Oral History with Dr. Mohayya H. Khilfeh: Nablus Through a Pediatrician’s Lens

Augusta Victoria Hospital, Mount of Olives, Jerusalem

Dr. Khilfeh graduated from medical school in Iraq in June, 1964, and returned to her home city of Nablus in the West Bank, then under Jordanian rule, to begin practicing medicine. She started at the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem, situated on the Mount of Olives, where she worked until May, 1967. With a mere five medical residents at the hospital complex, Dr. Khilfeh was the only woman, and one of only two pediatricians. Being the only woman presented its own unique challenge on top of the already demanding work of her profession: Dr. Khilfeh was forced to room and board with the other male doctors. Uncomfortable with the housing situation, she took advantage of her 36 hours off per week to travel to her family home in Nablus to shower, rest, and reset before returning to the hospital. Instead of a typical two day weekend, Dr. Khilfeh was only away from the hospital from Thursday evenings to Saturday mornings. She carried on that way for three years until a change in management meant her 36 hours off a week dwindled down to 12. Agitated with the newly imposed time constraint, Dr. Khilfeh continued to take her 36 hours, a decision that resulted in her unpaid suspension. Instead of staying under the new management, she quit and submitted an application to the Royal College of Physicians in Glasgow, Scotland. She left the West Bank at the end of May, 1967 to continue her education.

The Naksa, in Scotland

On June 5, 1967, the Israeli occupation launched an attack on Egypt. By June 11, 1967, Jordan and Syria were involved. Israel occupied the West Bank, closed the borders, and indiscriminately attacked and killed civilians. Dr. Khilfeh was alone in Glasgow, entirely unable to reach home. There were no phones, no letters, and no way to know if her family was alive. She stayed in Glasgow until completing her diploma of child health with a specialty in pediatrics in December, 1967, and immediately planned her return to the West Bank.

Family Reunification

“We were laying on our stomachs and trying to hide, somewhere between the rocks and the trees.”

From Glasgow, Dr. Khilfeh went to Jordan, where she stayed with her father’s aunt until she was able to re-enter the West Bank. Because she wasn’t present during the Israeli census following the Naksa, she was not considered a resident, and was therefore unable to enter the newly occupied territory. The Red Cross’s Family Reunification program then became her ticket back home; being an unmarried woman with no one to care for her meant her application was approved within three weeks. Just because her application was approved, however, does not mean she was able to easily return. The only crossing between Jordan and Palestine, the Allenby Bridge, was extremely restrictive, limiting the hours per day civilians could pass. Despite being the only entry point between the two states, the crossing was not inherently safe, with routine airstrikes contributing to limitations in crossing. Dr. Khilfeh made anywhere from three to four attempts to return to the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, finally crossing the border in February, 1968.

Back in Nablus

“The soldiers attacked at any time they want. They came to the houses and took children”

Upon her return, Dr. Khilfeh had a clinic rented and was able to begin practicing immediately; patients were initially minimal, however, until family reunification became more prevalent. Because of the occupation’s tendency to attack at random, many of her first patients were victims of Israeli bullets. As the population resettled, however, the rise in infectious diseases did too, making the years following the 1967 Naksa, in Dr. Khilfeh’s perspective, some of the hardest for Nablus.

State Sanctioned Israeli Violence

“From my patients, all I hear is: ‘he was shot!’”

Being a pediatrician did not just mean wellness visits and annual vaccinations, it meant dealing with the violent actions of the occupation toward children. Dr. Khilfeh shared the story of her cousin’s son, who was prevented from seeking medical care after an attack by the occupation. At 12 years old, he was throwing rocks at soldiers from Nablus’s mountains with other children when he was targeted and shot. He fell from the mountain at about “half a block height,” was stripped of his clothes, and attacked by a military canine, who was instructed to aim for his genitals. The boy’s mother was present, pleading for the occupation to end their assault, but they did not. In the end, the boy died in front of his mother and other neighbors, all the while bystanders were begging for mercy that was never shown.

The Only Pediatrician in Nablus

“Physicians were few at the time because all of them left”

Working as the only pediatrician for Nablus and the surrounding villages meant that breaks were a non-existent concept. Dr. Khilfeh’s practice routinely remained open from 7:00 in the morning to 9:00 in the evening, both to accommodate villagers who commuted to the city and to maintain enough time per patient. Despite this dedication, however, the hours were not enough, and parents would regularly bring their children to Dr. Khilfeh’s home in the middle of the night to be seen. Mothers would come to her door saying their houses had been demolished, their husbands were in jail, and she was the only person available to help their children. Even the rare break she allowed herself by closing the office at noon on Fridays was a struggle to maintain: 

On one of her Fridays off, Dr. Khilfeh went for a haircut, which was abruptly cut short when a woman ran into a salon carrying her seizing child and begging for help. With no other option, Dr. Khilfeh followed the woman to the hospital with half-cut, wet hair, and performed several procedures on the child, including a spinal tap, to treat what was discovered to be meningitis. Because of the lack of medical personnel, whoever admitted a patient to the hospital then became solely responsible for them, so on top of her own practice, Dr. Khilfeh had to personally ensure the wellbeing of this child and any other patients in emergency conditions.

Burnout

“When I am alive, I can help patients. But when I am dead, I will be another incident that people are sad about and forget about.”

The threat of burnout was an almost certain reality for Dr. Khilfeh, and there were times when she felt the pressure of her role more than others. She felt as though she couldn’t do enough for her patients despite the fact that she pushed herself beyond the point of exhaustion. An instance of this took place at an Israeli checkpoint where she, like many Palestinians, was arbitrarily stopped for a search. The soldiers asked her to open her trunk, which on her Volkswagen Beetle, was at the front of the car. She was immediately threatened, and instead of allowing her to explain, the soldiers detained her indefinitely, forcing her to stand on one leg and face the checkpoint wall. If she tried to switch legs or lean on the wall, they pointed their guns and threatened her. At that moment, Dr. Khilfeh considered giving in and retaliating, just so the soldiers would kill her and end the humiliation. She also realized, however, that if she died, so many others would suffer. Dr. Khilfeh regularly saw over 60 patients a day, and without her, there was no other pediatrician to care for them.