I thought I would remember the nurse’s name, but I was naive to think my memory wouldn’t fail to recall the name on her white coat, despite whispering it a few times to myself. All I recall now is the nurse’s round face framed by a burgundy hijab that seemed to hold space for a smile more than any other reaction.

“Long day?” I asked her in Arabic, quickly realizing how ridiculous it was to ask such a question when chaos surrounded the hospital. 

“Oh yes, long day. I haven’t stopped working since last night. It’s been busy, busy!” she replied. It was late afternoon when she was gently feeling my arm for a vein to stick a needle in. 

The nurse smiled, “There we go!” She pricked the vein and walked away. I watched my blood fill the 250-milliliter blood bag.

It was a day of chaos, which was not unnatural for a spring that was chaos all around. The hospitals were calling for blood donations amidst the occupation’s call for blood. There are many ways to determine how bad a situation is: the mass call for blood donations is one of them. 

“Let’s go,” my friend and I text each other. I imagined many of us, at that moment, were guided by the thought that this, in the midst of chaos, is the least we can do. And so, we make our way to Mustashfa Ramallah, or Ramallah Hospital, located in the West Bank of Palestine. 

I have two memories about Mustashfa Ramallah. One memory stems from over fifteen years ago when my mother and I visited my great uncle’s wife on a winter afternoon. I remembered feeling like I was in a prison cell. The gray walls, the bloodstained curtain. I sometimes think I imagined it until I hear my mother recalling the same thing, saying things like I’d rather die than go there. The second memory is of an internship I had there for my undergraduate studies. One month and my whole internship cohort quit. Both moments instilled in me a nightmarish feeling about hospitals that I haven’t been able to shake.

Yet, here I was with my friend at its gates to donate blood. After the paperwork, we stood outside of the building. As I looked into the distance, I saw gray clouds of smoke at various points—burning tires, dumpster fires, tear gas. I could tell it was near my neighborhood. It looked like the world was on fire, on the brink of something, as another military assault on Gaza was in its first week. In Palestine, there are more moments than not where it feels like we’re on the brink of something. 

During the spring of 2021, at Mustashfa Ramallah, violence and the pandemic met. Somewhere in the building, there were patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and in other parts, the wounded were being treated. There are many ways to determine how bad a situation is: the number of times you hear ambulance sirens is one of them. I remembered hearing that the people of New York City knew the pandemic was at its worst by the number of times ambulance sirens sounded.

“They just brought in someone who was shot in the head,” the nurse announced as she was pricking my finger to confirm my blood type. 

“We want to donate blood!” A group of young men rushed in, some already rolling their shirt sleeves to expose their arms. Watching the worried looks on their faces and their jittery bodies, I sensed that if it was up to them, they’d grab the syringe, stick it in themselves, and carry the blood bags to their friend themselves. There is a sense of urgency when knowing that your friend is somewhere in the hospital with a bullet that may or may not be lodged in his head. 

Another nurse reassured them with the kindness of an elementary school teacher comforting her students. “There’s plenty of people donating blood. Your friend will get the blood he needs.” And for a moment, as they walked away, their bowed heads held the faces of young boys. 

Later that day, the news comes in that the man shot in the head died in the hospital. There was no way of telling if this was the same man that was brought in earlier; we rarely hear of the ones that ended up being saved. I thought of his friends with their sleeves rolled up, ready to save him. I thought of the nurse whose name I cannot remember and whether or not her shift ever ended.