Juman Abu Arafeh - Occupied Jerusalem
"I swear by Almighty God to observe God in my profession and to preserve human life in all circumstances." With these words, more than 100 Palestinian doctors performed on Saturday morning inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque where they wore their white coat and their medical heads. Rock and Chapel.
Holy in holiness
These doctors completed the approach of their predecessors at the Faculty of Medicine at Al-Quds University in the town of Abu Dis, east of occupied Jerusalem, where the first medical batch took place in 2000, performing the medical section inside Al-Aqsa. The graduates did not interrupt this good year after 19 years.
The medical department is one of the most important stations in the path of the doctor, where he divides him before practicing the profession, pledging to God a number of moral obligations that link his relationship with his patients and colleagues.
The doctors met from northern, central and southern Palestine. They entered the al-Aqsa in the early hours of the morning, hiding their coats and their medical uniforms, so as not to draw the attention of the occupation police at the gates of the mosque.
| And Rasna did not enter Al-Aqsa except during the years of study at the University (Al Jazeera) |
Absent absence
Wissim Hamad, 24, from al-Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron, told Al-Jazeera TV that they did so because of the disruption of the occupation of their colleagues in the past years. "He told me that we entered surreptitiously at intervals like we were doing something."
Hamad explains that most of his West Bank colleagues are prevented by the occupation from entering Jerusalem without permission. The medical specialty has been the bridge to Jerusalem for many of them. In their last three years, they have been trained in Al Maqassed and Al Quds hospitals.
The doctors missed more than twenty colleagues who were absent from the medical department in Al-Aqsa because the occupation refused to issue them entry permits for "security" reasons, which prevented them from training and the participation of their colleagues for their historical moment.
Bisan and Rassneh, 24, from Hebron, told Al-Jazeera Net that the arrest of the occupation of some of the students led to the delay in their payment and thus the delay of graduation, adding that the cancer of their colleague Majdi Shehadeh, also died of their division, where he died in his second year,
"When I saw al-Aqsa for the first time I felt like I was in a dream. I asked my friend to pinched me to get up." She seems to wake up from her dream after a month, because her entry will end. By the end of her studies.
A month ago Iman Mahmoud, 24, from Ramallah, was sad that she had not been able to perform the medical section inside Al-Aqsa. For years, she was prevented from entering Jerusalem because her brother was injured in clashes with the occupation.
The young woman fought a legal battle in which she failed repeatedly, but at the last minute she managed to obtain a permit to enter Jerusalem and train in her hospitals and her colleagues shared the medical department. "She was one of the most beautiful surprises in my life," she said.
| Shabana was able to excel in high school in the same year that his father died (Al Jazeera) |
Tales behind the section
Because of the occupation's barriers and restrictions, the parents could not share their joy with the children, but their children were surrounded by the pictures and messages, and the Jerusalem cakes that they brought to them when they returned.
"I gave my testimony to my mother, if she wanted to take it and I would stop to do it for her sacrifice," said Asid Shaher Shabaneh, 24, from Sinjel village, Ramallah district, and his mother across the island.
Shabaneh received the news of his success in high school at the rate of 97% in the scientific branch on the first anniversary of the death of his father at the beginning of the year of "guidance" study, and despite his painful determination to achieve his father's dream to become a doctor.
He stopped to pick up a souvenir picture in front of the Dome of the Rock, telling his parents, "I have become a doctor and I have announced that from the heart of the Far."