Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, and fellow guardians of life in the land of life and steadfastness (Al-Ribat).
Dr. Khalil Shaqfa, Director General of Nursing
Dr. Soha Baalousha, Director of Nursing at Al-Helou Hospital
Dr. Sameh Abu Ajwa, Director of Nursing at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital
Honored Guests, each in your respective names and titles,
Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
May God grant us and you immense solace and reward for every drop of blood spilled, and for every nurse and midwife who ascended as a martyr while carrying nothing but gauze and hope amidst the depths of despair.
Today, we stand together in a scientific and practical trench, proving to the entire world that the nursing profession in Gaza has never been just a "job," but rather a doctrine of resilience. Today, we are not speaking of dry theories found in textbooks; we are speaking of knowledge and practice baptized in blood, and expertise pulled from beneath the rubble.
Dear colleagues, you have broken every known academic rule. In international nursing textbooks, they speak of the "nurse-to-patient ratio," but in Gaza, you have turned a single nurse into an entire army facing hundreds of wounded in a single minute.
Nursing is no longer merely about measuring vital signs; you yourselves have become the sole and defining "sign of life" in cities of death. It is you who measure the pulse of Gaza with your fingers, placing your pure hands directly onto its wounds.
You managed intensive care units and operating rooms in the pitch black of night, guided only by the lights of mobile phones. Out of nothingness, you innovated alternatives for tools banned by the blockade and destroyed by bombardment.
We saw you refuse to leave hospitals under fire. We saw you bid farewell to your martyred colleagues, only to return immediately to finish bandaging the wounded. How many times did you return to your homes—if you had homes left—carrying the scent of death on your clothes, yet holding an iron determination in your hearts to return the next morning to plant the seeds of life?
What kind of hearts do you possess? What kind of faith dwells within your chests? The world teaches nursing in universities, but as for you... you are the textbook, the pen, the notebook, the teacher, and the student.
International Nurses Day comes this year to recognize the "Gazan School of Nursing"—the school that taught the world that a nurse is the field commander who decides, executes, heals, and consoles all at once.
A nurse in Gaza is "the victim and the savior" at the exact same moment. How many of you bandaged the wounds of others while not knowing that your own home had been bombed? How many of you received your own family members or professional colleagues on an ambulance stretcher?
We know that what overcomes you at times is not mere exhaustion, but a profound depletion of the soul, and we deeply honor that.
O angels of the earth, and prophets of humanity in this desolate era... raise your heads high, for you are the pride of Gaza and the treasure of Palestine. Blessed be those tired hands, and blessed be the hearts that still beat with mercy despite all this cruelty.
Continue your journey, for you are the support, you are the bandage, and you are the story that history will narrate from the corridors of healing, from operating rooms, from exhausted tents, from shelter centers, and from intensive care units—the story of a "White Army" that defeated death with love, resolve, and knowledge.
Your hands that bandage wounds are the purest thing we possess. And the fatigue in your sleepless eyes is the vigil that guards the survival of our people.
To the martyrs of the nursing profession, we say: You have not departed; you have merely moved from the narrow hospitals of this earth to the vastness of the Heavens. Today, your white coats are banners of glory fluttering above our heads. We promise you that we will never drop the banner, our resolve will never cool, and we will continue to heal the wounds of our people until the very last pain is mended.
Thanks