Driving across the divide

24:37Gaza's Nasser Hospital in Khan Unis. Devastated by two years of war, it remains overwhelmed with patients and poorly equipped.

24:50During the war, hospitals themselves became part of the battleground, despite being protected under international law. They were often targeted by the Israeli military, who say Hamas used medical facilities to hold hostages and as cover for operation command centres.

25:15Today, just over half of hospitals in Gaza are partially functional.

25:23A doctor here is seeing 300 to 350 cases daily at the moment. When I finally got to see him with Pahamad, the doctor was already too exhausted to talk to me about his case. That's Samar, whose son Muhammad was one of more than 1 ,200 of Gaza's sickest patients, who before the war used to leave each month from the Erez crossing for treatment. While most would head to hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a few hundred patients, including Muhammad, who needed highly specialised treatment, would go to hospital in Israel.

26:05Hamas's brutal attacks on October 7th and the destructive war in Gaza that followed severed that desperately needed medical treatment Patients were left in a war zone not only struggling to access medicine but dodging bombs, evacuated from their homes and living in tents I'm Naomi Sherbao-Boo and for the documentary from the BBC World Service, I've been speaking to patients in Gaza who were cared for in Israeli hospitals before October 7th. They speak about the hardship they faced during the war, but also about the bonds with Israeli doctors and the volunteers who used to drive them for treatment, relationships that have endured despite the conflict.

26:59Waiving their medical referrals, these patients are among the 20 ,000 waiting desperately to leave for treatment in a third country. Since last October's ceasefire, only around 2 ,000 patients have managed to leave. Those who remain are despairing. Since the ceasefire, nearly 300 people have died awaiting treatment abroad, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. My name is Mohamed Al-Sayed. I live in a bridge in Gaza with my family who I really love a lot. I spend my time on the phone watching television soaps. Number 14 ,000 and something on the waiting list is 26-year-old Mohamed Sayed. The youngest of four siblings, Mohamed lives on a quiet street in central Gaza with his parents.

27:56While the family were forced to evacuate during the war, their house survived. Brilliant red and purple bourguen villier flowers frame the gate that leads to their home.

28:10Sima, Mohammed's mother, is a former high school teacher, but for years now her focus has been to simply keep Mohammed alive. We concentrate all of our efforts to keep Mohammed as healthy as possible. He has his own special healthy diet, his own private room, and I don't allow him to mix with people to protect him from infection. Mohamed was born with a rare genetic disorder called Kabuki syndrome, which affects his development, so he struggles with his speech. I wish to play football and go to the gym, but I can't. I want to ride a bike and go out with my friends, but I'm not able to. At the age of nine, Mohamed was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphatic cancer.

28:57The treatment required was highly specialized, and he would have to travel to Israel. That cancer returned multiple times. For more than a decade, Mohamed and his mother would travel regularly to Gaza's Erez border crossing, where they would be met by an Israeli volunteer. here.

29:17Mohammed remembers the snacks, chocolate and crisps, that the Israeli drivers would bring for the journey to the hospital an hour away, just outside Tel Aviv. Every month, they would come through these electric doors for immunotherapy, which helped keep Mohammed strong while he waited for a bone marrow donor. Our last visit to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv was on October 3, 2023, four days before the war began.

29:52I was here at home. Like every Israeli, we were totally surprised and shocked. And that day we had missiles coming and it was very difficult for us to understand what is going on. 66-year-old Tel Aviv-based Yaron Imbar has been a friend of the family since he started driving Mohammed and Samar to hospital five years ago. Like so many Israelis, he knew someone killed that day. Unfortunately, later on, I learned that my friend, his son, was one of those that he was in the security group in his kibbutz and unfortunately got killed in October 7th. It was a very difficult day, and it took us all the day to start to build a picture on what was really going on.

30:40What were your thoughts about those that you've helped from Gaza? I got in contact with Samar, and I remember very well what was her first reaction. She immediately said to me, in Arabic, she said, Yaron, we are not Hamas. Which means, Yaron, we are not Hamas. And she said, please tell the Israelis that this is not us. Unfortunately, when we were in contact, I knew at that point of time that a disaster is coming. I was sure that Israel had no other option but to react. My fear and my preoccupation was that what we will see is something which will be terrible. And unfortunately, all this happened.

31:34Amid airstrikes and Israeli evacuation notices, the family was forced to flee 12 times while Mohammed was sick and weak. We went to what was considered a safer area where my daughter lived. Suddenly, shells fell from every direction. Even now, I still cannot forget the sound of the shelling. At the time, 15 to 20 of us were living together in a 100-meter square apartment. My children, grandchildren, daughters, all of us together. The children were screaming and crying. We ran from the second floor apartment to the ground floor without shoes. We were all terrified. We took nothing with us. No money, no certificates, no clothes, nothing at all.

32:18We fled barefoot.

32:23By January 2024, they were living in a tent pitched on a pavement in Rafah, southern Gaza. By then, refuge to two-thirds of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, nearly 1.5 million people. Mohamed developed a high fever and severe cough and he began experiencing shortness of breath. The tents were surrounded by sewage and stagnant water. It was dirty and the conditions were extremely hard for us. There was constant fear with missiles and explosions over our heads. Desperate to find treatment for Mohammed, Samar spoke with his doctor back in Israel, who advised him to take antibiotics. But with medicine scarce, that meant a dangerous trip to neighbouring Khan Yunis.

33:17At the time, it was a major front in the war, with Israeli troops fighting Hamas on the ground, operating around and inside Nasser Hospital. But that strip of tablets they finally found kept him alive.

33:35Today, Mohammed's condition is stable, but they live not knowing if the cancer has returned. Gaza doesn't have the testing equipment needed to detect it, leaving their lives in limbo, an agonising wait for treatment. alongside thousands of others. Children have done nothing wrong. How is Muhammad to blame for this situation? For three years, he has not been able to receive the treatment that keeps him alive. Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian people have anything to do with what is happening. I don't think that the doctors or nurses at Sheba Medical Center in Israel were consulted by Netanyahu before they started striking Gaza.

34:18And Hamas didn't come and consult us, saying they want to strike Israel. In the end, we are all victims. Despite two years of bombing, displacement and death, Samar and Mohammed still say they dream of returning to the hospital in Israel. He's been treated at the hospital since he was nine years old, since 2009. The doctors there know him really well, and they used to say to me, this boy is like our son. He grew up under their care. For now, despite legal petitions in the court, no patients have travelled from Gaza for treatment in Israel since the beginning of the war. Even hope for medical evacuation to a third country remains distant.

35:06And now, on top of everything else, as we finish recording, Samar sends a message that her husband has also fallen sick with a blood disorder, another name waiting for treatment that can't be found in Gaza. But while the war has deepened and embittered divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, Samar and her Israeli friend Yaron still speak about a day they can meet once again. When Yaron spoke with me a week ago, he told me, I want to see you in the hospital, the markets of Tel Aviv, and I want us to come to Gaza. I want there to be peace, for us to remain in contact, and for us to live in safety like the rest of the world.

35:50This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. You're listening to Driving Across the Divide, and I'm Naomi Sherbal-Boo.

36:04I think it was a nice childhood, you know, We were just outside all the time. You see, it's very green, it's very nice, and it was very peaceful. Gaza was the nearest city. And when we were in the kindergarten, we went with a bus to the beach in Gaza, you know, a day trip. Yael Noy heads up the Road to Recovery charity that helps Israeli volunteers take Palestinian patients to Israeli hospitals. She grew up in Kibbutz Al-Umim, a religious community close to Gaza. Her parents still live here, and her father is one of the volunteers who used to drive patients from Gaza's Erez Crossing to hospital in Israel.

36:48This is Gaza, you see? That's a couple of kilometers away at most from here. And this is the avocado trees, you see? There are the avocado trees, so they came through the avocado trees. there. That's the 7th of October.

37:08On October the 7th, 2023, the kibbutz was among the first Israeli communities to be attacked by Hamas.

37:20You can hear one of the migrant workers whispering down the phone, trying to warn his boss about the gunman from his hiding place.

37:3122 Thai and Nepalese workers were shot and killed in the agricultural part of the kibbutz the first area targeted by the gunmen

37:44in total 43 people were killed that day in Al-Onim Yaya's parents were hiding in their shelter I was at my home, not here, I was at the north and when I saw it about 6.30, I tried to phone my parents that were here, but they didn't answer the phone because it was Shabbat and they are religious, so they don't use the phone. I called a friend that I knew that told him what's going on. And he said, your friend that you took to the sea came fresh to kill everyone. That's what he said. Because what I'm doing. This was his answer, 8 o 'clock, 7 of October morning. You took them to the sea, now they come to kill everyone.

38:25He means those Gazans who you took to hospital. There's no evidence that patients from Gaza shared intelligence with Hamas to help plan for October 7th. Their movements were restricted to the hospitals during visits. Many of the volunteers were themselves from the kibbutzim that were worst hit. Seven of them were killed by Hamas. I don't want to believe it. I don't want to believe it. We cannot believe what we're seeing and what's going on. I think till today, it's almost three years and we're still not believing it. We went from a funeral to a funeral to a funeral and it was very, very bad time, you know.

39:14How did you start to get things back on track in that climate, in that atmosphere? I think we didn't stop for one minute. Listen, at the 8th of October morning, we took a patient from Janine to Rambam Hospital. We didn't stop for one day, and I think this is what saved us. This is what saved me. I had to do something because it was so hard. My father that was driving a patient, he lives in Al-Umim, he got a call that day from a friend in Gaza that he took his daughter and he asked him if he's okay. Was that he, Brahim? Yeah, yeah. And he was all the time in touch with us, start trying to help them, but we could not do nothing.

39:55It's still now. Today we cannot help the Gazan people now.

40:03Just over 10 kilometers away, Ibrahim El-Haj, friend to Yael and her family, welcomes our team to his home in Gaza. The Israeli government has stopped foreign journalists from independently entering the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, citing security concerns. So we rely on trusted freelancers. Ibrahim's four-year-old daughter, Kaukab, plays a clapping game under the shade of a decades-old olive tree. Her mother and her eldest sister, Noor, were medically evacuated at the beginning of the war. Today, she doesn't remember a time when they lived with her. She knows them only through video calls.

40:47I am Maha Alhaj. I am 14 years old from Gaza. This is my daughter Noor. Okay, now Noor. Hello, I'm Noor. I'm 18 years old and this is my mum. And tell me where you are now, Noor. I live in Egypt, in Irish, and I'm alone here, just my mother. Maha could have taken her other four children with her, but in the chaos of conflict, she didn't know where she would be taking them and for how long the war would continue. The feeling is very difficult, like mother, like your heart is a half ache. My mind's for Noor and my heart is for my children. And the both stop at the same moment. As Maha continues in Arabic, she tells me she misses everyday moments, like combing her children's hair.

41:52She feels she had to protect her weakest child but remains torn. Her other children's hearts are fragile too, she says.

42:08Almost a decade ago, Ibrahim Haj, Noah's father, called Palestinian television to make a desperate plea for his then nine-year-old daughter. She was desperately sick, but couldn't get the specialist care needed to diagnose and treat her in Gaza.

42:31Please, he says, this has nothing to do with politics.

42:39I want to go back to school and play with kids like me, nine-year-old Noor says from her hospital bed. I want to live.

42:52the appeal worked months later under the care of dr orley haskin at the klali schneider hospital in israel she was finally properly diagnosed with a rare genetic disease the only chance for her to you know live is if we go ahead with the liver transplant and then the kidney transplant because otherwise she will just continue to deteriorate, you know, and she will die. In order to be able to live without being dependent on dialysis, Noor would need a highly risky operation, a double transplant. Her mother would need to donate a kidney and part of her liver to Noor. That operation was successful.

43:33And she grew to be like this really nice and beautiful teenager that was coming here. After the acute phase, she was coming here with her father once a month for regular checkups and, you know, to receive her medications. And she was doing very well. But after Hamas's attacks on October the 7th and the war that followed, any access for medical treatment was ruptured. How vulnerable was Noor with her health conditions, living in a war zone? So obviously very vulnerable because, you know, she is dependent on her medications and also hygiene is very important because she's immunosuppressed. So yeah, obviously it's very sad that the kids had to suffer because of the war, you know.

44:16She couldn't continue with the medical care here.

44:23That's when Nour last saw her father, brothers and sisters. When she left Gaza for treatment in Egypt, she weighed just 28 kilos. Initially housed in tents, her health deteriorated further, but her mother reached out to her Israeli doctors, who advised on her treatment over WhatsApp, and even managed to send medicine through the Red Cross.

44:49Noor speaks to me in Arabic for ease, explaining the pain she felt watching her family suffer during the war and not being there to help. We voiced up her clips. I would hear my father telling my mother that there was no food left. He would tell her that he wouldn't eat so my youngest sister could. The internet would be cut off for long stretches of time and we wouldn't have any news about our family. It was frightening. Sometimes we couldn't sleep at night. For now, Noor's health has largely recovered and she's stable, but she dreams of reuniting with her family and of building a future, one inspired by her own story, working in nursing or translation.

45:34I felt like I was raised in hospitals and that's when I started learning Hebrew. I liked it and I learned quickly. The hospitals strengthened me in almost every way. I learned nearly everything there, the language, nursing and many other things. The volunteers and the medical staff at the hospital welcomed me with so much love, care and kindness, like a second family.

46:05Back in Gaza, Ibrahim is on the video call too, speaking from the house that somehow survived the war intact. A Hebrew speaker, he worked in construction in Israel before the war and has stayed in touch with Yael's family. from road to recovery, who used to drive them to the hospital.

46:27War hasn't changed anything in this friendship. On the contrary, they check on me and I also see how they are. They always ask about my daughter Noor, they ask me if I need food, drinks, cash or medicine. They used to call me on holidays and special occasions. Our relationship was not built on something bad. It's been only good from the beginning to end. I hope we meet them again. God willing, I'm hopeful we can. But even the idea seems like a dream.

47:03Back in Kibbutz Salumim, most of the 500 residents who were evacuated have now returned. Kindergarten-age kids run around underneath the purple blossoms of the jacaranda trees. Most of their lives have also been shaped by war and displacement. Yael says while on the surface the kibbutz may have recovered, the trauma remains unseen. My parents were here in the kibbutz. They were like more than 48 hours in the safe room. And they were, I think, very traumatised, you say. And then they were evacuated for a long, long time. and I'm thinking they're still trying to get their life back. They will say they're OK, but I don't think no one here in the kibbutz is OK.

47:57The community here have been living through what many are calling Israel's forever wars, first with Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most recently Iran. Yeah, it's very, very hard days for me now, you know. It's three years that we are in a very difficult war, very, and even now in Israel, now it's here, it's quiet, but where I live in the north, it's, you know, this morning I came with alarms all the time. So we can't rest all the time. I don't see it's getting better. No, it's just getting worse from day to day. There's a new fear that also preoccupies Yael Her son will soon be conscripted into the Israeli army which is mandatory for most Israelis over the age of 18 My son is going to join the army in two months and he will be a part of it and as an Israeli man cannot stop it It's the biggest pain I have now that my son will be a part of it You feel powerless?

49:05Yeah, I think so. I can't do nothing against it. I need to take a big breath and pray. As we wander around the green of the kibbutz, still in the shadow of the October 7th attacks and the war in Gaza that followed, Yael navigates multiple worlds. the trauma her parents and friends lived through in israel the pain and loss of patients now friends in gaza and her hope for the future faint but still there she says israel need a recovery all of the people in israel need it the soldier that came back and the and the child that grew up been a very, very bad war. And I think all of us, all the people who were here in these terrible years, we deserve a recovery.

50:01Do you think there will be a time when once again patients come from Gaza? This atmosphere now, I cannot imagine it. But I know in the hospitals, I talk with people in the hospitals, they are waiting for them.

50:17and that's something that the Israeli volunteers the doctors like Orly Haskin and the patients from Gaza all tell me they still hold some faint hope that one day they will be able to meet once again obviously I want to help her I mean she's gone through such a you know a long journey and her family did everything for her with her mother donating liver and the kidneys It's a very conflicted situation. I hope that one day we can live in peace and kids from Gaza can get treatment here. You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service, presented and produced by Naomi Sherbal-Bool, edited by Richard McElroy.