From Gaza to Kyiv, a Palestinian doctor lives between two wars
In war-torn Ukraine, he is Alya Shabaanovich Gali, a popular doctor with a line of patients waiting to see him. To his family thousands of kilometers away in the besieged Gaza Strip, he is Alaa Shabaan Abu Ghali, the one who left.
For the past 30 years, these identities rarely had cause to merge: Gali moved away amid instability in Gaza, settled into his new home in Kyiv, adopted a different name to better suit the local tongue, and married a Ukranian woman. Through calls, he kept up with his mother and siblings in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. But mostly, their lives played out in parallel.
In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw Gali’s life into chaos, with air raids and missile attacks. Nearly 20 months later, the war between Israel and Hamas turned his hometown into a hellscape, uprooting his family.
Both are violent conflicts that have upset regional and global power balances, but they can seem worlds apart as they rage on. Ukraine has lambasted allies for coming to Israel’s defense while its own troops languished on the frontlines. Palestinians have decried double standards in international support. In each place, rampant bombardment and heavy fighting have killed tens of thousands and wiped out entire towns.