In April, Layla Moran was admitted into hospital for sepsis. For a while, doctors thought antibiotics would clear the infection but it soon became clear she needed surgery. While recovering, a surgeon told her he had removed her appendix. “He told me his name and I was like, ‘Hold on, where are you from?’”
Like Moran, Mohammad is Palestinian. The NHS surgeon grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and has worked for the health service for 20 years. Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, had to remain in hospital for an extra week. During that time, the pair got to know each other.
“We were planning to meet up for lunch and cook food for each other, which is what Palestinians do when they find other Palestinians,” said Moran.
Their plans did not come to fruition. Aside from shared heritage, the pair soon found another, more tragic, commonality. Mohammad’s elderly parents and his sister who cares for them live in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the focus in recent weeks of an ever-tightening Israeli siege.
Hundreds of Palestinians have died in the area since Israel stepped up its attacks, including at least 93 who were killed in a strike on a residential building in Beit Lahia on Tuesday morning.
Drones stalk the streets where Mohammad’s family lives, and following Israeli attacks bodies are often strewn on their doorstep. There are long periods where shots are fired at them if they so much as open a window. Mohammad’s mother has diabetes and hypertension and his father had his colon removed, leaving him frail. This has made it impossible for them to evacuate.
Extended members of Moran’s family faced a similar situation late last year when her Christian Palestinian relatives were trapped inside the Holy Family church complex in Gaza City for more than 60 days.
They were unable to evacuate earlier because some of her family members were elderly. The oldest relative died because he could not get to a hospital.
Two women sheltering in the church were shot dead by Israeli forces when they ventured outside. Pope Francis condemned the killings and said “people who are sick or disabled” were among those sheltering in the church.
Moran’s relatives were eventually able to make the arduous journey out of Gaza. “What Mohammad’s family is going through is hell on earth,” she said. “At least my family had been protected by the church, literally the walls, but also the infrastructure and the pressure. When the church came under fire from Israeli forces, the pope waded in in their defence.
“In Jabalia, they don’t have that same voice that my family and the other Christians who were in the church had at the time.”
Mohammad fears his parents will not make it out alive. Last weekend, his aunt and cousin were killed by an Israeli strike on Jabalia. His sister is the last person left on her street. Two weeks ago, the house next door to her was flattened. “I said to my sister: ‘Next time they might hit your house.’ She said: ‘Where do I go? Everywhere is unsafe.’”
The phone lines in Gaza work intermittently. When he does get through to his family, the comfort of knowing they are still alive is short-lived. “Every minute of the day, you hear the shooting. You hear the bombing over the phone. It’s indescribable, the terror. You’re just waiting to die,” he said.
Mohammad said Israeli forces had previously tried but mostly failed to enter his parents’ neighbourhood. However, in recent weeks they had managed to break through, leaving his parents unable to leave their home for fear of being shot.
“This time, they are determined to either kill or displace anybody who remains there, which is really terrifying, because my parents can’t really go anywhere. My sister said the safest place is their house,” he said.
Aside from immediate danger, the siege and wider unavailability of medicines has had a drastic impact on his parents’ health. “The elderly and vulnerable don’t survive in these environments. They have flattened the hospitals, medicine is very scarce. At one point there was no medicine for my mum at all. She lost 30kg since the start of the war.
“They have no food. Their diet is bread and some canned food brought in as aid.”
Moran raised Mohammad’s case in parliament earlier this month. She called on the development minister, Anneliese Dodds, to impress upon the Israeli government that Mohammad’s parents, and others who are sick or elderly and their carers, are not legitimate targets of war.
Mohammad also had a message for the government: “I’ve given 20 years of my life to the NHS saving the British public’s lives, which I’m grateful for. Don’t use my tax money to support, in any shape or form, a genocidal government that is killing my own people.”
