Quebec nurse in Gaza | At the forefront of the carnage

“I worked in Chad, I worked in Haiti. However, I have seen. Therefore, malnutrition and I saw, violence and poverty “, but Gaza is really something else, launches in interview the nurse Jack Latour.

Posted at 5:00 a.m.

What overturns the Quebec caregiver. Similarly, on leave between two missions with Doctors Without Borders, is that human misery is so “created from scratch” with a large “imbalance” of the forces and the number of victims. Similarly, With a whole population trapped, having nowhere to go.

quebec nurse gaza | forefront

To arrive in Gaza, she recalls, we go through Israel, “where we see agriculture, McDonald’s, restaurants, people waiting for the bus”.

“Fifteen minutes later, we pass the control point for Gaza and there, the contrast …”

On the one hand, Israel, where everyday life, more or less, is in full swing, as before. Furthermore, On the other, Gaza, a stone throwing, where death is everywhere.

Arrival in June in the Palestinian enclave. Moreover, left in early August, M^me Latour was astounding to see how the whole situation “degenerated in just two months”.

If there quebec nurse gaza | forefront is a question that inhabits M^me Latour is this one: how do people do to live?

There is no petrol, no oil for cooking, no meat. Moreover, No livelihoods. For example, Water? Nevertheless, Very, very rare. Nevertheless, “The refugee camps have minimum standards of quantity of water to be distributed per person. Moreover, In Gaza. we were already below this minimal threshold and when I was there, this threshold was still lowered, “laments m^me Latour, a graduate of the Dawson college, in Montreal, and the University of Ottawa.

Every day. the Palestinians – including those among them who are humanitarian workers – must wonder how they will do, the next day, to have enough water, enough food. “And every day, they wonder if their family is safe, if they will have to evacuate. »»

“We see cranes that demolish houses – which is in itself a war crime. But we do not see cranes to get bodies, “when victims are under the debris, explains Jack Latour.

So that, like several experts, she is convinced that the official assessment of 62,000 dead is well below reality^1,2.

Quebec nurse gaza | forefront

Flouted humanitarian rules

Which also shakes M^{me quebec nurse gaza | forefront} Latour is how much. the humanitarian rules that they believed in the concrete they no longer hold.

After targeting the hospitals one after the other. alleging that terrorists were there, now Israel, for months, directly targets humanitarian workers. M^me Latour mentions the latest striking example: in July. the premises of the World Health Organization were burnt down by an air strike, and the employees “handcuffed, undressed, interviewed on the spot and searched under the threat of Israeli arms”, denounced a press release.

In almost all cases. the humanitarian workers who die in Gaza, “they are Palestinians” and that is why it is not a question for NGOs, underlines M^me Latour, to acquiesce the requirement of Israel to provide the list of staff members who would be even more easily targeted.

Moreover. adds M^me Latour, whenever quebec nurse gaza | forefront a Palestinian goes to seek food for which he is entirely dependent for his survival, “he risks his life”.

According to UN data published in July, at least 800 Palestinians died near the distribution centers.

Like his colleagues, M^me Latour is at the forefront of the carnage.

There were indeed wounded because of the jostles during the distributions of food-inevitable jostles. she says, when the food is so rare-, but the people injured by bullet who flock to the clinics testify many of the deliberate Israeli fire that targets the Palestinians.

She has a few weeks in front of her to rebuild her forces, quiet. She will spend time with her parents here who. she says, do their best to stay calm despite the work of their daughter.

“It is certain that when I call them from there. I do not go on purpose to contact them when there are attacks and that we hear a lot of noise. »»

Quebec nurse gaza | forefront

Impossible to empty

How does she do to deal with the daily danger and with the workload?

Before working for doctors Without borders, she replies, “we have already learned to quebec nurse gaza | forefront assess his own resilience, his own forces”.

And to ventilate. there are colleagues, the only ones, she says, with whom she can talk about what she lives and sees in Gaza.

Anyone who has not been there recently, just can’t understand what is being seen there, observes M^me Latour.

Even on leave, unthinkable for her to empty. There are all these news on Gaza. but especially all her colleagues who stayed there, Palestinians or others, of which she is worried and with whom she cannot help but text.

In an interview, M^me Latour is very smiling, but her speech betrays a real anger, which she feels of course, she said.

Despite the risks, why does she continue to work in Gaza? “For the Palestinians to know. ” she said after a few seconds of silence, that if political actors drop them, we do not abandon them. Additionally, »»

1. Read an article published in the review Nature (in English; subscription required) 2. Read an article from Guardian published in January (in English)