A campaigner who opened his home to an inspiring Palestinian student has spoken of his “despair” after learning she had been killed alongside her six-month-old baby in Gaza.
Gerry O’Hare told Dima AlHaj’s story at a recent rally in Paisley in a bid to give a voice to those living through unimaginable loss and suffering.
The Glasgow-based cancer nurse – who has spent 12 years helping to create better cancer care in Gaza and the West Bank – joined forces with Paisley 4 Palestine in a bid to highlight the scale of the disaster facing his peers and friends who remain there.
The father-of-four has helped facilitate Palestinian healthcare workers and students to come to Glasgow for training in cancer care and helped Dima to settle when she arrived in 2018.
Gerry and his wife Roseann Maguire opened their home to Dima after her accommodation fell through at the last minute.
“Within a day of Dima arriving I realised that she was the daughter of one of the doctors involved in the cancer programme for Medical Aid for Palestine that I had been working with,” Gerry said.
“She was very bright, her English was fantastic, she was able to articulate very clearly why she was here and what she wanted to achieve. She had been working with the World Health Organisation in Gaza City when the war broke out.
“Several members of the wider family had been there too and were told to leave and go south.
“Her dad had both sides of the family in the house [in a so-called safe zone] near Nuseirat Refugee Camp but on November 21, 2023, 45 members of the family were killed in an IDF strike on the house.
“Dima was killed along with her husband and six-month old baby. Her mum and dad, Dr Abdellatif AlHaj, survived because they were healthcare workers and were in the hospital at the time.”
Dima was tragically just 29 when she was killed. She sent her last message to Roseann just days before she was killed. Sending a picture of little Abdool, she said, ‘I hope he lives to see better days’.
He, like his mother, was crushed beneath the rubble of his grandfather’s home.
Gerry, who met Dr Abdellatif, Dima and all the family during a visit to Gaza and kept in regular touch with them, said: “This was a war crime, it was not an accident. The house stood alone, it was not attached to any other building.
“There was no one from Hamas there, there were no troops; it was clearly civilians”.
On Thursday, the first anniversary of Dima’s death, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his now sacked defence minister Yoav Gallant were issued with arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe both men and Hamas commander, Mohammed Deif, bore “criminal responsibility” for crimes during the war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel says Deif was killed in July. Both Hamas and Israel strenuously deny the allegations.
Gerry said: “On a day of profound sadness for Dima’s family and us, the arrest warrants are a sign of hope.
“It gives us a slim hope that one day there will be justice, not just for Dima and her family, but all victims of war crimes. It was hugely significant for everyone who believes in justice, in accountability that this has come about on the anniversary of her death.”
Now Gerry is determined to fulfil Dima’s wish that the “world know the truth” of what is happening to people in Gaza and the West Bank, where more Palestinians have been killed or evicted from their homes in settler violence.
“Sometimes you just despair that nothing seems to stop the killing and the massacre,” Gerry said. “But when I speak to friends from the West Bank or other people I know, they say please continue to protest, to use your voice because we can’t.
“Please talk about Palestine, don’t let it slip off the news agenda, continue to speak about it.
“It does motivate me to do all I can to share it with people, to speak about the people we know, to make it personal. The reality is that nowhere on the Globe has seen a massacre of this scale.
“The people in Gaza ask us why are our lives worth less than others. I would encourage everyone to do what they can to raise awareness of the injustices that are going on just now.”
People can show their support by attending rallies organised by Paisley 4 Palestine in Renfrewshire and by others in Glasgow. They can also donate to Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP) and other agencies offering aid including the United Nations.
Paisley 4 Palestine can be contacted at [email protected]
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