Unspoken heroes

Every Shabbat a group of Israeli and Palestinian doctors and nurses join forces to provide healthcare to Palestinians living in the occupied territories. They work as volunteers. I accompanied them on one of their mobile clinics to a rural village just outside Qalqilyah.

The Israeli organisation, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, has 1150 members, over half of whom provide healthcare to people in need. They have an active program in Israel as well, assisting Jews, Arabs, migrants and asylum seekers, who are unable to access adequate health care. The Palestinian organisation, Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), is the largest primary health care provider in the West Bank and Gaza, and has a network of over 40, 000 volunteers.

The Israeli doctors and nurses only treat patients for illnesses that cannot be treated in the occupied Palestinian territories. In this way, their humanitarian efforts do not undermine the Palestinian health care system. This is the kind of aid I like. They want to help people in need, without undermining their ability to help themselves, and without preventing them from developing their own healthcare system. Alongside their humanitarian work, they push for changes to government policies and practices that undermine access to healthcare.

On my mini-bus were two Jewish Israeli nurses, one originally from Egypt and the other one born in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel, who had studied nursing at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. The nurses spoke Arabic and acted as translators for the doctors. The two doctors were also Jewish Israelis, one orthopedic surgeon originally from Brazil, and an endocronologist originally from the United Kingdom. I watched each doctor consult forty patients each throughout the day.

These people are the unspoken heroes of this conflict. Every weekend, they choose to push aside politics and ideology to help people in need. Simple acts that change lives, and in some cases, save lives. What greater gift could you give to someone else?

Initiatives like these are the building blocks for peace. I hope they continue to grow and flourish.

47 days to go...