As the war between Israel and Hamas extends into its second year, a health crisis is growing for Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Akron-based OBGYN Dr. Ahmad Jadallah said he witnessed the crisis during a medical mission in August, and is concerned for Palestinians' future. Yet, he remains hopeful that peace is possible.
Who is this doctor and what were the mission's goals?
Dr. Ahmad Jadallah, a Palestinian-American OBGYN, finished his first medical mission to the war zone this past summer. He was one of nearly 70 doctors, surgeons, nurses and physical therapists from across the country, and the only one from Ohio, to participate in the mission. Jadallah, who is in private practice and provides care at Summa Health System and Cleveland Clinic Akron General, said he had two goals for the mission: conduct surgeries and educate local doctors.
“We as OBGYNs performed a lot of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery to try and educate and better serve the public there so they wouldn't have to have open procedures,” Jadallah told Ideastream Public Media.
Open surgery means cutting the skin and tissues so that the surgeon has a full view of structures or organs. According to Jadallah, open surgeries have less health benefits and can lead to more complications than less invasive methods.
“We're able to make small, almost keyhole or half a centimeter incision and do the surgeries that way," he said. "This way, it leads to quicker recovery time, less pain, less bleeding, you know, less chance for infection. The sterile environment is not as good as what we're accustomed to here. So, obviously, the less open surgery you do, the better.”
What did Jadallah observe during his mission?
He witnessed various obstacles to the medical mission members doing surgeries and providing treatment to Palestinians.
“We had a lot of supplies that we had preordered months in advance to get shipped into Palestine via Jordan," Jadallah said. "The supplies that we were going to use, were denied entry.”
In response, doctors on the mission used supplies they brought with them in suitcases or purchased supplies locally, such as gauze, IV fluids and epidural kits, he said. "They also used any equipment that was already available on-site."
Jadallah said it was also difficult for doctors and patients to get to surgery sites.
“A lot of times a surgery would get delayed because there's a lot of military checkpoints," he said. "People cannot make it to work on time. We had patients that needed surgery from different villages in refugee camps that were a lot of times denied entry. So, they did not get the service that we had hoped and promised them.”
What does this mean for residents of the West Bank?
Jadallah said this results in long delays for needed health care and surgery and possible health complications.
“A lot of them have been waiting for years for a treatment," he said. "You had people that could not walk, and they've been waiting three or four years to have knee surgery or hip surgery. Being denied surgery for that long, it makes the surgery more difficult, and has a higher complication rate.”
He added chronic diseases are also a concern for Palestinians due to a lack of necessary medicines and medical supplies.
“[There are] long-term consequences of the lack of insulin," Jadallah said. "And these diabetics are going to be dying due to complications within the next year or two years. And that's the consequence of this conflict. So, I think the overall death toll, unfortunately, is going to be in the hundreds of thousands.”
He said heart disease was also rampant.
According to a May 2024 report by the World Health Organization, an estimated 344,000 Palestinians in Gaza have chronic health conditions.
Would an end to the war immediately change all of this?
Jadallah believes medical problems would persist even with the war's end, due to what he called a decimated health care infrastructure. Many hospitals and other medical facilities have been destroyed in Israeli bombing. While Israel has argued the hospitals were legitimate targets because Hamas had embedded in these facilities and was using them to store weapons and launch attacks, Jadallah does not see it this way.
“I think if there is a shooter in a school or in a hospital, would my government go and blow up the entire hospital with civilians there? No, they would not,” Jadallah said.
Given all of this, does Jadallah have hope for the future?
Yes. Jadallah said the strong relationships he has with his Jewish neighbors and patients show that peace is possible.
“I have hope that there's more people like us and less people like the people in power and there's plenty of blame to go around," he said. "But the key thing is occupation. And people have to understand it cannot continue. And there there has to be a just solution to that. And that just solution is, to me, there's plenty of land for both people.”
But he said he does not hold the same optimism about American political leadership.
Jadallah said he’s seen no real U.S. commitment to ending the war and ensuring the health and safety of Palestinians, no matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge.
