Ahmed Abunada “doesn’t want to see injured people again”. In early November this surgeon left al-Shifa, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, where he had been working non-stop since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, to take refuge in Germany.

“We performed surgeries on the floor, on stretchers, there were no more beds,” said this 47-year-old German citizen of Palestinian origin.

Yesterday Friday he was received in Berlin by the German president Frank-Walter Steimer along with seven other compatriots who, like him, managed to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.

“The week before I left the hospital the situation got worse: we no longer had electricity, water, oxygen.” But without oxygen it is impossible to perform surgeries: “For this reason I left the hospital on the 28th day of the conflict.”

According to Israeli authorities, al-Shifa is the main command center for Hamas operations in the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian movement denies. For days, soldiers conducted room-by-room searches at the hospital, until last Friday when a ceasefire came into effect.

When asked by AFP about the presence of Hamas in the hospital, Abunada replied succinctly: “I was working as a doctor and I didn’t notice.”

On Thursday, the director of al-Shifa, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, was arrested for questioning by Israeli intelligence services. “I hope he is released soon,” Abunada commented.

This surgeon had studied in Germany and part of his family lives in Hesse. For eight years Abunada had been living in Gaza with his wife and four children, one of whom was injured before they left the Palestinian enclave.

“Who shall I let die?”

Chief vascular surgeon at al-Shifa, Abunada was forced to make “particularly difficult” decisions after the outbreak of war on October 7.

“Who shall I let die: this woman or this man? (…) I don’t have time to rehabilitate this child, so I have to amputate: it’s too difficult for a doctor,” he admitted.

Alone at the head of his department he had no time to rest. “Of course I needed to take breaks to sleep. But sleeping without lying down is difficult.” “The shelling was everywhere,” he added.

In the week before his departure, corpses were piled up in front of the hospital entrance. “The corpses would smell and the dogs would come to eat them,” he explained. “I heard dead people were buried in the hospital after I left.”

Ahmed Abunada yesterday described the situation in Gaza to the German president and pleaded with him to help the Palestinians.

“I asked for an air medical bridge through Egypt to provide material, medicine,” he said. “There are many German doctors of Palestinian origin. They could get permission to go there (to the Gaza Strip). All patients have the right to receive care,” he emphasized.

Besides, Abunada expressed the hope that the international community will examine the conflict “taking into account the two sides” and examining “humanitarian and human issues”.

Some members of this doctor’s family have stayed in Gaza. He states that he is “very worried about my mother”. At the age of 85 she was forced to leave her home to go to the southern part of the Gaza Strip on foot.