From Gaza to Kyiv, a Palestinian doctor lives between two wars

Alya Gali, a Gaza Strip-born doctor, shares memories amid debris in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 22, 2024 two weeks after a missile killed nine as it hit a private clinic where he has worked for most of his professional life.(AP)
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Updated 01 August 2024
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From Gaza to Kyiv, a Palestinian doctor lives between two wars

  • Gali moved away amid instability in Gaza, settled into his new home in Kyiv, adopted a different name to better suit the local tongue, and married a Ukranian woman
  • Both are violent conflicts that have upset regional and global power balances, but they can seem worlds apart as they rage on

KYIV: In war-torn Ukraine, he is Alya Shabaanovich Gali, a popular doctor with a line of patients waiting to see him. To his family thousands of kilometers away in the besieged Gaza Strip, he is Alaa Shabaan Abu Ghali, the one who left.
For the past 30 years, these identities rarely had cause to merge: Gali moved away amid instability in Gaza, settled into his new home in Kyiv, adopted a different name to better suit the local tongue, and married a Ukranian woman. Through calls, he kept up with his mother and siblings in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. But mostly, their lives played out in parallel.
In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw Gali’s life into chaos, with air raids and missile attacks. Nearly 20 months later, the war between Israel and Hamas turned his hometown into a hellscape, uprooting his family.
Both are violent conflicts that have upset regional and global power balances, but they can seem worlds apart as they rage on. Ukraine has lambasted allies for coming to Israel’s defense while its own troops languished on the frontlines. Palestinians have decried double standards in international support. In each place, rampant bombardment and heavy fighting have killedtens of thousands and wiped out entire towns.
In Gali’s life, the wars converge. A month ago, his nephew was killed in an Israeli strike while foraging for food. Weeks later, a Russian missile tore through the private clinic where he’s worked for most of his professional life. Colleagues and patients died at his feet.
“I was in a war there, and now I am in a war here,” said Gali, 48, standing inside the hollowed-out wing of the medical center as workers swept away glass and debris. “Half of my heart and mind are here, and the other half is there.
“You witness the war and destruction with your family in Palestine, and see the war and destruction with your own eyes, here in Ukraine.”
Gaza to Kyiv
There’s an Arabic saying to describe a family’s youngest child — the last grape in the bunch. Gali’s mother would say the last is the sweetest; the youngest of 10, he was her favorite.
When Gali was 9, his father died. Money was tight, but Gali excelled in school and dreamed of becoming a doctor — specializing in fertility, after seeing relatives struggle to conceive.
In 1987, the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, erupted in Gaza and the West Bank. Gali joined the youth arm of the Fatah Movement, a party espousing a nationalist ideology, long before the Islamist Hamas group would take root. One by one, friends were arrested and interrogated; some went to prison, others took up arms.
Gali had a choice: Stay and risk the same fate, or leave.
There was good news: an opportunity to study medicine in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Gali bade tearful goodbyes to his family, not knowing if he’d see them again.
He traveled to Moscow, expecting to catch a train. Instead, he learned Almaty was no longer an option. But there was a spot in Kyiv.
And so a young Gali arrived in Ukraine in 1992, just after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
It was like leaving one bedlam for another, he said: “The country was in a state of chaos, with no law and very difficult living conditions.”
Many peers left. Gali stayed, enrolling in medical school.
New life, new name
In the Ukrainian language, there’s no equivalent for Arabic’s notoriously difficult glottal consonants. So in Kyiv, Alaa became Alya. He assumed a patronymic middle name, adding the usual suffix to his father’s name — Shabaanovich.
While learning Russian — spoken by most Ukrainians who’d lived under the Soviet Union — Gali struggled with errands. Neighbors helped. Through them, he met his wife. They would have three children.
He finished medical school, becoming a gynecologist specializing in fertility. His career’s early days were long, seeing dozens of patients. Eventually, he landed at a practice at the Adonis medical center, where he thrived.
When Gali drives to work, listening to songs in Arabic, he passes Kyiv’s Maidan, a square where anti-government protests set the stage for Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014. There was a war in Gaza that year, too, he remembers.
Gali mouths the lyrics as Ukrainian street signs whiz by: “You keep crushing us, oh world.”
Wars collide
On July 8, Gali was at work, but his mind was on Gaza.
A week earlier, a relative reached out — Gali’s 12-year old niece had been killed as Israeli tanks advanced to the edge of the Mawasi camp for displaced Palestinians, northwest of Rafah. Like tens of thousands of Gazans, his family had fled there on foot after Israel designated it a humanitarian zone.
Gali had already been mourning. A nephew, Fathi, was killed the previous month. Gali saw it himself, he said, on television — his nephew’s lifeless body on the screen, headlines flashing in Arabic. He described the image and Fathi’s clothes to a relative, who confirmed it was him.
Their deaths weighed heavily on Gali. For nine months, he’d lived in fear for his family, of a text message saying they’d all been killed.
In the medical center that day, air raids rang out all morning. Before greeting his next patient, he shared a few words with the center director. She’d just driven by Okhmadyt Children’s Hospital, struck hours earlier by a missile — a terrible sight, Ukraine’s largest pediatric facility in ruins, she told him. He told her about the deaths of his niece and nephew, the darkness of his grief.
Not long after, Gali’s world went even darker.
A Russian missile came hurtling toward the center, triggering an explosion that obliterated the third and fourth floors.
Gali worked on the fourth. In the dense cloud of debris, he sought out shadowy figures covered in blood. He saw a patient and, using his phone for light, pulled her out from under the collapsed roof, as colleagues and others died around him — nine killed in all.
He led the woman to his office to wait for rescuers. Amid bodies on the floor, he found a colleague, Viktor Bragutsa, bleeding profusely. Gali couldn’t resuscitate him.
A room holding patients’ documents had been reduced to debris, their records spanning decades up in smoke.
He felt pangs of deja vu.
For months, he’d seen images of Gaza’s war. It was as if they’d somehow bled into his life in Ukraine.
“Nothing is sacred,” he said. “Killing doctors, killing children, killing civilians — this is the picture we are faced with.”
Only pain
Two weeks later, Gali stood in the same spot, gazing at bombed-out walls as workers sifted through rubble. “What can I feel?” he said “Pain. Nothing else.”
The center director’s office is destroyed. So is the reception area. Ultrasound machines and operating tables lay haphazardly.
He had stayed in Ukraine, didn’t evacuate his family — he took comfort in his office, in helping patients. And still, he said, he’ll stay.
In Gaza, he knows, there’s no safe place for his family to evacuate.
Communicating isn’t easy, with telecommunications blackouts. Weeks go by without word, until a nephew or niece finds enough signal to tell him they’re alive.
“No matter how difficult and impossible the situation is,” he said, “their words are always filled with laughter, patience and gratitude to God.
“I am here, feeling the weight.”


Two Egyptian pilots killed in helicopter crash in Suez: army

Updated 2 sec ago
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Two Egyptian pilots killed in helicopter crash in Suez: army

The Egyptian air force operates aircraft from various countries

CAIRO: Two Egyptian air force officers were killed on Tuesday when a helicopter crashed during a training exercise, the military said.
The helicopter went down near a key air base in the town of Shalufa, in Suez province, “due to a technical malfunction,” military spokesman Gharib Abdel Hafez said in a post on his official Facebook page.
He did not specify the manufacturer or model of the aircraft.
The Egyptian air force operates aircraft from various countries, including France, Russia and the United States.
In November 2022, the military said a fighter jet had crashed during a military exercise but it reported no casualties.
In December 2019, an aircraft crashed during a training exercise. The pilot ejected safely.

US soldier injured during Gaza pier operation has died: military

Updated 15 min 56 sec ago
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US soldier injured during Gaza pier operation has died: military

  • “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley,” Captain Shkeila Milford-Glover said
  • In addition to the injuries, the project faced other problems starting in May, when the pier was damaged by bad weather and had to be removed for repairs

WASHINGTON: An American soldier has died after being injured during Washington’s problem-plagued operation to establish a temporary aid pier on the coast of Gaza, the US military said Tuesday.
The pier effort aimed to boost deliveries of desperately needed humanitarian assistance into the war-wracked Palestinian territory as Israel held up shipments by land.
But the effort ran into repeated weather issues and the United States ended it in mid-July, some two months after its installation.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, a recently retired motor transport operator,” Captain Shkeila Milford-Glover, spokesperson for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said in a statement.
She did not say when Stanley died or what kind of injury he had sustained, specifying only that the soldier had been receiving treatment in a long-term care facility.
He was one of three US military personnel who suffered non-combat injuries at sea during the pier operation.
The two others suffered minor injuries, a sprained ankle and a hurt back, the military said in May.
In addition to the injuries, the project faced other problems starting in May, when the pier was damaged by bad weather and had to be removed for repairs.
It was then reattached on June 7, but was moved to Ashdod on June 14 to protect it from anticipated high seas — a situation that was repeated later in the month.
US President Joe Biden announced the pier project during his State of the Union address in March as Israel held up deliveries of assistance by land, and the Pentagon has said it helped push the Israeli government to open more aid routes.


Japanese prime minister praises Saudi Arabia’s role in addressing the Gaza crisis

Updated 31 min 34 sec ago
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Japanese prime minister praises Saudi Arabia’s role in addressing the Gaza crisis

  • PM Ishiba made the remarks during a telephone summit with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
  • Ishiba stated that he would like to strengthen the strategic partnership between Japan and Saudi Arabia

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hailed “Saudi Arabia’s leadership on Gaza” and expressed his determination to continue working with the Kingdom to bring stability to the Middle East.

Ishiba made the remarks during a telephone summit with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, during which he expressed his hope that Saudi Arabia would continue to play a leading role in stabilizing the global oil market.

The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said the crown prince expressed his wish to deepen cooperation with Japan in various fields, including politics, economics, security, and potentially technology transfer and cultural exchange.

Ishiba said he would like Japan and Saudi Arabia to expand cooperation to areas including clean energy, advanced technology, and entertainment.

With 2025 marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Ishiba reiterated his commitment to peace and stability in the region. He stated that he would like to strengthen the strategic partnership between Japan and Saudi Arabia and work even more closely together to promote these values. The crown prince also affirmed his commitment to these goals, stating that Saudi Arabia attaches great importance to its relations with Japan and welcomes further cooperation.

The Foreign Ministry added that both leaders shared their concerns about conflicts in the Middle East and the need for all parties involved to exercise maximum restraint. Ishiba said he appreciated Saudi Arabia’s leadership on Gaza, and the two leaders agreed to continue working closely together to achieve stability in the Middle East.


Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

Updated 32 min 41 sec ago
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Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

DAMASCUS: An Israeli strike hit a Syrian town near the border with Lebanon on Tuesday, Syrian state media said, less than a week after deadly strikes on the same area.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al-Qusayr” in Homs province, the official SANA news agency said. There was no immediate news of casualties or damage.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

Updated 05 November 2024
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

  • The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.