Delivering a portable ultrasound device that’s involved with birthing life to a field clinic set in the garden of a blown-up house captures both the impact and importance of INARA’s interventions in Gaza.
On her last visit to Gaza, Arwa Damon, INARA’s President and Founder, sums up the dystopian level that the humanitarian crisis has reached in the context of medical and mental health. With the help of our team there, she delivers essential aid to families, women, field clinics, and a couple of hospitals.
Through her vlogs shared on Instagram, Arwa shows the outstanding resemblance between the destruction surrounding Gazans and how they feel inside, offering a glimpse into what survival in Gaza looks like today.
As Arwa finds her way to a medical tent supported by INARA, she hands Dr. Lubna, one of our volunteers, a portable ultrasound device long awaited by many pregnant women there. Later, on the same day, Arwa visits a hospital where she delivers pediatric tracheostomy tubes that have previously helped Mahmoud, who’s 2 years old with head trauma and a chest injury, stabilize enough to be taken off the barely available ventilators. She also drops off prescribed skin burn creams for a girl called Aseel whose family of two children and their parents share one hospital bed in a hallway. In another hospital, Arwa highlights the critical shortage of essential meds such as drugs used for sedation and antibiotics.
In addition to delivering medical aid, Arwa carried sanitary pads for women and girls who were using rags instead. Considering the lack of clean, usable water and poor sanitation, this imposes serious implications on those women’s health, including irritations, rashes, infections, and other psychosocial impacts. Access to hygiene supplies brings those women and girls a sense of comfort amid everything they’re going through.
During her visit, Arwa met so many families whose tired yet warm welcomes and sincere smiles spoke of their despair for all this to end. Despite the much-needed aid INARA delivers, Arwa says: “I wish we could box up peace and distribute it.”
On World Children’s Day, while so much fun was happening around, Arwa’s eyes could only catch children “whose eyes just seem so far away, like they are here but not here,” in her words. The fact that it takes way more than an entertainment show to unearth the childhood joy masked by their trauma speaks of how critical it is for those children to be provided with the needed mental health support.
Arwa’s videos show that there’s much more to a child smiling at an apple than finally satisfying a craving. There’s so much more for a child to want to polish her nails, than merely liking the color. There’s so much more to celebrating new stationary than being excited for education. There’s so much more to the support INARA is delivering than meeting the immediate needs of Gazan children and families. It is a reminder deeply etched in our minds that “even if what we offer feels small, it is important”.
Under INARA’s Rapid Response for Gaza, our dedicated teams continue delivering much-needed aid, relief, and assistance to impacted children and their families in Gaza, and those evacuated and stranded in Türkiye and Egypt.
