Running out of gas in your car is often a sign to stop, but not for one doctor in Gaza.
Hassan Zain al-Din has been tending to those who have been injured by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, a mission that he wanted to continue no matter what.
So, he bought a bicycle.
Palestinian doctor Hassan Zain al-Din, who travels on his bicycle from one makeshift shelter to another to provide treatment and medication to displaced patients, rides past the rubble amid fuel shortages, as the conflict between Hamas and Israel continues, in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
AHMED ZAKOT / REUTERS
Al-Din said he uses that bike to travel more than 9 miles back and forth between the Chronic Disease Center and to see his patients at United Nations schools and makeshift shelters. In some areas, the rubble from the ongoing war is so bad that al-Din has to walk, carrying the bike as he goes.
“One of the obstacles is the road itself. Sometimes there is bombardment and the road is damaged so I have to carry the bicycle on my shoulders and walk a distance until I pass the rubble and destruction and reach a proper road,” he told Reuters in Arabic, according to a transcription provided by the news agency.
But even with such an obstacle, getting people their medication is essential, he explained, even when he is dealing with his own displacement. When his car ran out of fuel, al-Din told Reuters he had to leave it and take shelter in Bureij, a refugee camp that, according to the Associated Press, was hit by two Israeli airstrikes earlier this week.
Those strikes “flattened an entire block of apartment buildings” in the camp, AP reported, and damaged two U.N. schools that were turned into shelters.
According to the U.N. Agency for Palestine Refugees, nearly 50 of the organization’s buildings and assets have been impacted by the war since it began on Oct. 7, “with some being directly hit.”
Palestinian doctor Hassan Zain al-Din, who travels on his bicycle from one makeshift shelter to another to provide treatment and medication to displaced patients, checks a girl at a school turned into a shelter, amid fuel shortages, as the conflict between Hamas and Israel continues, in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip October 29, 2023.
AHMED ZAKOT / REUTERS
“Most people left their medicines under the rubble, so we have to visit them in schools and check on them and provide them with treatments for chronic diseases, particularly people who have blood pressure and diabetes because they are more likely to die,” he said.
Al-Din said that currently in Gaza, “there is no accessibility, no transportation and no fuel to reach the hospitals if their gets worse.”
More than 9,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli authorities say another 1,400 people have died in there, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Al-Din believes that more doctors could join in the effort to distribute medication — regardless of their mode of transportation.
“There is no doctor in Gaza who does not have the ability to do this and even more than that,” he told Reuters. “They cut off our fuel, water and electricity, but not our belonging.”
