Hospitals and health facilities are not romantic places where love stories usually begin, but that is precisely why Gaza's Baptist Hospital – the oldest hospital in the besieged enclave – was more than just a hospital.

Humam Farah tells the story of Farah's family with this building, from the beginning of his grandfather's work, Elias Farah, in the hospital, when he was 17 years old.

Elias started as a waiter in a restaurant during the British Mandate of Palestine more than 80 years ago and later became a procurement manager, responsible for the purchase of food, medicines and supplies.

One day, he saw for the first time the woman who would soon become his wife, known to many as Mrs. Thre.

Thra was a principal at the UNRWA-run primary school near Beach Camp, visiting the hospital often, and it was there that their love story began.

Elias and very wealthy Hammam Farah in an old family photo (archive)

Table tennis, dinner and games

The ruins of the hospital destroyed by Israeli shelling that led to a massacre that killed at least 500 people last Tuesday night have become witnesses to memories and human stories that have disappeared.

"The hospital was a whole community," Hammam told Al Jazeera English correspondent Orouba Jamal.

Although Hammam has not been able to visit Gaza, his hometown, in 23 years, the psychotherapist now based in Toronto, Canada, is clinging to his childhood memories there.

His grandfather often took him to the hospital during his working time.

"There were children playing, and table tennis, the hospital was a social center, and dinner councils were held there," Hammam recounts with nostalgia.

Two Hammam grandparents lived a story of love and marriage and Elias worked for a long time at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital (archive)

The hospital, founded in 1882 and located in Gaza's Zeitoun residential neighborhood and run by the parish of the Evangelical Church in Jerusalem, also had a church, a large courtyard and a tennis court, where Hammam's grandfather played a lot.

Founded by the Missionary of England, the hospital was run by Pastor Elliott and succeeded by Dr. Bailey, and then Dr. Stirling, and was the only hospital in the area between Jaffa and Port Said, Egypt, serving nearly 200,<> people.

The hospital is surrounded by the Church of St. Porphyrios, the 14th-century Shamaa Mosque and the tomb of Sheikh Shaaban.

Elias with a visiting American doctor at the hospital known for attracting medical specialists (archive)

Forty years after meeting her first grandparents in the hospital in 40, Hammam himself was born there, as was his sister.

In World War I, the Baptist was destroyed, robbed and looted, then rebuilt and renamed the "Arab National Hospital" in 1919, and remained under the management of Dr. Stirling until 1928, and then passed to Dr. Alfred until 1948.

At that time, the Evangelical Missionary of England decided to close the hospital at the end of the Mandate for Palestine, but the Baptist Mission took care of the hospital and took it and transferred its administration to it, which at that time was administratively subordinate to Egypt.

There was a dispute over the ownership of this hospital in the forties and fifties of the last century, after the Egyptian administration canceled the civil endowment law in Gaza, which exposed the hospital's property and land to a dispute over ownership.

It continued to provide its services despite the Israeli occupation of the area, and its officials continued to develop it, building a second floor that included an office for two doctors, a laboratory and three rooms allocated for various therapeutic purposes. The hospital established the first physiotherapy unit in the Gaza Strip.

In 1976, UNRWA cut aid to the Baptist and stopped its support for the hospital's nursing school, which declined and reduced the number of its staff. By the beginning of 1977, there were only 3 doctors and 28 nurses, and the number of patients he received began to decrease. By the end of the seventies, his ownership was returned to the Episcopal Archdiocese of Jerusalem.

At that time, it was funded by the United Palestinian Society of America, and continued to provide services and receive patients and casualties during various wars, beginning with the first Palestinian intifada (December 1987).


"They smell burned corpses"

Now, the roads of the Baptist Hospital are filled with bodies and body parts lying in piles, and the hospital has been damaged.

Upon hearing the news of the explosion and the massacre, Hammam collapsed. He still has family and relatives in the Gaza Strip, and relatives holed up in a church near the hospital.

He said he desperately tried to contact them, only to begin to control himself when he learned that they had not been harmed by the explosion, but had "witnessed the destruction up close."

"They can smell the smell of burned corpses," Hammam added.

His family in Gaza (uncles, aunts, relatives and other relatives) survives on simple food – canned tuna and dried pasta, as food and other supplies quickly run out, with Israeli forces preventing humanitarian aid from arriving.

A day earlier, Hammam's mother spoke to one of his aunts there, telling him "she's not normal."

The homes of all his relatives were destroyed within almost two weeks of Israeli bombardment. He and his mother are now considering how to move their family so that they have the opportunity to leave the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel began its aggression on the Strip nearly two weeks ago, a mental health therapist has been unable to do anything other than work.

"My eyes don't leave my phone or TV," he says, adding that his entire schedule is about waiting daily for news from relatives to try to check on them.

An old photo of the family of Hammam Farah at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital (archive)

"They died one by one"

Hammam visited Gaza for the last time in 2000, not knowing it would be his last. His family lived in the UAE for many years, making trips there every summer.

He was always amazed by the reaction of his relatives when they intended to leave at the end of each summer.

"There was a painful scream and crying, as if it would be the last time we would see each other," says Hammam.

In 2000, when he was just 17 years old, he left the Strip thinking he would return the following summer as usual, but this opportunity did not come.

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007, making return difficult.

Since then, Hammam has hoped to visit Gaza, especially to see his grandmother, but he has not yet had the opportunity.

"They started dying one by one," Hammam says sadly. Now that they are gone with their memories only engraved in his heart, he adds, adding that his particularly wealthy grandmother still deeply influences his Palestinian identity.

In a letter to his grandmother after her death, Hammam wrote: It will be easier to see you in the afterlife.