بعد جراحة القلب المفتوح..

I entered the literature when they touched my heart and changed the prosody of my body, and now I must await postoperative heartbreak. 

Nov, 2025.

دخلت الأدب عندما مسوا قلبي وغيروا إيقاع جسدي، والآن يجب أن أنتظر حسرة ما بعد الجراحة.

نوفمبر، ٢٠٢٥

On Bearing Witness

 

On Bearing Witness

Author: Samer Attar, M.D. 

Published October 3, 2025

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2511323

Copyright © 2025

Why should we bear witness to others’ suffering, knowing that it may scar our minds or stain our conscience? In part, it’s because when we meet someone in distress or read in the news about victims of a bomb, a flood, or an illness, they’re all us. The space between us connects us more than it separates us. That’s why the Talmud and the Quran both teach that saving one life is like saving the whole world — their scriptural meaning is both literal and symbolic.

I’m an American surgeon, and I have worked in Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza. I have been to Gaza six times since December 2023, and I’ve operated at seven hospitals — all of which have since been sieged, bombed, or demolished. Several of my Palestinian colleagues have been injured or killed working on ambulances or in medical centers. I have no bullet or shrapnel wounds, but the scars that are hardest to heal can’t be seen. What did I witness? What did all of it teach me?

In Gaza last year, we operated on 11 blast-induced traumatic amputations in a single day — not including all the pus-filled and maggot-infested wounds. I stopped counting after that.

I spent many nights packing bits and pieces of blown-up little kids into body bags. They’d get dropped off — only skin and bone — in blood-soaked rags and pajamas. No amount of surgical education could ever have prepared me for that.

Parents routinely returned their children — recently declared dead after a bombing — back to the emergency room. They tore at our scrubs. They were horrified that they might have buried their child alive. Sometimes the kids were in fact still alive — borderline clinging to life — but had been declared dead during the overwhelming chaos of mass-casualty triage. Most of the time they were dead. Parents had seen a gas bubble blow from the nostrils, or they swore that they’d seen an arm move. An ultrasound showing a dead heart was unequivocal.

One night we had 60 dead and 200 injured — or what Palestinians call “just another Tuesday.” People died on the floor waiting for care. One 5-year-old child lay on the ground. His intestines spilled out of his belly. His older brother begged me to help. I grabbed his hand and joined it with the child’s. I wanted to say, “I’m sorry. He’s gonna die. Just hold his hand until he does.” Instead, I just stared at him — and then left him there to pound the floor in grief as I took an undignified leap over a father grieving over his daughter’s mangled body to help triage the scores of wounded people still lying on the blood-smeared floor.

One child showed up barely holding on. An explosive blast had shattered her head open. A chunk of shrapnel stuck out of her skull. Fragments of gelatinous brain trickled out and stained her flowered shirt. She was somehow still alive, gasping for breath, blood foaming and bubbling through her mouth and nostrils — one of many cases deemed “hopeless.” We could not waste resources trying to save her, but we didn’t want her to die alone. So we took turns holding her hand until she died.

We shrouded her and took her to the morgue. The white shroud had turned entirely red by the time we got there. Each body bag on the floor told a story. “Show him!” the morgue workers told one of their colleagues. I didn’t need to see the bodies, but they insisted on proving they weren’t lying. One of them opened a bag and pulled out an infant by the legs. He held the body upside down — sliced in half at the abdomen, the shredded insides dangling and flailing from the belly — no torso, arms, or head. The father’s decapitated body lay here — they could not find his head in the rubble. The mother’s body lay there, along with three of her children blended into one bag — a jumbled, twisted, inseparable mass of charred bones and blackened muscle fused together by the energy of the explosion. I can still smell the burnt flesh. One of the security guards spun around and vomited. It was too much for him, too.

We did about 20 surgeries nonstop another day — predominantly on women and children. The first patient that morning was a 25-year-old woman whose breasts had been explosively avulsed from her chest, and her left arm traumatically amputated through the shoulder. Her arm hung by tangled threads of cooked muscle and bone shards. Her two teenage sisters had similar wounds. My Palestinian cosurgeon broke down in tears. He has five daughters, and they reminded him of his children. It was one day for me. It had been 18 months for him and 2 million of his fellow Palestinians. His fear and grief could no longer be caged or compartmentalized.

I would see starving people clawing their way over their neighbors for scraps of potatoes that tumbled off an aid truck onto demolished roads in the rubble of East Gaza. I counseled a father carrying the remains of his daughter in a burlap rice bag — all he had recovered was her head, her hand, and her leg after a bomb had obliterated his home. He couldn’t find any other container to bury her in.

Somehow, I would find myself back in Chicago in the West Loop, queuing patiently with a civil crowd waiting for a seat at the bar at Au Cheval to have a cheeseburger. That kind of reentry jolts the body and scrambles the mind, as any warrior returning from battle can attest. So why keep going back?

As with physical wounds, constantly digging into and picking at psychic scars can infect one’s soul and make one’s mind brittle, rigid, and breakable. But with appropriate care, and if we give our bodies the space and stillness to breathe and heal, our scars can be humble reminders. They can give us the courage and the resilience to stay standing. To build an open mind, a soft heart, and steeled nerves — a balance that takes daily practice against the weight of the world.

As I write this essay, there are still Israeli hostages in Gaza, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are homeless, suffering, starving, and dying. Maybe we can’t save the world. Maybe we can’t stop bombs or massacres. Maybe we can’t stop criminals from taking hostages or governments from slaughtering civilians.

But nurses and doctors in Gaza taught me this lesson: I can at least show up and do what I’m good at. I can serve a community, bear witness to its suffering, and then make some noise about it. It’s not much, but it sure beats the hatred, violence, and madness of angry men with their fingers pulling 

October , 2025

Updates on: infectious diseases and Outbreaks in Gaza

There has as yet been no mention of the implications of the WNV (West Nile Fever) outbreak for the 2 million and more Gazans who are trapped in the enclave under conditions where the entire infrastructure has been demolished and access to healthcare, food, water and shelter are nonexistent. There is no way to implement standard public health precautions such as preventing formation of standing water and widespread use of mosquito repellent.

A micrograph of the West Nile Virus, appearing in yellow

Gaza has become a breeding ground for infectious diseases, with the entire population made vulnerable to large scale epidemics of not just WNV, but flu, pneumonia, bacterial dysentery, cholera, polio, measles and meningitis. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) noted in mid-April that even if an immediate ceasefire were implemented, they expected nearly 12,000 people would lose their lives in Gaza as a result of disease. And if the genocidal campaign persisted, nearly 90,000 could die of secondary health impacts. Dr. Seema Jilani, Senior Health Technical Advisor for Emergencies, observed, “With Gaza’s health system decimated by Israel, diseases once easily controlled are now spreading, and children, especially malnourished children, are the most susceptible. Projections suggest that the spread of cholera, measles, polio, and meningococcal meningitis pose a mortal threat … Immunity, previously ensured thanks to high levels of vaccination, is now decreasing especially among children and babies, who have now missed multiple doses of key vaccines including Hepatitis B, polio, and rotavirus.” Jilani added, “Respiratory infections and other endemic infectious diseases are currently widespread due to exposure, overcrowding in shelters, lack of access to proper sanitation facilities, and inability to access treatment. The IRC and partners working in Gaza have seen children die from diarrhea—affecting children at rates 25 times higher than before October 7th—otherwise easily treated with fluids and antibiotics. Half of the over 330,000 respiratory infections reported from October to January were children under 5, many of whom might face fatal or debilitating consequences given the current state of health care in Gaza.”

West Nile fever epidemic in Israel - World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)

Healthcare Within a Humanitarian Crisis: Experiences from Gaza

(Healthcare Within a Humanitarian Crisis: Experiences from Gaza | University of Oxford Podcasts)

Mr Khaled Dawas shares his recent experiences of working in Gaza as a surgeon providing emergency care.

In this episode, Mr Khaled Dawas reflects on the targeting of health facilities and health workers during the conflict, the implications for medical education in Palestine and the role of global health students and practitioners world-wide.

The main lecture is delivered by Mr Dawas and will also feature perspectives of other health workers who have experiences of working in Gaza, including Dr Brenda Kelly (women's health doctor) and Dr Jane Crawley (paediatric doctor).

Mr Khaled Dawas is a consultant surgeon and associate professor at University College London Hospitals. He chairs the board of the medical education charity, Al Quds Foundation for Medical Schools in Palestine. He has been to Gaza twice with emergency medical teams since December 2023.

Dr Brenda Kelly is a consultant obstetrician who has also been to Gaza and is part of the Gaza Medical Teaching Group.

Dr Jane Crawley is a paediatrician who has worked in global child health for the past 30 years. As a member of the Oxford Gaza Group of clinicians, she has visited Gaza several times over the past 8 years in order to teach medical students and young doctors.

This talk is part of the Translational Science and Global Health course on the Translational Health Sciences programme.

هذه إبادة جماعية ليست حربا، بل إبادة جماعية لأهل غزة

هذه إبادة جماعية

كان هذا الرعب الشبيه بالديستوبيا هو "اللعبة النهائية" لإسرائيل طوال الوقت: سحق كل بوصة مربعة من #غزة وشعبها إلى غبار وذكرى. إن الكارثة التي نشهدها أنا وأنت في #غزة ليست "هجوماً" ولا غزواً". إنها ليست حتى "حرباً". إنها إبادة جماعية.

أندرو ميتروفيتشا : 15 أكتوبر 2023

إن المشاهد والأصوات المروعة في غزة هي دليل على أن جيش الاحتلال القاسي عازم على تحقيق هدفه الأسمى: إبادة ما تبقى من قطعة الأرض الممزقة بالفعل والقتل العشوائي للأطفال والنساء والرجال العاجزين والمرهقين.

على مدى عقود من الزمن، شنت سلسلة من الحكومات الإسرائيلية المحصنة ووكلائها المفيدين، ميليشيات المستوطنين الهائجة، إبادة جماعية متزايدة، شيئا فشيئا، بموافقة وقبول وتشجيع صريح من الحكومات الغربية - التي، في عرض يمكن التنبؤ به للتضامن الأدائي مع حليف لا يرحم – غمرت مناطق الجذب السياحي باللونين الأزرق والأبيض أو نجمة داود.

تفضلوا أيها الجبناء، أظهروا للعالم ألوانكم الحقيقية والمرتبة. سنتذكر.

لا يخطئن أحد: إن رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو - إلى جانب عصابته العنصرية من الوزراء الوحشيين (بطبيعتهم، ومزاجهم، ولغتهم المحلية) - كانوا يتألمون، لفترة طويلة ومحبطة، للتخلي عن شعار "دعونا نعلم الفلسطينيين". - نوبات من العنف المميت لصالح التدمير الشامل الأكثر إرضاءً لقطاع غزة.

الخطة الوحشية واضحة مثل شخصية نتنياهو البائسة: انتهوا من غزة بمحو غزة.

وأي شخص، في أي مكان، وفي أي منتدى ينكر هذه الحقيقة فهو إما كاذب، أو أعمى، أو عن عمد، وسعادة، وارتياح.

وهذا ليس انتقامًا أو انتقامًا "صالحًا". إنها إبادة جماعية ــ وأكرر، بالنسبة لفيلق من المتسللين المتواطئين والمختزلين الذين لم يلاحظوا قط، ناهيك عن الاهتمام بالمعاناة والصدمة الدائمة للفلسطينيين.

إذا كانت لائحة الاتهام الصريحة التي وجهتها مؤلمة، فإنني أتحدى أيًا من كتاب الأعمدة الأميين تاريخيًا ومشاهير الأخبار التلفزيونية الأمريكية الذين هرعوا إلى إسرائيل لتلميع أوراق اعتمادهم باعتبارهم "مراسلين أجانب" - برفقة مصففي الشعر وفناني الماكياج والكتاب - أن يحرروني من الوهم، و والأهم من ذلك بكثير، لدى الشتات الفلسطيني وحلفائهم، إيماننا بأن إبادة جماعية قاتلة تتكشف في هذا الجيب المحاصر.

هؤلاء المنافقون الذين لا يطاقون، يقومون مرة أخرى بوصم الفلسطينيين بأنهم "مفترسون أشرار"، بينما يشيدون بالإسرائيليين باعتبارهم "قديسين مراعين" لتحذيرهم الفلسطينيين الممتنين في غزة من أنهم سيقتلونهم بشكل جماعي.

من المحتمل أن هؤلاء الموالين لإسرائيل المتزلفين لم يدخلوا ولو مرة واحدة داخل الجدران والأسوار الشائكة التي تحيط بغزة أو أجروا مقابلات مع أي من ملايين البشر الذين تحملوا، على مدى أجيال، الخسارة والسرقة والحرمان والإهانات والإذلال والانتهاكات. بالطبع، الوحشية المميتة التي ترتكبها دولة الفصل العنصري.

إنه عرض مألوف وسريالي يختصر قصة قديمة ومعقدة في صراع سهل الاستيعاب بين الأسود والأبيض لعدد لا يحصى من الأميركيين الذين يعانون من حساسية جغرافية، والمقتنعين بأن حمل جواز سفر هو أمر "استيقظ".

إن أصحاب القبعات البيضاء – الإسرائيليين – هم دائماً الضحايا الأبرياء. إن أصحاب القبعات السوداء – الفلسطينيين – هم دائماً الجناة المذنبون.

ومن هنا يأتي التجاهل المتعجرف للعواقب الإنسانية التي تكاد تكون غير مفهومة نتيجة لإلغاء إسرائيل الصارخ لذلك المصطلح السخيف الذي عفا عليه الزمن: ((القانون الدولي)).
منع وسائل الحياة – الغذاء والماء – من الدخول إلى غزة الأسيرة. حسنا.
وقف إيصال الوقود والكهرباء إلى المنازل والمستشفيات. حسنا.
قصف مدارس الأمم المتحدة التي تؤوي عائلات فلسطينية يائسة من القصف المتواصل. حسنا.
قم بمهاجمة سيارات الإسعاف لمنعها من نقل الأطفال المشوهين إلى المستشفيات المظلمة حيث يحتاجون إلى رعاية عاجلة. حسنا.
أطلق العنان للفسفور الأبيض ليحرق الفلسطينيين حتى العظام. حسنا.
الاستغناء عن كذبة "الضربات الدقيقة" لمنع "سقوط ضحايا من المدنيين" والاستمتاع، بدلاً من ذلك، بتحويل غزة إلى الفلوجة، حوالي عام 2005. حسنًا.
أحكموا إغلاق سجن غزة لجعل الهروب والأمل مستحيلين. حسنا.
ثم نطالب بأن ينتقل 1.1 مليون شخص إلى أي مكان في غضون ساعات، وإلا سيواجهون، في أغلب الاحتمالات، موتًا محققًا. حسنا.

وفي إشارة مروعة، استنكرت المجموعة المعتادة من الرؤساء ورؤساء الوزراء المتأنقين الفظائع التي ارتكبتها القبعات السوداء ــ في حين أشادت بالفظائع التي ارتكبتها القبعات البيضاء، باعتبارها دحضاً ضرورياً ومرحباً به.

لذا، هل يتوقف المتوهمون عن مناشدة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية في لاهاي أن تفعل شيئاً، أي شيء، لمحاسبة "الطرفين"، بما في ذلك إسرائيل؟

إن هذا لم يحدث ولن يحدث لأن المحكمة الجنائية الدولية الملتزمة على الدوام تدرك أنها لا ينبغي لها أن تسيء، ولن تسيء، إلى السلطات في واشنطن العاصمة التي تدير هذه المهزلة الاحتيالية برمتها.

في هذه الأثناء، أعاد الرئيس الأميركي تأهيل نتنياهو ــ الذي تعرض قبل بضعة أسابيع فقط لانتقادات لاذعة لكونه محتالاً متهماً يواجه محاكمة فساد بسلسلة من تهم الاحتيال والرشوة وانتهاك الثقة فضلاً عن امتلاكه للحمض النووي الاستبدادي ــ من قبل الرئيس الأميركي. جو بايدن والشركة المذعنة باعتبارهما الصورة الرمزية المشرقة للعزيمة والمرونة والأخلاق في الشرق الأوسط.

هذه هي البوصلة "الأخلاقية" المريضة لبايدن وحلفائه في لندن وباريس وبرلين وبروكسل وكانبيرا وأوتاوا.

ومع ذلك، ليس من المستغرب أن القوى الاستعمارية الوحشية -نظرًا لسجلها البشع في قتل وتشويه العديد من الأبرياء، في العديد من الأماكن المتضررة- ستعرض دعمها الشامل لقوة استعمارية أخرى مسؤولة عن قتل وتشويه العديد من الفلسطينيين الأبرياء في غزة وخارجها. أمس واليوم وغدا.

لكن اعلموا أن بايدن وآخرين لا يتحدثون باسم ملايين المواطنين الذين يزعمون أنهم يمثلونهم، ولكنهم سيستمرون في الوقوف صامدين مع الفلسطينيين الصامدين وقضيتهم العادلة والإنسانية.

وعلى الرغم من كل هذا الهراء والمواقف التي يتخذها "المجتمع الدولي" بشأن "حل الأزمة من خلال الدبلوماسية"، فإن هذا الرعب الشبيه بالديستوبيا كان بمثابة "اللعبة النهائية" طوال الوقت: سحق كل بوصة مربعة من غزة وشعبها إلى غبار وذكرى.

إن حل "الدولتين" المثير للسخرية هو وهم مريض يروج له دبلوماسيون ماهرون من خريجي جامعة آيفي مثل وزير الخارجية الأمريكي أنتوني بلينكن وغيره من المدافعين عن جرائم الحرب الإسرائيلية الذين سبقوه - المنصهرين، كما كانوا وما زالوا، من أجل "شركاؤهم" في تل أبيب مثل التوائم الملتصقة.

لقد سافر بلينكن إلى إسرائيل بناءً على طلب من رئيسه للحصول على "الضوء الأخضر" للإبادة الجماعية. وسوف نتذكر ذلك أيضا.

إن النظام الخبيث، الذي تحركه تركيبة سامة من القومية المتطرفة والتعصب، يدرك أن هدفه الشرير لا يزال في الأفق.

سيكون هناك المزيد من الفظائع في المستقبل. لكن الفلسطينيين لن ينكسروا. سوف يثابرون وينتصرون. سيكون الأمر صعبًا وسيستغرق وقتًا، لكنهم سيعيدون البناء.

الآراء الواردة في هذا المقال هي آراء المؤلف.

ترجمة سريعة من http://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/14/this-is-genocide

Everyday Emergency Speaking Out: Srebrenica

Everyday Emergency · Speaking Out: Srebrenica

"He died with them. Let him rest with them." Dr Emna Tahaawy about Srebrenica 2023

Diana and Hatidža Hren in front of trucks with bodies of newly identified victims of Srebrenica in July 2010- DW

Translation and editing 

By Dr. Eman Tahawy 

2010:

Rudolph, the Christian man who was betrayed by the Serbs, was buried as were his Muslim friends who stayed with them for the last day before his death. He is buried in the same place that includes the remains of 775 Muslim men and youths killed by Serbs in 1995. Rudolph was a Catholic Croatian who shared the same fate as 8,000 Muslim neighbors killed in the Srebrenica massacre. And the neighbors there are like brothers or kinship. Where he lived before and during the war, he met the same fate.

And yesterday: when they asked his mother if she wanted to bury him anywhere, she would like? She said: No, leave him where he died with them, may he rest in peace with them. He lay with his Muslim friends in the mass graves, then was reburied after 15 years of careful research because the Serbs distributed the bodies to more than 70 areas and obliterated the burials to hide the effects of the genocide. This did not happen in the backward Middle Ages or in the heart of Third World countries, but it did happen in the heart of Europe at the end of the twentieth century.

"He died with them. Let him rest with them."



At this cemetery Srebrenica, Ivo, 20 years was buried in 1992. Photo: DW


"Rudolf is buried among the friends he stayed with until the last day." - Barbara Hren (mother)



Barbara Hren-Photo: DW


In 2010, Rudolf's body was found in one of the secondary mass graves in Kamenica.

With the support of Rudolf's wife Hatidža (Khadija)and daughter Diana, Mother Barbara then decided to bury Rudolf at the Potočari Memorial Centre, along with his Bosniak friends with whom he had lived and died.

He was one of four Srebrenica Catholics killed in the genocide, but he is the only one buried at the memorial center.

It was Rudolf Herren, who was a famous local footballer before the war, whose mother Barbara Herren requested that he be buried in the Catholic rites, but with those who were his neighbors and friends.

"The father-in-law is Slovenian, and his wife, Maria, is German, and a law. My father is Romanian and my mother is from Yugoslavia. Then my son announces, 'I am Catholic, I am Croatian.'". later on, he married a Bosnian woman Hatidža (Khadija). They were together until the end.”

The two brothers stayed in Srebrenica to defend their town. He had got a job in Red Cross with his wife.



Funeral of Rudolf on 11 July 2010


Barbara's younger son Ivan (Ivo) died in 1992 and buried in a local cemetery in Srebrenica. While the elder Rudolf (Rudy) was shot near Zvornik after being arrested in Kamenica in 1995 after trying to escape with friends in the woods towards Tuzla. He was seen alive before being killed. She waited for 15 years.

"Hren's family has a special place in the heart of all Srebrenica residents. Rudolf's wife (Hatidža) taught Bosnian at a local school during the war."

Rudi and Hatidža with their daughter Diana . Photo: ntv.ba

Hren came from Vojvodina to Srebrenica in 1960. Barbara's husband, Aleksander Hren, was a mine worker who died in 1976.


Mother says:

“We stayed here, the kids went to school, high school. The eldest son - he loved everyone. Everyone who passed would call him Rudy, Rudy, and he would be named Rudy by everyone.”

On July 11, 1995, mother Barbara saw Rudy for the last time, and years of grief have passed since then. All her family members died. She says she doesn't miss the money, but she misses the departed souls.

Barbara Hren RIP in Srebrenica. Feb, 2018

February, 2018:

Barbara Hren is buried in Srebrenica - February 2018

Barbara Hren, the mother of Rudolf and Ivan, who perished in the Srebrenica genocide, died on Friday at the Tuzla Nursing Home at the age of 83.

Sadmir Nukić of the Srebrenica Detainees Association told the Patria news agency that Bosnia and Herzegovina has lost another heroine who gave the country her most valuable asset, two boys.

(Barbara Hren gave her most precious sons to Bosnia and Herzegovina).

June, 2020:

Hatidža Hren, a teacher, one of the founders of the Association "Women of Srebrenica" and its first president, and the wife of Rudolf Hren, the only Catholic killed in the Srebrenica genocide, died in Tuzla on June 7. Hatidža died at the age of 58, and today she was worshipped in Srebrenica. The burial was carried out at the Komarčevo cemetery, in the presence of a large number of citizens.

Photo: D. S./Klix.ba

Photo: D. S./Klix.ba

Photo: D. S./Klix.ba

Photo: Anadolija

Sources:

http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2010/07/rudolf-hren-croat-buried-in-srebrenica.html

Nukić: Barbara Hren je za BiH dala najvrijednije što je imala (nap.ba)

Čekaj, čekaj petnaest godina...Rudi se ne vrati – DW – 10.07.2010

Srebrenica residents bid farewell to Hatidža Hren, wife of the only Catholic buried in Potocari

Odlazak Srebreničanke Hatidže Hren, supruge jedinog Hrvata pokopanog u Potočarima U Srebrenici klanjana dženaza Hatidži Hren, supruzi Rudolfa Hrena 

SREBRENICA: KLANJANA DŽENAZA HATIDŽI HREN: OSTAVILA JE VELIKU PORUKU SVIMA NAMA