KZN pharmacist returns from war-ravaged Gaza

The first time Mahomed Zahir Haniff heard a bomb, it was still dark. He and other volunteers had arrived at Nasser Hospital in Gaza only hours earlier in January. The air was cold and heavy with exhaustion.

Somewhere inside the hospital complex, a mosque had been set up beneath a canvas tent. When it was time for Fajr prayer, just before sunrise, a local man quietly escorted Haniff there,reportsNewcastle Advertiser. He stood behind the Imam, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, and began to pray.

“I was standing behind the Imam, praying as normal,” Haniff recalls. “And then all of a sudden, I heard it for the first time in my life.” The explosion tore through the silence. “It was absolutely terrifying.”The tent shuddered violently.

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A deep vibration surged up from the ground, through his feet, into his chest, rattling his entire body. The sound was deafening, close enough to feel, close enough to imagine it landing beside him. “I promise you, I was absolutely terrified in that moment,” he says.

“I had no clue what to do next. It felt like it was next to me. That’s how loud it was.

I didn’t know if I should turn and run. I didn’t know if this was an attack. I had all these questions running through my head.” But then he noticed something strange.

No one moved. The Imam continued reciting. His voice did not tremble.

There was no hesitation, no pause, no crack of fear. The men standing around Haniff remained steady, as if the earth had not just shaken beneath them. “And nobody flinched,” he says.

“The Imam was busy reading aloud. His voice didn’t even shake. There was no stutter.

That was so comforting. I felt that if something was going to happen, I would have seen it in them.” By the end of his two-week rotation, the sound of bombs no longer startled him. “What I didn’t get used to,” he says, “was what comes after.” Whenever an explosion echoed across the skyline, he and the other volunteers would head straight for the emergency room. Like clockwork, they would begin to arrive 30 to 45 minutes later.

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