 4 minutes. You are in
the
now Palestinian, because it is under Palestinian authority.
And now here you are the Palestinian border.
So you get in there, they said wait,
we'll take care of your
passports, we prayed,
then
you come out.
Once you come out, because they said wait
I love in red, that they destroyed it
now. It's I love
that they destroyed it now.
You probably all have seen
where the
tank came
in deliberately
because it's a symbol.
So when you come out, like now when
you come when you come in,
you see
Valley Ranch Islamic Center. Right? You see it.
That is not on a on any building.
It is actually on the grass, but it's
done beautifully, and it is red, and it
says behind it like a heart, I love
Gaza.
So you look at everybody take pictures there
because it's beautiful symbol.
And we were there for about 3 hours.
We didn't feel it.
SubhanAllah.
Really we didn't feel it. It was the
last hours of the day when we were
fasting.
But it was an amazing joy.
Move in it's it's something very happy when
it's a place you always wanted to go,
you always wanted to see, and people are
very everything you hear, and then finally you're
there. We broke the fast in there, actually.
This was late
because they told us you have to be
in the hospital before sunset.
But Allah didn't want. We were the last
group, the 5 of us, in that,
that car, they loaded all our luggage into,
to an ambulance, and we were in the
car. The
drive
and in the border, they decide some will
go to Rafah, and they decide us, we
are going into the middle of Gaza, Deir
Balla.
The drive to Deir Balla is usually less
than 20 minutes. I mean, it's a very
I can't remember exactly the miles or the
kilos,
but it was the most scary
moments of my life.
I swear by Allah I thought we were
dead.
I told the group, let's say,
So if we die, we die.
Why is that?
Number 1, it was extremely dark. There is
no electricity in the city, and still there
isn't.
So it was extremely dark,
and it was
quiet but not serene.
Quiet but scary.
Scary.
And the road
was so uneven. It's not the main road.
The main road is Salahuddin.
It was already taken. We can't go there.
So we had to go through very close
to the sea.
And the and the driver,
I mean, of course, very experienced one, but
he takes us
literally 2 seconds you're on the right, 2
seconds you're on the left, and there and
there is no road.
It's just very bumpy.
And the only thing you see is what
the car lights is showing you, And it
there was a feeling in
there, but look what Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
gave us.
After everybody felt everybody is scared, we you
can feel it, but nobody is saying the
word because
you need strength, I need strength. I'm not
gonna tell you I'm scared because you're scared
more than me. So when nobody is saying
anything, it is.
The only thing I remember I said to
the group in the car, let's say, dua'us
suffer.
Right? And I said,
And we were driving.
Less than
7 minutes after we said all this, everybody
in that car was sleeping,
including me.
SubhanAllah.
There's a verse in Aliyah Imran.
Allah talked about the people of Badr
because they were very scared.
And Allah says,
Then Allah sat down on a group of
you,
the believers, a a minute
and no asa a minute and no asa,
it's a small,
when you take,
when you take a small nap.
And but the nap, what does it do
to you in there? Makes you feel safe.
And by Allah, this is what happened to
us.
The next thing we are in that hospital.
Everybody.
We walk,
I mean, I woke up and I see
lights.
Because the hospital had lights.
So we get into the hospital. We couldn't
see much. I mean, it was crowded, but
it was dark, and we were extremely tired.
Plus we are very stressed. This is really
stressed out.
Talk about stressed out. And then you start
hearing the drones.
And everybody tell me, see, do you see
them? I was like, no, I don't, but
I hear them. You get into the
they took us to the administration,
and it is a building, 2 stories. They
took us to the second story.
So we come up. They were helping us
with the luggage. We come. There's nobody.
But it's obviously there is people.
And then suddenly, where is everybody?
Praying.
Then everybody is wearing scrubs.
And I was saying, who's the imam?
Right?
Then, Okay, we went behind them and they
start praying, finished Isha.
The imam came back. Then somebody from the
back come to the front, pray turuqat,
finish.
This is tarawih, it's the last 10 nights
of Ramadan.
Comes back, another person comes to the front,
read, comes back.
None have turned to be.
None of these people
are but
staff, from the CEO of the hospital
to the
head of the nursing department to the head
of the OR. You know what's the amazing
thing?
Everybody was reading Quran beautifully,
and they were not reading it continuously like
we normally do here. They were actually choosing
them not too long because of the safety.
That's.
That's when people know the, that you don't
prolong your salah when it is a state
of fear. But the
choice of the verses they choose,
each one of them, everything is about be
patient,
don't give hope, Allah will give you victory
that the wrongdoers
amazing. I mean, the choices, I was like,
subhanallah.
We finished. Maybe all took less than 45
minutes, including.
The best
I've ever
heard in my life was.
And I every Ramadan, I'm in Mecca. You
know why? Because their du'a
is real.
When they made the du'a, You Allah
lift this
atrocity on us. They're not saying it like
you and me or any other imam. They
are seeing it, feeling it, because the person
who's saying it probably have lost half of
his family,
let alone the neighbors, let alone his house.
They they are through it. They are in
it.
Finished. They took us to the room of
the CEO. This is now 9:30
PM.
Nobody have gone to their houses.
Everybody is scrubs. And they say since October
7, we'll be living in this hospital.
They said we just can't go.
Maybe some if they have children, they go
for they said 1, 2 hours maximum break,
fast with the family, and come back.
So they came in very welcoming
with minimum. I mean, they get you coffee,
small
Turkish coffee. This is like just for us.
And then they said,
everybody,
they we will take you to the your
room. You need to rest today,
and we will send you your.
Now remember,
this is now 10 PM. We haven't had
anything to eat other than dates at the
border.
So how hungry we are? It's Ramadan fasting.
So they took us to the room.
I took pictures, actually.
The room,
there was nothing in that room, no carpet,
other than 2 mattresses
and no pillow, because they told us bring
your pillow with you. And there was only
1 blanket. And every mattress is a blanket.
Okay. I mean, again, for us living in
this luxury,
the
bathroom.
It's beyond.
Not because there's no water.
So whatever water is there, you use it.
And I don't want to be more detailed,
but you got the point.
Then they brought us the iftar, and we
are waiting for the iftar.
And the iftar I showed you the picture
last time was
3 cans.
1 was hummus, 1 was beans, and I
didn't know what's the third one. So I
didn't open these 2 because I'm not gonna
eat all this, and people are dying of
hunger.
So I opened the hummus. I know what
hummus is.
And they gave us a bread piece of
bread because we are
the dignitary.
They called us,
one piece of bread. And that day, the
piece of bread
felt like whatever you wish to eat.
My roommate said, I'm too tired. I'm going
to sleep, and then I'm going to eat
before fajr. I said, no, I am I
really need something to keep me going. So
I just took 3 bites
of this food, taste fine and taste hummus,
and I ate.
2 hours later till the morning, I was
throwing up.
SubhanAllah, and I said you Allah they are
living on this since October 7. We are
here April 1st. So that's 6 months,
but they
and I was like, You Allah, Rahman Ad
Duniawala after that. Alhamdulillah, they told us bring
with you tissues,
paper towel,
protein bars, and they they really prepped us.
So next day,
the reality
hit us because up till now it's night
we didn't see much. You tired exhausted. You
don't know what is gonna happen.
That night there was a lot of bombing,
but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala made me sleep.
My roommate said, didn't you hear? I said,
I didn't. She said, there was a lot
of bombing.
It turned to be
the,
the world kitchen,
the 7 that was they were killed. We
arrived the hospital. They took the same route
we took.
We arrived the hospital 8 pm.
They arrived the hospital 9 pm dead.
SubhanAllah.
The same route.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa'ala gave us life.
It was not our day, although it felt
like it, but it was not.
So next day they took us and now
we start seeing reality.
Think of the
parking lot in VRIC as you are coming,
right? This is all parking lot.
People park, and then in between place you
walk,
not in that hospital in Gaza.
There was no parking lot. Everything was tense,
Tense. The only place you walk,
like if there is 2 cars very close
to each other, sometimes you have to say,
salaam alaikum, please excuse me, salaam alaikum to
move.
So they took us, and they took us
to the ER.
And by the time we are walking,
the drone's
20 fourseven
on on top of your head. So we
went to the ER, and what did we
see in the
I mean, I'm a physician. I've seen I've
seen people dead. I've seen
everything. I mean, you're a physician. You see
this. I delivered baby. Blood for me is
is the norm. I mean, this is our
work.
Come to that ER. To get to the
ER,
there is no space that is empty.
There is beds,
patient beds,
and there is people,
and there is people mourning, and there is
people talking, and there is people
doing nothing just sitting, and I was like
what is that you Allah?
Then I come to the,
ER divided into 4
colors
signs,
Red, which is the ICU, ICUs in the
ER,
and then yellow,
less acute,
red yellow, 3 actually, and the green meaning
they are not acute.
Those people
literally.
So if somebody comes in, let's say with
asthma,
asthma flare up,
and then on the other side, and we
witnessed that, and on the other side, a
mother
with her 3 daughters that were just bombed,
the mother nothing happened to her. Actually, she
has 4 girls. One is dead.
The other one was in the operating room.
The other one was bleeding from the leg
because the sharpening were in the legs, in
the leg one, and the other one was
in the hand.
That mother, they came to me and says,
talk to her. What do you say to
this mother?
She hold me crying, bugged me, tell them
not to charge, not to cut my daughter
leg.
What do I say?
And subhanallah,
alhamdulillah, we had Doctor. Shabman with us because
he was able to save her leg.
But the other girl, they couldn't save her
arm,
and they had to amputate.
You you have to make
very tough decisions.
So if you are in the ER, that
mother with these girls, 11, 12, or 13,
and a woman, 70 year old, with an
asthma exacerbation.
You know what the what's the choice?
Leave her to die.
She lived her life.
The norm,
take her home, you tell the family, take
her home, let her die.
We don't have it. They don't have a
blood, cuff, blood pressure cuff.
They don't. And this is April 10. This
is before now. I'm sure now is worse.
So, subhanallah,
this the 3rd day I was supposed, because
I'm an OB GYN, The building where we
stayed is actually the maternity building, which was
all the deliveries are there, but because since
the war became a trauma center, and all
the deliveries were moved to
hospital, which is about
less than 15 minutes of drive. But they
said, you're not going. It's not safe
because I have to go and come back
and go and come back. They said it's
not safe yet. We'll let you know when
it is safe. You stay,
and if any need in the house in
the ER we'll call you.
That was a blessing from Allah.
Why?
Because I had more time than the others
to talk to people
and I speak the language
and that's what impacted me more than seeing
patients,
although seeing patients by itself.
So I start talking to people. The first
one, and this is what I, alhamdulillah, Allah
made me remember.
Again, that young orthopedic physician the 1st day,
and I 2nd or 3rd day, I'm sorry.
And I said,
how do you feel about this? He's very
sophisticated. Speak very good English.
And, and I said, how how do you
feel about that?
This is 6 months. He's a 2nd year
orthopedic physician.
He has no future. There is no hospital
to do the training. He's there just to
do something instead of sitting and doing nothing.
You know what quote of the Quran he
looked at me and said it,
unless you really know your Quran, you're not
going to make this
connection.
He said, you know?
You know this verse? Anybody in this room?
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said it in
Surat Ta'ha
to say Idna Musa
I shaped you,
formed you,
made you go through things
for me.
And he said this, if you look at
the sequence when Allah had reached this verse,
it is when he was telling him you
were young
and your mother we all told your mother,
you know, throw him in the sea as
an enemy will take him, and then you
killed somebody in
We made you
go through
a lot of tests.
And then Allah says,
I made you, I shaped you, I formed
you for me.
He looked at me and said this, in
the middle of the war,
in the middle of the drones,
this young man,
2nd year physician, there is no more residency
program, meaning his future is done.
Imagine any one of us in this, parents
or,
students themselves, somebody tells you next year your
your university
is closed. We don't know what's going to
happen to you. We'll wait and see what
will happen to us.
Versus this man looks at me and says,
When he said this to me
and I said,
so what he was basically telling me, Allah
chose us. They keep saying this word.
Allah chose us and Allah prepped us for
this.
And I was like how Allah prepped you
for this? He said, since
2,005,
there's a lot of things we don't know
what it mean.
Meaning,
Dallas or in California or any place in
the United States, summer is coming. You want
to go and see your family. Right? What
is the big deal?
If your family is another state, you can
just book a ticket and go. And if
your family is overseas, you're gonna book a
ticket and go.
Not
in Gaza. I said, what does that mean?
He said, there's people lives in Gaza,
and part of their family lives in the
West Bank.
For those of you if you don't know
the anatomy, so West Bank is close to
Jordan, to the east side. And is close
to the west side, is next to the
sea. But how much distance between them?
And if I remember well, 2 or 3
hours drive
to go and see your part of your
family. There is in laws, there is your
sister-in-law, or your brother married, or your sister
married.
Normally that's what we do for the people
of Gaza
to go and see their relatives in the
West Bank. You know what they have to
do?
They have to drive all the way the
drove we took to Egypt,
take a flight,
fly to Jordan.
From Jordan,
you go through the borders again,
go through Jerusalem,
then go through the big wall that separate
Jerusalem from the West Bank. That if they
allowed you,
they said a day or 2 journey
to see a family.
Let alone,
if they want to go and see,
if they want to go and pray in
the
in the, most of them are not allowed
and don't count the checkpoints.
So this is their life, not now.
This is their life since 2,005.
And this is something for us to learn
as Sayed Na'omar or it is also a
hadith to Rasool alaihi salatu wa sallam.
He said
Train yourself
to live not in comfort,
because blessings
not always
stays.
Meaning,
I'm used to drink
cold water.
Every now and then I need to
not drink cold water. Why?
There may be a day where I will
not find cold water.
Let me train myself
to not always eat what I want, which
is very difficult for us
because everything is available.
Because there may be one day that what
I want is not available. And that's exactly
what the people of Gaza.
You see 12 or 13,
whether girls or boys
having the phones in their hand, walking,
or iPad,
and they're
playing.
You know what they played with?
They took our gloves,
especially the younger.
They took our gloves as we were leaving,
and they blow it.
And when they blow it, becomes balloon,
and they start shouting and playing
in that small
space between people, literally.
Half of them barefoot. They don't have shoes,
Not because they are poor, by the way.
A good number of them, they were living
a very comfortable life in the North.
So one of the ones I there was
a 3 woman. Yeah.
3 women the treaty
impacted me.
One of them was the head of the
maternity, and she looked absolutely
well dressed,
white coat,
smiling,
and her name is
I can't remember now, so I know her
name, but they always call people by the
mother of, which is.
They don't call people by their first name
at all. Even physicians, they don't call them.
It's always,
the mother of.
And I was like, what day 1, day
2, day 3, and I was like super
and Sam, her name. And I and, you
know, you as a woman, you know, you
came to know, and I was like, masha'allah,
you always look,
And she says, we have to live,
And we will adapt.
And if
I'm at least I feel good, and I
make the people around me feel good. Did
you see the concept?
The concept is very different for us. That
was one.
This was the least affected because she lives
in the
central part and her house, I don't know
now, but her house was still intact.
Then I met 2 women.
And the third one is she had the
impact on me. That woman, every time I
get into the maternity building, which is the
trauma center,
literally the door, like you enter, next to
that door, there is a mattress. This woman
is there.
Day in, day out, I go in the
morning, I go in the evening, we go
to pray because that was the place they
gave us to pray behind 2 doors. Finally,
tomorrow is aid or the day after is
aid. 2 days.
Somebody gave us,
the cookies of Eid. They said this what
we do in Gaza. I was like, subhanallah.
They said, yeah, we had some flour.
Okay. So they gave me 3 as I
was going to pray taraweeh.
The woman was awake, so I gave her
1.
You also have to be very careful because
these people have dignity.
You don't want to make them feel
that they are poor because they are not.
They have a lot of dignity in them.
So I said, Khala, do you like some?
And he said, sure.
In Arabic, so so I was like, Alhamdulillah,
so I talked with her.
She's been in this
mattress.
I have a picture, actually. I think I
put it on the Internet. I took her
permission.
Since December,
I talked to her April.
That mattress, she and her daughter,
one mattress.
Don't ask me how they sleep. I don't
know,
but they do.
And I said, which bathroom?
She said, with the patient.
We, as physicians,
we had one bathroom, all the physicians in
the hospital,
all the staff, and they gave us a
key. We were about 30 people using 1
bathroom.
One bathroom.
Imagine the others.
So I said, what is, what is the
story? She said, we were living in the
north, they told us move to the south,
we came in here, my husband and her
and his and my son stayed. Allah knows
where are they, and we are here waiting.
Nan Tabar Farajullah.
We're waiting for Allah's victory, and Allah will
make things easy.
But she wasn't complaining, but you can see
she's not happy, of course.
So that's one.
The second woman,
this was amazing,
outside the hospital
day
6 or 7,
they allowed us
to walk a little bit outside the hospital.
And one person from the hospital came with
us, and he said, do you want to
see more people? I said, yes, please. He
said, okay. We're gonna walk a little bit,
little bit less than 1 minute. We walked,
and we entered, and there was an empty
space full of tents,
and those all the people
that came later on from the north.
And he said, let's come and sit here,
and we'll get you some people so you
hear their stories.
And this woman came in with her 11
year old boy.
She entered very dignified woman,
dressed this usual what picture you see online,
which,
which is basically
the garment for salah.
And she told us her story very eloquent
Arabic.
And she said, we used to live in
the north in a one neighborhood, which is
a very good neighborhood.
And they told us move.
They usually give them they either give the
they throw notes or they say it in.
And she said, we moved
to another area.
Then they said, move. We moved to another
area, which is very close to the Shefa
hospital.
And I said, where did you stay? She
said, I stayed in a home of a
Christian man who went and stayed in the
church. And he said, you come and live
in my house.
So subhanallah, he said, yeah, me, my husband,
my son, my daughter.
This is
before Ramadan.
And what was I said, what did you
eat? She said, we found listen to this.
We found a one bag of sugar
and 2 or 1 or 2 bottles of
water.
She stayed, I think, 2 weeks, she said,
in that house.
And she said, when my children say I'm
hungry,
literally this is how she said in her
hand, we give them that much of sugar.
Then they attacked the Shifa hospital,
and she said, we we start hearing the
bombing
around the house. Then a bomb came through
the house,
and I don't know how we survived
and all the windows, and then we start
hearing them
coming,
and they came, the soldiers.
So they entered.
They put my husband and my son on
one side, the older son,
myself daughter, and the younger son on another
side.
They made the husband and the son
so they can and I can't say this
because it is in public, but you can
you know what I meant in front of
everybody because they wanted to
search them.
Then they took the father and the son
out.
And they told her in Arabic,
go.
She said, where do I go? Says go,
Go walk beside the sea.
If the sea is on your right hand,
then you're going south.
If the sea on your left hand, you're
going north.
She said I took and she she kept
telling them why you're doing this to us.
We are civilians.
She's extremely eloquent.
We are civilians.
We are not Hamas. We are not. We
are civilians.
Why you are doing? You told us move.
You told us move. And I said, you
said this to the soldiers? Said, yeah.
You and me will be scared to death
because they can kill you any minute.
With your son with you.
I said, I took my son. The son
was barefoot.
Myself wearing, she showed me. That's what I
was wearing and my daughter. And we start
walking.
It's about, I think if I remember well,
12 kilometer
from where she is to where she ended.
It says in the middle of the street,
it was very cold December, was very cold,
we're very hungry,
and the
son looks at her and says I can't
do this anymore, I'm extremely hungry.
She said I looked up and I see
a soldier,
soldiers.
She told her son
stay. She went up to them.
When she was saying this story to me,
you know when you see movies,
and I was like, why aren't you scared?
She says, I the my son is hungry.
I need food.
She went up. The soldier was there. She
said, look, he's very hungry. Do you have
any food?
The soldier gave her, she said, like that.
She said, she said something covered like him,
you know, piece of cake and it's covered.
That's what they gave her. So she told
her son come take the food, the sun
comes up. You know what the sun did?
There was a tank
and the the tank was opened. The son
jumped on the tank
to see what is inside the tank.
11 year old.
When he jumped to see the 2 soldiers
in the tank
got scared and moved back from an 11
year old.
And I looked at him and I said,
aren't you scared?
Literally, you know what he say? No.
They are scared of us.
I was like, what kind of blood you
guys have?
I didn't say it, but I was thinking
in my mind.
And then she said, we walked,
and we reached here.
And I'm giving you the the the literally
the summary. This was a 30 minutes talk
with this woman because she was amazing.
And I said,
isn't that too difficult?
How did you do it? Literally, I looked
at her and said, teach me.
How did you do it?
She said,
this is the lesson to all of us.
She said I raised, we lived,
and I raised my children on 2 things.
SubhanAllah,
and this is way before the war.
I said what are they? They said number
1,
you live in this life and you eat
halal.
Number 2,
this life is temporary.
We are here not to live. We are
here to do a duty and we will
go, teaching her children. She's not 40 years
old.
Then she looked at me.
Literally, she was sitting there. I was here.
She looked at me, and she started reading.
The last part of.
Then she looked at me at the eyes
and says, I see Quran in your face.
I'll see you in Jannah.
I was speechless.
What I'm going to say to this woman?
I came
to give her strength, right?
Who gave strength to whom?
Who taught whom?
What I'm going to tell her,
right? And then she said, Allah chose this
for us. Every word she was saying. It's
a word of strength.
No complain,
no emotions,
emotional crying.
She's saying it with pain, but she's saying
it with dignity.
And you feel it. And then she looked
at me and says, see this?
We sleep with it.
And what I thought, because they don't have
anything else.
Immediately she read my mind. She said, because
in case I die, I die covered.
SubhanAllah.
Who thinks of
this? Who thinks of them? Then I looked
at the boy,
and in Gaza you don't ask people, have
you memorized Quran? It's an insult,
because everybody knows Quran. Usually children say how
much of the Quran you have?
And if it is 5 or 6,
for us 5 or 6, who are for
them, and they are shy to tell you.
Literally, he said just 5. I said just
just 5.
5, you are living in a whole
war,
6 months, nothing. And then he recited. And
I again put it on social media. And
if any of you he recited the Fatiha.
They recite beautifully. They know the meaning of
their voice. They they say it.
SubhanAllah. Then we went out,
and it was just before maybe another hour
in Maghro Bulbi. It's all Ramadan.
And they showed us what they feed them.
This was all donations.
It's called for
those of you from the Arab world, which
is basically a combination of every
beans
and everything that that has protein but is
not a protein.
And the way they they serve is a
huge
pot
and a plate.
And everybody brings whatever they have.
And the man, a younger man, puts with
the plate in that
pot.
So then I saw an older gentleman, old,
I think he's at least late 70s.
And then I everybody I videotape you have
to ask their permission.
And he looked at me and says, so
worried, so worried.
Take a video. Take a video. What is
it?
Food.
And if you see the pot,
you will not be able to eat.
Let alone,
that's okay.
Do it.
Subhanallah.
Then the last 4 days of the last
and I will probably feel a little bit
early in case some of you have
questions.
The last 4 or 5 days,
we had
there was a place for all of us
to pray tahajud.
So we came down, we are in the
2nd floor, it was in the 1st floor.
We didn't know who's the imam. We were
praying behind. The imam read beautifully,
half of, amazing.
He made a small mistake.
You know the small mistake? It was
so he read it so far here it
is sir.
I didn't say anything because I said maybe
I'm wrong. So I went back and I
checked and no it was.
Next day,
and I looked and I said, Abdullah, last
year, he said, yeah, I made the mistake.
It was sea, not sofa.
And I was like, okay. I think I'm
dealing with another level.
Then the day we were leaving,
oh, before that,
3rd day, Abdullah is reading, we are enjoying,
literally,
if you ask me, the best,
the best
I prayed was on Gaza, let alone the
day of aid.
That day, he I think he prayed 4,
and then we were in the back next
to the door, a young boy comes in.
I shouldn't say boy because he's a man.
Right? Very thin. Everybody is very skinny.
Right? He comes in, Allahu Akbar gets with
the man. You're talking about 2 AM.
Play. Finished. Okay. Finished.
He moves finished the. He moves to the
imam. I know what he talked with the
imam. The imam went back,
and this boy is
leading us, reading
beauty.
Finished,
sat,
turned, like when the iman turned to you,
turned to all of us. All of us
are older. All of us are, you know,
And he looked at us, and he start
singing an ashid about Palestine.
Made everybody, you can imagine the mood in
that room.
And he is reading it with not a
single tear.
What is his story?
You probably have seen him. Is that the
boy who was there
putting cast on his hand,
and he was reading Quran
was that boy.
What was his story?
All the family was in a building. The
people of Gaza live in buildings.
1 building, the family owns it. So every
level,
one part of the family could be
parents and siblings, could be parents and then
uncle and aunts. So he was living in
that building,
which all the family,
that building was bombed.
Right?
And everybody
was dead
except 3. So when they came to save
them they saved his cousin and his cousin.
They missed him.
He stayed 3 hours under the rubble.
Okay.
That's not the reason I'm sharing the story.
What was he carrying in his hand?
His 5 year old cousin dead
for 3 hours.
Then they had that cousin who see who
survived
when he went to the ER he said,
oh my other cousin is still alive. They
went back and took him out.
Nobody in his family is alive, this boy.
They showed me the pic
the 300 names at least was they had
a list
of orphans,
they divide them.
SubhanAllah.
The first one is the worst
where it is injured,
no family survived,
no parents.
So this boy or a girl is alone
in this life.
2nd group
is parents died, but there is family.
So uncle, aunt.
Another
or one parent is dead. Mother,
usually they put father first
or mother.
That boy,
none.
Had nobody.
Nobody even extended family.
The last day as we were leaving,
which was the most painful day,
there was a boy who I always saw
wearing
scrubs, 8 years of age.
8 years of age, scrubs is so cute
on him.
Honestly, I don't know who. It's his size,
a little bit big, but it is his
size.
And he was wearing typical surgeon.
The the scrub is,
like short sleeves, and under it he was
wearing,
like a t shirt. That's so much like
a surgeon.
8 year of age, and he was pushing
patients.
Finally, I talked with him. What is it?
I can't remember his name. I said, what
are you doing here?
You know, I'm teasing him. He said, I'm
working.
I said, what do you do? You the
boys speak to you men.
Men. Wallahi men. I didn't see a child.
I saw men. I said, what? What do
you do? He said, I'm training to become
an orthopedic surgeon.
And that boy, no family
at all. That's why he is in that
hospital,
so people can take
care of.
The day before we left,
there was a little bit more food. Chicken
arrived. We saw chicken.
Who cares about chicken here? Oh, when we
saw chicken.
So the head of the outpatient department
insisted to invite us.
Invite us where?
Invite us to a room,
exam room, outpatient
exam room became the house of his family.
4 girls, young boy, he and his wife,
7.
They made an amazing iftar.
The young boy,
who his name is Mohammed, but they call
him Abu.
So the girls came in, and they said
it was raining and drones, and there was
some bombing.
So we felt we need to go back
because it's getting night. But the girl says
we have to give you a gift.
Give me a gift?
I need to give them a gift. What
is the gift? They went, brought
a box of chocolate. I was like, wow,
chocolate?
They opened the box. It's all beads.
And they said, what is your favorite color?
We'll make you a bracelet. I said, how
are you going to make a bracelet? Wait.
They had plastic rubber, you know?
They made
don't ask me how. It took a while.
So I looked at Mohammed was sitting right
there.
Mohammed before that, by the way, he stood
up and and did
excuse me. He was the imam of everyone.
Nobody said to Muhammad, go and do wudu,
and then Muhammad tells you I'm doing wudu
for half an hour.
You know how we are here.
Mohammed came, Allahu Akbar looks at our stool.
I was like stool. Okay. We will stool.
So Mohammed was sitting there 11 years thin,
petite.
So I was teasing, Mohammed, come and help
them. We need to leave.
Looked at me.
That's a girl's job.
I was like, please forgive me.
SubhanAllah,
will lie and so serious.
And then in that room
see how they are.
Not only they they survive, but they survive
with happiness and dignity,
if you can even use these words. I
looked at the wall, and they have the
names of the family.
So the name of their father, orthopedic surgeon,
head of the outpatient department. The girls,
whatever she wants to be, secretary of the
clinic. There is no clinic.
But she put this, the other one student
in whatever, Muhammad,
Abu Ma'at, the young boy, a doctor Muhammad,
orthopedic surgeon.
He's 11 year old. Everything is destroyed,
but they live with hope.
SubhanAllah.
So next day, that's it. We are supposed
to leave with
Tuesday where they moved us from
down to.
They said because you have to move during
the day, and next day in aid, you
will exit.
You enter
Gaza, of course, when we were is Monday
and Wednesdays only. And you exit Monday Wednesday
only. That's how it is. And once you
enter Gaza, you cannot leave when you want.
You have to stay for 7 days minimum.
And if you want to leave early, you
can't unless it is a dire emergency because
you have to take permission from many people.
So they said that's it. You are moving
to it was 12 o'clock.
We prayed.
We prayed.
Everybody was
coming to say goodbye to us.
We were crying. They were not.
We're crying like baby.
You know why?
It's it's a nie'ma,
but you always ask yourself, why me?
When we are in that car, we can
load our stuff.
We came into that car. Everybody was
dignified,
amazing human beings,
definitely better than me.
But I was able to leave, and they
are not.
And we start crying like a baby, all
of us, including the physicians with us, including
the man. It was very painful,
Literally as if you left, you know, when
you say goodbye to somebody so close to
you and you don't don't know when you
will see them again?
Although they kept telling you're gonna come back
and we will invite you to our homes
after victory. That's the same word they keep
saying it.
So one of the people who were saying
goodbye to us was the imam, Abdullah,
the one who I wanted to correct. He
already know the mistake.
So I the last day I was like
Masha'Allah, You Abdullah,
may Allah reward you. You really made me
enjoy this beautiful tarawiyah, your voice. I said
Masha'Allah,
you're half of the Abdullah.
He looked at me and says no, I
am not half of.
I said I'm sure he's half because he
leads amazing.
And he said, no, I am
an.
I'm from the chosen people.
And I said, what does that mean?
He said,
And this is the beauty. They have a
dignity, and they are proud without arrogance when
they say,
they say it in a way. So the
people of Gaza, the, I'm sorry. The,
There's 2 kinds. I was like, okay, teach
me what is that. That's new to me.
And he said, when you finish your
and you master your,
your teacher will tell you you're gonna go
to that place, and you're gonna recite the
whole Quran
to another teacher
in one setting.
Not reading,
recite.
And I said, how long this will take?
He said, usually
8 to 2.
6 hours.
But he was like, I did it 8
to 4.
Oh, I'm sorry. This is too long.
And I said, how come? Because I made
a little bit of mistakes, and if I
make a mistake they ask me
to review and then come back.
That Abdullah and I thought he was working
in the hospital. I didn't know till the
last day that Abdullah lost all his family,
and he is also they call him displaced
from the north living in this hospital.
Every single day, that young man, 23,
stand up,
about an hour,
2 and a half hours. We start 12:30,
one day 12:15, 12:30, and we finish minimum
3 or 3:30
with an amazing dua.
So we left now,
and then we I'm sorry. We left.
They took us to the European hospital where
now they are.
They said this day, tomorrow was Eid.
Right?
Yani,
how can you celebrate Eid?
Half of the children running around are orphans.
Half of those were barefoot,
no new clothes. Allah knows when was the
last time this was washed, let alone, when
they did
when they took a shower.
The morning of the Eid,
they said there is a masjid across. They
said, don't go, because Masjid is one of
the places that are targeted.
And all of us said, no, we're going
to go. And if Allah wants us to
die, we will die.
The best
I've ever done. The masjid is old. Half
of the windows in the masjid are already
bombed.
But the imam stood up.
He was
maybe in his 50s.
An amazing,
giving strength to people. I don't know where
he get the strength to give strength to
people.
And all the girls, subhanAllah, they have pictures
so much like you.
But Allah knows if they even have parents.
They're all covered. The girls are all covered.
And we left the street full of mud
and full of trash. There is no service.
All the trash is on the streets.
And as we left,
the European and we went to the border
literally by Allah and Allah is my witness,
you did not come
back the same as you entered. Something in
me
is different
and stays there.
Subhanallah.
May Allah
really mean this for everybody.
Don't get numb.
Don't say it's been 7 months.
If we get numb,
how are they? They didn't get tired. Why
did we get tired? Why do we get
tired from?
Why did we get tired from feeding? Why
didn't we get or shouldn't get tired from,
oh, it's water, not cold. Half of it,
let's leave it. A lot of lessons from
Gaza.
And if we did not change,
after all what we
saw, then I don't know what Allah will
send else for us
to change.
And I don't know if Allah will test
us the way he's testing them, how we
will react.
And last thing I will say and I
don't mean you, but it's a concept we
all need to learn.
Sometimes when
affliction happen to people, it's not because they
are the cause.
Sometimes it's somebody else.
Beware of a trial
or temptations
or tribulation.
That will not affect only those who have
done injustice.
It may affect everybody.
So we really should be a wake up
call for us
to be closer to Allah, to be more
grateful.
We need to live our life. Life continues,
but not the same way.
Let alone love them. Let
alone it's not our our it's far away.
I don't know where it is. Changed
the world,
not
the Muslims
literally changed the world.
That not a single person now you ask
them, non Muslims, they don't know what is.
Or they don't know the color of the
Palestinian flag,
not alone free Palestine,
let alone the.
So let us all not forget, Keep doing
what we can do. And I
even after I came back and even after
I with everything I saw, I still have
the same certainty.
They will be victorious.
I have no doubt.
From what I saw and I talked with,
they are different people. They keep telling you
it's our land. We're not leaving.
They this is you hear it from this
age to the oldest I talked with. It's
our land.
So may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make it
easy for everybody. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
forgive our shortcomings. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
lift this test on the people of Gaza.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us not
the cause,
you Rabbi Amin, of the trial of anybody
else and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make
us better people,
better Muslims,
better and improve all the humanity
because of what we are seeing
So you have to tell me when do
I need to stop? I think we get
ready for Aisha or there is any question.
Yes.
I was in.
She asked what hospital
I was. I was in.
It's in the middle of.
It's called.
Exactly in the middle
of.
Yes, please.
Alaikum, salaam.
Can you speak up? I can't hear you.
I
monetary wise to donate?
To be honest with you, when I was
there, banks were closed.
There was to certain extent PayPal,
but there was a lot of fees
taken. I don't know now because now there's
even no borders.
So I don't know how to get there.
There's
you may have to check couple of people
where I was told because this is very
common question I get from people that they
have people operating there
that they can
reach to them. Don't ask me how, and
they give them the help.
But from what we saw, whatever we were
allowed to enter and allowed to get some
cash with us, we actually distributed to people.
And it's extremely
expensive.
Of course it's war, so you can imagine.
Okay. Alhamdulillah.
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