12/25/24, 12:00 p.m., Northampton, MA—As I sit to write a brief account of a visit by members of River Valley for Gaza Healthcare to Cooley Dickinson/Mass Brigham Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts this Christmas morning, a text appears on my phone... perhaps the final words, not even a plea to the outside world this time, of Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Lahia, sent beyond the confines of Gaza via the internet a half hour earlier:
The hospital is being bombed now. Some of the internal walls have collapsed. The situation is unbearable.
Translation: Israel and its criminal henchmen in the U.S. government appear to have chosen Christmas Day and the first day of Hanukkah, 2024, to finish their 85+-day siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital and all of the human souls within it.
As these horrors unfold at Kamal Adwan, three members of River Valley for Gaza Healthcare arrive, on a brilliantly sunny, cold Christmas morning, at the main entrance of Cooley Dickinson/Mass Brigham Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts. We have come to stand inside the lobby of the hospital and hold a large banner declaring: "If this hospital were in Gaza, it would be rubble."
(Photo: Nick Mottern)
Our group is working in partnership with a new, national coalition—Doctors Against Genocide—which has called on healthcare providers and consumers to hold vigils for Gaza in hospital lobbies across the country this Christmas Day.
Along with our big banner, we carry flyers for hospital workers encouraging them to reach out to our group to organize with us in solidarity with their colleagues 8,000 miles away. And finally, we have a small Christmas tree adorned with multi-colored balls, and unusual ornaments that, upon close inspection, prove to be photographs of healthcare workers martyred by Israel during its 14-month and counting genocide of the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip.
(Photo: Nick Mottern)
The hospital lobby is silent and devoid of any human bustle. Carrying our banner, flyers, and tree, we proceed deeper into the building to a second lobby complete with registration desk, grand central staircase, and high ceilings. All of the signs of a well-functioning, fully-funded medical facility are apparent: gleaming surfaces, seasonal decorations, comfortable chairs for visitors and patients, humming elevators, handsomely framed artwork, and signs helpfully indicating the way to various departments.
Still, not a single soul, except for the momentary, whimsical appearance, far down the hall, of a tall figure dressed in a green elf costume and pointy hat. The elf disappears. We take some photos of ourselves with our banner and tree, before walking long hallways to the rear of the building. There, the empty cafeteria, decorated with a glittering tree, nicely spaced tables and chairs, and complete with coffee machines and microwaves, awaits the lunch hour. A kind cafeteria worker greets us, turns lights on for us to take another photo of our banner, and even nods approvingly when she reads it. We leave little stacks of outreach flyers on the cafeteria tables and by the coffee machines.
Finally, we make our way, through still silent, empty halls, to the emergency department. A few people are here, waiting to be seen for various ailments. We offer our little tree to the staff behind the glass partition, and explain the photo ornaments of the martyred Palestinian medics. When we unobtrusively try to take a last photo of our banner, we are immediately told to leave. We put our little tree on a corner table, and, as we make our way out, we see a doctor pick it up and disappear with it. We hope it will at least stir some conversation among the healthcare providers in the emergency department, and perhaps end up in someone's private office.
Outside, we take our last photos, to be used to document our action for Doctors Against Genocide. One in front of a gleaming red and silver ambulance sporting a large wreath (all ambulances in Gaza are bombed, blood-streaked, burned-out hulks), and another beneath the hospital's sign, towering above us near the roof of the building.
What will come of this small action at this well-endowed New England hospital whose CEO, Debra Rogers, has refused to meet with us and declined to make any statement in solidarity with the suffering and dying healthcare workers of Gaza? Our minds and hearts are overwhelmed with what we know is happening, a world away, at Kamal Adwan Hospital, as Dr. Abu Safiya and his heroic co-workers make what may be their final stand against the Israeli-U.S. death machine. How can we reconcile this orderly, peaceful, well-appointed hospital down the road from our homes, with a hospital in north Gaza (not the only one) that is besieged, attacked, blockaded, surrounded by tanks, quadcopters, snipers and troops, mountains of rubble, and starving and injured cats and dogs forced to feed on human corpses? A hospital whose director refuses to leave, despite being offered "safe passage" and the targeted murder, a few weeks ago, of his teenaged son by the Israel Defense Forces because his father refused to leave his post.
What we know is that the silence of the U.S. medical establishment about what is happening in Gaza is nothing short of normalization of genocide and of the deliberate destruction of an entire healthcare system. This is unprecedented even in the history of human warfare. It is being carried out in full view of the world, of governments, of international bodies, in defiance of the Geneva Conventions and humanitarian laws and norms. It is grotesquely, indescribably, unspeakably shameful, sorrowful, angering, and incomprehensible. It reveals the profound taste for evil of those who rule us. It requires revolution.
(Photo: Nick Mottern)
(Photo: Nick Mottern)