Khaled graduating with a degree in nursing

The story of Khaled is similar to those of more than 400 health workers killed by Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. Nurses, doctors, health educators, health technicians, medical school staff, dentists are being regularly targeted and killed or injured. Many more of them were arrested and we know nothing about them.

But Khaled’s story is particularly special for me and for MECA. I have lost a lot. I have lost colleagues, neighbors and friends, lost my home and my childhood home too with all my parents memories. But losing Khaled was a terrible blow.

Khaled was one of the recipients of MECA’s scholarship program. He graduated in June 2023 from Al-Azhar University’s school of nursing with excellence. (The university was also destroyed completely by Israeli attacks.)

He visited me after his graduation to say thank you and handed me a few peaches and apricots from their modest backyard as a token of gratitude. I was so touched when the young man promised me to continue volunteering and giving back to his community. That was my real present, that was the fulfillment of the goal of our scholarship program to support young students to finish their educations and contribute to their communities.

Khaled visited me again one week before the genocidal attack against Gaza started and he shared about his experiences volunteering as a nurse for people around him. I hugged Khaled and gave him my first stethoscope which my dad had gifted me for my graduation from medical school in 1978. He joked “Is it still working?” I replied “Yes, of course. And I am still working too!”

Khaled inside Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City

A week later I learnt that he joined the health team inside the Al-Shifa hospital. He stayed there day and night, helping with the injured, and comforting the bereaved parents and the orphaned children. With his calm and sweet personality, he was able to comfort people in the worst moments of their lives.

I kept in touch with him over the last months while he was inside the Al-Shifa hospital. But then I lost contact with him during the two-week siege of the hospital. Al-Shifa, the backbone of healthcare in Gaza was destroyed completely. I felt deeply saddened and angry when I saw on the the news all of the burned out buildings and heard the stories of people executed, arrested, killed by lack of medical care. After the criminal Israeli occupation withdrew from the rubble of the hospital, I received news from Khaled’s family that he was no longer missing, he was killed while carrying out his work as a nurse and a humanitarian.

Dear Khaled,
You were a star that sparkled during your short life.
You were so beautiful inside and out. And a promising young Palestinian man.

To your family and friends, MECA team extends our deep condolences. To the world, we scream our outrage that another young Palestinian, a healthcare worker, has been deliberately killed by Israel’s attack on Gaza.