Inverness doctor with family in war-torn Gaza says ultimate dream in 2025 is for ceasefire so Palestinians can have peaceful and normal lives
During the past year, Inverness consultant paediatrician Salim Ghayyda has watched in anguish from afar as his war-torn homeland has come under bombardment.
As images of death and destruction in Gaza regularly appear on TV and in the media, members of Dr Ghayyda’s family are among the Palestinian civilians paying the human cost of the ongoing Israeli-Hamas War.
Life has been reduced to a fight for survival, searching for food and clean water and battling repeated bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea.
“It is apocalyptic,” says Dr Ghayyda who was born and grew up in Gaza. “It is total destruction.”
As he looks ahead to 2025, he tries to remain hopeful of a ceasefire and that one day he will once again be able to visit the land where he was raised and worked as a young doctor.
“I wish I could wake up one day and there is no more war, no more killing and that Palestinians acquire back their land, their lives, their dignity and have the ability to self govern, to live in peace and make their own decisions and not be killed,” he reflects.
“This is the ultimate dream - that my family and other Palestinians can have a settled, peaceful and normal life.”
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The British Palestinian, who is married with a son and two daughters, has worked for the NHS for more than 20 years - the last 12 years at Raigmore Hospital.
His family lived in the north of the Gaza strip but fled south after Israel began its offensive following the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen who killed 1300 people and took about 250 others hostage.
Since then, more than 44,000 Palestinians, many of whom are women and children, have been killed, according to the latest reported figures. Many others have suffered horrific injuries.
Dr Ghayyda, has previously described himself as being quite shy but as the conflict has continued and intensified, he has found himself in the spotlight, compelled to speak out, delivering heartfelt speeches at meetings and rallies.
A year ago, driven by a sense of desperation, he launched an online funding campaign in a bid to get 31 members of his family to safety - with some success.
Thanks to the generosity of people across the Highlands and further afield who rallied to his call, £123,641 has been raised so far.
In April, he had an emotional reunion with his elderly parents. a sister and nephew who were allowed to cross the border into Egypt.
It followed a difficult and uncertain process involving a $15,000 payment to an official travel agency and an anxious wait to see if their names appeared on an approved list of people allowed to cross the border at Rafah.
They were followed by a brother and his wife and their two children while a sister and her husband and their two children managed to leave by their own efforts.
All remain in Egypt.
But four brothers and a sister along their families are still in Gaza as the conflict rages on.
One brother, a radiographer, and his wife, a nurse, are in the north with their young daughter who was to ill to travel at the time an evacuation to the south of the Gaza strip was ordered.
“He is probably the worst affected because in the north there is no power or food or water coming through,” Dr Ghayyda said.
“It’s a real struggle.
“Contact is sporadic. It is very difficult to manage a conversation.”
Although the family home has been partially destroyed and has no doors or windows, it provides more shelter than a tent but sometimes the situation is too dangerous to stay there and they have to relocate elsewhere.
“They try to survive as much as they can,” Dr Ghayyda says.
“Sometimes they have money and they try to find food to buy.
“My brother will go and buy one egg and feed the little one.”
They remain trapped.
“They cannot go anywhere,” he maintains. “They cannot run for their lives. So they are being starved.”
Other siblings and family members were uprooted several times and ended up in self-built tents near Rafah, with the bare minimum of access to water, food or minimum basic needs.
They have since evacuated again to the central part of the Gaza strip where 25 of them, including babies, children and adults, are sharing are three-bedroomed flat and one bathroom.
They include accountants, an ICU nurse and a worker for Gaza’s electricity company.
“The children have not been to school for a year, Dr Ghayyda says.
“There is no education. There have been schemes to try to do online learning for them but the internet stops working.
“Basically they are living in an area where most buildings around them are decimated.
“They are living like sardines in a flat and they can barely find one meal a day.
“They have not had meat for a long time. Most of what they eat is tinned or dried food and rice. There is no clean water.”
Dr Ghayyda, who worked as a young doctor at Gaza's main hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital as well as the Al-Nasser Children's Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, is heartbroken at the destruction of the health facilities.
“The health facilities are barely coping for those who are injured,” he says.
“If you have a serious medical condition, you will probably die - who is going to care for you?”
Despite the emotional impact caused by the situation, Dr Ghayyda is appreciative of the groundswell of support from individuals and groups.
Groups such as Highland Hearts For Palestine and Highland - Palestine have organised fundraisers, provided support and organised meetings and vigils.
“This has not died away and that has been a big comfort,” he says. “People are desperate to try and help me.”
He has also been involved in lobbying MPs for the introduction of a family reunification scheme for British Palestinians such as himself - of which there are 300 - to be allowed to bring their families to safety on a temporary basis.
He says such schemes exist for families caught up in other war zones.
Asked if he thinks there will be ceasefire in 2025, he replies: “You always have to have hope.
“Peace will only be achieved if the international community can put significant pressure on the Israeli government to stop killing Palestinians and force them to make peace.
“Everyone needs to ask themselves, ‘What is happening to Palestinians - is it acceptable to just give it the silent treatment when babies, men, women and children who are innocent are being killed, or starved? Is this morally acceptable?”
