Sinai, Egypt
The war waged by the Israeli occupation forces, along with the closure of the Rafah border crossing, has led to complications in bringing aid into the besieged Strip, while North Sinai governorate has seen an increase in the number of Egyptian volunteers who rushed to take part in relief efforts, because this is “their duty towards the Palestinian people”, in the words of several of them.
After Cairo announced the opening of Arish International Airport to receive international relief shipments, and planes arrived from Jordan, Turkey and the UAE, aid piled up in the covered hall at Arish Stadium as well as in the airport yard. This highlighted the problem of a lack of places or warehouses able to hold thousands of tonnes of aid, which was at risk of spoiling because of the occupation’s procrastination in opening the crossing. This prompted Sinai tribes and volunteer citizens to solve the crisis by providing alternative warehouses until things returned to their normal course.
Aid Arrives in Sinai
Egypt received humanitarian and relief aid through Arish airport and the land bridge one day after the visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres on 21 October, and Egyptian Red Crescent volunteers took on the task of preparing the aid ahead of its entry into the Strip.
Khaled Zayed, head of the Red Crescent branch in North Sinai, says that since 7 October the Red Crescent has been in contact with a number of national and political alliances in Sinai and coordinating with the Palestine Red Crescent, to facilitate the receipt and transport of aid.
He reveals that the volume of aid that came from Cairo reached about 20,000 tonnes, provided by 30 countries and 10 organisations and received by Arish International Airport, explaining that aid from inside Egypt is estimated at three times the aid from abroad, whether from Arab or foreign countries or international organisations.
In the same context, hospitals in Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Port Said received 400 injured people who arrived from Gaza, while a number of other Palestinian wounded were transferred to hospitals in Port Said and Ismailia, the Nasser Institute, and the 6th of October and Sheikh Zayed hospitals in Cairo.
Minister of Social Solidarity Nevine El-Kabbag estimates the volume of aid since the start of the war at about 32,000 tonnes, nearly 70% of which was provided by Cairo.
According to the minister, the number of aid planes that have arrived at Arish airport exceeds 180, in addition to the launch of the first naval vessel loaded with 200 tonnes of aid.
The Red Crescent wrote on its official Facebook page that the aid that entered the Strip up to 25 November came from 34 countries and 11 organisations in addition to Egypt, amounting to 195 relief planes and 1,814 trucks, 1,143 of them carrying food, in addition to medical aid and living supplies.
The Community Role
Hamdan lives in Arish and, like others, dreams of graduating from university soon. Although he has not witnessed war, its “vocabulary” is engraved in his mind through the stories of his grandmother, who lived through the Tripartite Aggression, the June defeat and the 6 October War.
Hamdan says: “Every time the Israeli enemy launches an aggression on the Gaza Strip, the nightmares rooted in my mind from my grandmother’s stories haunt me, so this time I hurried to volunteer to help the wounded and those stranded in the besieged Strip.” He adds: “I have not been able to sleep for a month and a half, but it is a role I must play.”
Hamdan, who is not yet 20 years old, helps evacuate the injured from the crossing and gives them blankets and clothes to protect them from the winter cold. Through coordination with the Egyptian Red Crescent, he and his colleagues also receive requests from the director of Arish General Hospital, Ahmed Mansour, to carry out immediately.
He says: “We deliver hot meals to those accompanying the wounded, and we work from early morning until eight in the evening every day. If the injured person has received treatment, we give him and his family a box of food enough for four days, and then they are moved to a place of temporary accommodation.”
The Red Crescent official in North Sinai, Khaled Zayed, says that the volunteers play an important role, and their working hours have exceeded 100,000 hours. They receive Gazans when they arrive at the crossing and then distribute them to North Sinai hospitals, in addition to receiving planes at Arish airport, unloading their cargo and moving it to temporary warehouses, as well as repackaging aid before it is transported to Gaza through the Rafah land crossing.
Away from the popular side, there is the director of the Citizens’ Service Office at Arish General Hospital, Haggag Fayez El-Saidi, who says he hardly tastes sleep because “I have to be there to receive our wounded people coming from Gaza”.
He says: “I have a team of volunteers from among the people of Sinai and civil society organisations… With the start of the war, we held a meeting with civil society organisations and deployed volunteers in front of the crossing to help prepare the aid trucks, as well as preparing blood units from donors, pending the arrival of Palestinian wounded in North Sinai.”
The team set up a camp in front of the office to receive those accompanying the injured, and a group of volunteers joins the team in providing them with service and care, including accommodation and meals, as well as transferring medical cases to hospitals outside North Sinai.
He explains that the governorate has allocated vehicles to transport those accompanying the wounded to premises designated for their accommodation, noting that the tent receives many Arish residents who come daily to welcome the companions and sit with them as part of providing them with psychological support.
The Medical Team… Heroes
Egyptian doctors are making strenuous efforts to save the lives of the wounded receiving treatment in North Sinai, especially at Arish General Hospital and Bir al-Abd Specialised Hospital, and perform highly delicate surgeries on critical cases every day. According to the Doctors Syndicate in Cairo, the number of doctors who have volunteered since the start of the aggression has reached about 2,000.
The head of the anaesthesia department at Arish General Hospital, Samy Anwar, says that our medical team is making redoubled efforts around the clock to carry out delicate operations on the injured, especially cases threatened with limb amputation and brain injuries that require immediate surgical intervention.
He goes on to say that the injuries are “extremely gruesome”, and many of them need cosmetic surgery, but this is not possible because of the great pressure on the doctors, who are drained by performing delicate operations, with a single surgery lasting more than ten hours.
As soon as the reception of Gazan wounded was announced, Dr Ahmed Abdel Aziz, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Kasr Al Ainy Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, and his medical team of eight doctors from various surgical and complementary specialities, took the initiative to travel to Rafah and then to Arish hospital to receive the wounded coming from Gaza.
Abdel Aziz and his team left their clinics and private practices, responding to what he describes as “the call of humanitarian duty towards our brothers”. He says: “My medical team performed 17 surgeries in two days, including complex and delicate fractures, most of them in the spine.”
He describes the injured people’s conditions: “Some of the injured suffered shattered bones… The injuries are extremely gruesome; some suffered burns that damaged their skin entirely, and there are many cases of amputated limbs and exposed bones. The occupation is undoubtedly using internationally prohibited weapons.”
According to the testimony of Tarek Ezzat Abdel Latif, head of the oncology department at Zagazig University, who also left his city for Sinai, about 86 surgeries were performed, including complex and compound fractures, delicate brain surgeries and amputated limbs, adding that what the doctors are doing for the injured is “a national duty that complements Egypt’s great and historic role in supporting the Palestinian people”.
At Bir al-Abd Specialised Hospital in north-west Sinai, the medical team is also continuing its prominent role in providing medical support to about 25 injured Palestinians, including a number of children and women, by carrying out operations and follow-up in intensive care and care rooms.
Tamer Hamdy, director of Bir al-Abd Specialised Hospital, says that under the follow-up and supervision of the Minister of Health and the head of the Specialised Medical Centres Secretariat, the hospital is taking part in providing medical aid and first aid to the injured and wounded, “and the doctors present, from the specialities of anaesthesia, orthopaedics, general surgery, vascular surgery, plastic surgery, cardiothoracic medicine and radiology, are doing heroic work”.
The vital role of the North Sinai Ambulance Facility also continues. Its director, Dr Mahmoud Amer, reveals that 150 vehicles have been allocated in front of the crossing to transport Palestinian injured people from the Rafah crossing to Egyptian hospitals in North Sinai.
Where Do the Wounded and Their Families Go after Recovery?
Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, Governor of North Sinai, affirms that temporary accommodation equipped with full subsistence services has been provided for the injured people’s accompanying relatives in the buildings of the Al-Sabil district south of Arish, in addition to providing them with transport to take them from their accommodation to the hospital to follow up on their injured relatives and return again daily. The hall of the Ittihad North Sinai club was also equipped with about 50 beds to receive the injured after their recovery, in preparation for returning them with their companions to Gaza.
Those Stranded on the Egyptian Side
A number of Gazans stranded on the Egyptian side since the start of the war express their overwhelming happiness because they will return to their “homeland”, as the Egyptian authorities announced.
Although this homeland has become “wreckage and rubble” as a result of the Israeli bombardment, young Palestinian woman Israa Abdel Qader, standing next to her heavy bags at the Rafah crossing, says: “It is the homeland; there is no substitute for it.”
Israa underwent surgery at a hospital in Zagazig in Sharqia governorate after entering Egypt last September. She says: “While I was returning with my father on the way to Gaza, the Israeli aggression began and I remained stranded in the city of Arish in North Sinai for about two months… My feelings now are mixed between sadness for those of my family and friends who were killed and joy at returning to my homeland.”
She adds: “I miss the street, the soil and the air. I will go back to stay with my relatives, after our house was bombed and no longer exists, and with it I lost my memories.”
Her father, Abdel Qader Al-Arja, picks up the conversation to affirm that he has been away from the homeland for two and a half months, but he considers this period equal to twenty years, especially after the start of the aggression on Gaza.
He says: “I was suffering in silence and oppression, following what was happening to the people of my homeland under the fire of rockets falling on them like rain… Every day that passed for me in Arish, I felt the pain.”
“The body parts of my people, the homes that have become rubble, and the internationally prohibited weapons… How can I stop this overwhelming feeling of pain?” he asks in a choked voice.
He adds: “Despite the great welcome and the efforts made by Egypt, we must return to the homes destroyed by the Israeli occupation; there is no substitute for the homeland.”
Saad Hussein Salout, 78, from the Bani Suheila area in the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, says: “Today I return to my country, which I miss, after a treatment journey at Palestine Hospital in Cairo for about 50 days in the city of Arish, despite what Gaza is witnessing, especially my area in Khan Younis.” He noted that he had lost 13 members of his family, killed in Israeli air strikes.
Hamada Abu Jazar is waiting for the green light from the Egyptian authorities in North Sinai to be able to return the body of his father, who was killed, to the Strip. He says: “He was receiving treatment at Arish hospital, but he breathed his last from his wounds at the age of 59, after a serious head injury. He fell into a coma, was kept in intensive care and died 6 days after his arrival.”
