The first time you came into my hospital, shards of glass shredding your tiny body, I saved you. The second time I failed

As news of the ceasefire ripples my way, my memory mocks me. Your face glides into focus from my mind’s abyss, where I had buried it.

You come into my emergency room at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza during the early morning hours. Your chubby cheeks blush with the night’s cold, heavy eyelashes dripping tears into the basins under your eyes. I save you this time. I do my job. Shards of glass stemming from an explosion caused by an Israeli airstrike shred your tiny arms and legs. I clean the wounds and stitch you up without even a modicum of pain relief. A niche torture for both of us. “Follow up in five days for suture removal post penetrating injury from secondary blast,” I write on your chart.

Seema Jilani is a paediatric specialist. She has worked in Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt and the Balkans. Her radio documentary, Israel and Palestine: The Human Cost of the Occupation, was nominated for the Peabody award