At the Erez Checkpoint

ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT AT THE EREZ CHECKPOINT Dear Palestinian colleague We are both doctors. We have both trained long side have tried hard to attack our hospital. So although I do recognise a spreading stain of and hard, perhaps even in the same institutions far, we have been remarkably lucky, thanks both racism among a small but vocal minority in at some point in our careers. Both of us have to chance and our antimissile technology. the country. You too must have to cope with longed to practice our art and work daily to I thank God that our government invested in a similar reality but I am certain that you too perfect it. Because we are both doctors, we want a response to the nightmare scenario of attacks teach your children to live and let live, hoping people to stay well, and, if they sicken or are on civilians, at least from the air. In my view, for better days. injured, to recover quickly and fully. We both and I am sorry to have to say this to you, it is We are both doctors and fathers, and I want medicine to advance on both sides of our tragic that your government spent so much of its hope that neither you or your partner are in fraught border and maybe even one day to work scarce resources on preparing these weapons, the terrible situation of worrying about your together on a research project. As a geriatrician both above and below the ground. Where has children’s fate as soldiers. I would not wish it I can imagine frail older people on both sides of this got the people of Gaza? Neither you nor I on my worst enemy and you are surely not that. the border, scurrying for shelter and some not can take credit or blame for this situation. We Some may say that a medical journal is not making it. are both doctors. the place to debate politics but dialogue can We are both doctors. Although we will My younger son, our “baby,” serves in our only be a good thing. And my guess is that you each have our own political opinions and armed forces just a few tens of kilometres away and I would probably, to put it mildly, not see interpretations of our shared history, these are from where my wife and I work. I know that he is eye to eye on how we got to where we are today. ours alone and have nothing to do with our fighting not only for the country But I do hope your response profession. I know that on our side, when called but also to protect his dad. He After this round of would not be more eye for an upon, we look after Palestinian patients from Gaza is doing so for me personally fighting is over we will eye. Please prove me wrong. in peace and even now in war. I know you would and so that I can look after my need to find a political I believe with all of my do the same, were an Israeli to need your help. patients, both Arab and Jew. solution heart that if most people of We are both doctors working in southern Last week five of his mates were Gaza want to live with us in a Israel and Gaza; and both of our peoples are buried after being attacked on our side of the good neighbourly way, most people of Israel hurting badly. I can imagine what you are border from a tunnel dug solely for the purposes will not begrudge them a secure future for seeing and trying to cope with. The fact that I of murder and kidnapping civilians. His older their children. If not, we are all in trouble. hold the Hamas government responsible for brother is in the reserves and has his kit ready in Unfortunately, I think I know what the Hamas this conflict does not mean I blame you or wish case he is needed and must go too. government that rules you and your family you any harm. For my part I am trying to look My sons serve with nary a sliver of hatred over the border wants for me, and it is not after our frail elderly charges, who are under against the people of Gaza. I know this not pretty. I am sure you have read their charter constant threat in buildings largely unprotected only from how we brought them up but from and I cannot and will not believe that you from rocket fire. I know your hospitals have what they say and, above all, from how they accept most of what appears in this pernicious taken hits. So far, the armed militias on your act. Almost all their friends hold similar views, document. I absolutely refuse to believe that all the Gazan people, including you, my friend, want the same thing. After this round of fighting is over we will need to find a political solution. We must make peace. I will talk to my people. Please: I implore you to talk to yours. Our patients need us to do so. Let us never forget that we are both doctors. With warm wishes and hope for better days Your colleague Mark PS: As I am going over the proofs to this manuscript, a 72 hour ceasefire has just gone into effect. May it last 172 years. A Mark Clarfield is Sidonie Hecht professor of geriatrics, Department of Geriatrics, Soroka Hospital, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-sheva 84101, Israel; adjunct professor, McGill University, Montréal, Québec [email protected] Competing interests: None declared. Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; not externally peer reviewed. PA Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5023 12 23-30 August 2014 | the bmj the bmj | 23-30 August 2014 13 ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT Israeli doctor A Mark Clarfield reflects on life in a war zone and shares his thoughts with an imagined Palestinian colleague in Gaza. The BMJ asked the Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish to respond Dear Israeli colleague We are both doctors. As a father, I understand problem. Let us come together as doctors to It is important for Palestinians and those living how much you must love your sons and fear for tackle the root causes of the current hatred in Gaza not to become faceless. In the same way them. My late wife and I had eight children. Five and violence. that the murder of three young Israeli hitchhikers live with me in Toronto. They study and dream It is true that Palestinians are treated in Israel, will always be remembered, let’s add the names of a future denied to my other three daughters, but this is paid for by the Palestinian Authority, of Ismail Bakr, aged 9, and his three cousins, who lie in a stone grave in Gaza, killed as and patients are sent back to an uninhabitable Ahmed, 10, Zakariya, 10, and Mohammad, teenagers by shellfire in the Israeli incursion of ghetto. What is the value of treating patients 11, cut down as they ran in terror across a early 2009. and sending them back to the same miserable Gaza beach. Hundreds of other children, who I was the first Palestinian doctor to be life? To use a medical analogy, the sickness enjoyed playing on swings, kicking a football, hired at Soroka University Medical Center in on both sides of the Erez and feeding pigeons with their Israel. I helped couples experience the joy of checkpoint is unequal. One side Hatred is a disease that grandfathers, have now been parenthood. There is no happier moment than has a common cold; the other results from exposure buried by their distraught hearing a baby’s first cry: it is a cry of hope, is trying to cope with cancer. to harm, especially parents. I know well the panic irrespective of the child’s nationality or creed. Young children in Gaza and dehumanisation and chaos of Gaza’s hospitals, How many children must die or be maimed Palestine are so traumatised. with insufficient equipment and before a resolution can be found? While Israel They have seen so many family members killed. power, with patients on makeshift stretchers and continues to occupy Palestinian territory, They will develop a sense of hatred and become exhausted doctors unable to cope. depriving 1.8 million people the right to radicalised. They live in an open prison with We are both doctors. We do not blame patients water, travel, education, jobs, and the most little chance to fulfil their dreams. for their sickness; we look for symptoms to fundamental human need—freedom—then the In the past weeks there have been 7200 treat the disease. Both patient and doctor violence will continue. We must find a way to airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces, and most need to take responsibility, in hospital but also stop the bloodshed, and as doctors we have a of the nearly 2000 people killed have been outside. Doctors can be a great force for peace as voice: we can treat these two patients and make civilian, many of them women and children. communicators and messengers of humanity. them better. Now the negotiations begin again, this time Recurring violence will never solve what is I abhor any kind of violence in Palestine in Egypt, but the ultimate goal cannot be occurring between the Palestinians and the or Israel. It is a disease. The security of yet more negotiations but an independent Israelis.

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