Send a message of goodwill to our teams in Gaza and the West Bank

Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib

"My name is Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, I’m MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Palestine, based in Gaza. Our teams in Gaza are seeing all types of trauma injuries. About 60 percent are children and women. Severe cases, explosive injuries mainly, in the lower extremities and abdomen. I’ve been able to concentrate more on my work since my family got out of Gaza earlier in the year. But I’m mentally very tired. I miss my wife, my daughter, my two sons. As soon as this war is over, I’m going to do my best to reunite with them. After that, I want to travel to Gaza City to see if my house is still standing."

Dr Haya Hashem Salman

"My name is Dr Haya Hashem Salman, I’m a medical doctor at MSF’s field hospital in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. Every day, especially in our job as doctors, we have to go out for long periods of time when we leave home, and we don't know if we will return home or not… At work I always keep an eye on the news: you fear something will happen to your family when you're not there. Three months before the war I got engaged and I was happy, preparing all the details for the wedding. Now I just hope to be reunited with my fiancé, because he stayed in the north, and I came to the south. Maybe the thing I wish for most is to see him again.  Now I am working at the field hospital, where we are treating patients in tents because so many people need care."

Mahmoud Al-Belbesi

"I’m a psychologist from Gaza. I work with MSF to try to support people’s mental health during this war. My team offers psychological counselling and activities for children and their parents. Play is important as it’s through play that children can start to get over the trauma and the pain they have experienced, and learn how to manage some of the emotions that are coming and are not easy to deal with. One of the most important challenges we see, especially for children, is that there is no safe place. This means they can’t start the process of healing from traumatic events."

Noura Arafat

"My name is Noura Arafat, I’m an MSF intercultural mediator and have lived in Nablus in the West Bank all my life. My job is to help women from my community access support in MSF’s mental health program. [People] think the situation is just a conflict. To me, it's not. There are so many different aspects. When you delve more into the history of a patient, it's because a father has been imprisoned for life or because the patient has never seen her father, for example. Every single aspect of our life is really affected by the occupation with things that you can never imagine. With the women we work with, we try to give them the means and the skills to be more resilient, to cope and to find hope in life, which is really very special to my heart."