He spent the summer drenched
in the blood and ashes
of the Israeli ground invasion,
covered in evaporated souls
the victims of Israeli bombs
he stood smack in the middle
of a military target:
al-Shifa hospital
ears filled with
the orchestra of the israeli war machine
Each apache passing in the sky
brought another child with bullet-stained body
blood stained eyes
Dr. Mads Gilbert
tends to the maimed, broken, wounded
dying, dying, almost dead
He cries to himself as he sits
surrounded by ghosts, writing:
The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night.
I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.
And when night lifts in Shifa hospital
Day is too shrouded with darkness for him to notice
so he keeps working
He cries out, but bodies keep coming
The world has turned its back
on the bodies, on the people
its leaders shift eyes and shrug shoulders
drink and delay
But Mads is still holding a ten-year old boy
his legs blown off, his face burned
the terrorist they’ve been after
What would you have done?
Mads asks us.
Would we have given up,
waved the white flag?
No, no.
We would not.
Dr. Mads Gilbert goes on TV and says:
Don’t send bandages,
Don’t send syringes.
Don’t send medical teams.
The most important medical thing
you can do now
is force Israel to stop bombing.
It is to lift the siege of Gaza.
Dr. Mads Gilbert puts down the the bloodied bandage
and leaves the operating room.
My respect for the wounded is endless, he writes
in their contained determination in the midst of pain,
agony and shock;
my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless,
my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength,
although in glimpses I just want to scream,
hold someone tight, cry,
smell the skin and hair of the warm child,
covered in blood,
protect ourselves in an endless embrace –
but we cannot afford that, nor can they.
Dr. Mads Gilbert is banned from Gaza
for life
The words are so full
they draw tears
and with all the strength he has left
memories overflow and spill
with each tear
drops of solidarity.
*Everything in italics is from Dr. Mads Gilbert writing or speaking in the Electronic Intifada, Middle East Monitor or Democracy Now!
Nisha Bolsey is a Palestine solidarity activist and socialist in New York City. She is currently studying to become and educator.