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Doctor stranded in Gaza returns to Detroit; he says those who chose to stay are ‘real heroes’

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Doctor stranded in Gaza returns to Detroit; he says those who chose to stay are ‘real heroes’

Romulus — Dr. Ammar Ghanem, who went to Gaza on a medical relief mission and had been stranded by an Israeli blockade there since May 6, returned on Saturday and was greeted as a hero by a crowd of family and friends at Detroit Metro airport.

Ghanem of West Bloomfield Township immediately embraced his children, who said they had been eagerly waiting at the international arrivals gate for his last flight home from Frankfurt to land.

“It was the best day of my life,” his daughter, 10-year-old Haneen Ghanem, said of the moment she learned he would be able to safely return.

Some doctors on the the medical mission chose to remain in Gaza, despite escalated danger with Israel’s latest military assault, Ghanem said.

“Those are the real heroes,” he said.

More: Closed border crossings trap Metro Detroit doctor on aid mission in Gaza

Ghanem, a pulmonary and critical care physician, had been working in the European Gaza Hospital’s ICU since May 1 as part of a humanitarian mission organized by the Syrian American Medical Society and the Palestinian American Medical Association.

Ghanem’s decision to join the mission in Gaza inspired many of his medicine colleagues, including Dr. Khaldoon Alaswad, of Grosse Pointe Park, the 58-year-old friend and colleague of Ghanem’s said.

“We have continuous trauma seeing people back in the Middle East being bombed, being starved, being pushed out of their homes and country, and now they are refugees,” Alaswad said of his experience as a Syrian American now witnessing similar news footage out of Gaza. “We have personal experience with tragedy, and this is just another layer of tragedy.”

Alaswad and others of Ghanem’s colleagues plan to celebrate and support him as best they can now that the doctor has returned to his home in Metro Detroit, he said.

“He is, to us, a national hero now,” Alaswad said. “He’s an American hero and a Syrian American hero.”

The humanitarian operation was scheduled to end May 6, but the West Bloomfield Township doctor and 18 colleagues, including 10 Americans, were trapped after Israel intensified its bombings on Rafah.

The Syrian American Medical Society, which Ghanem serves as vice president, stated in a Friday press release that Ghanem and his colleagues had been evacuated from the region “and are resting at the embassy in Israel.”

Ghanem said he witnessed Palestinian hospitals and health care workers stretched thin at the hospital in Khan Younis where he served. Some staff have been wearing the same single set of medical scrubs for months, he said.

Ghanem returned to Detroit with just one carry on bag of spare clothes in hand, having left the rest of his possessions in Gaza while evacuating, he said. Leaving his belongings to displaced Palestinians in need of clean clothes and a new suitcase was the least he could do in a final effort before leaving Gaza, he said.

Israeli officials claimed a strong Hamas presence necessitated the military strike on Rafah, where an estimated 1.3 million Palestinians were sheltering from previous Israeli attacks that displaced them from their homes across the northern Gaza strip.

Israeli troops seized the two border crossings for 10 days after the May 7 bombing, grinding incoming humanitarian aid shipments to a near halt for a week, according to the Associated Press. The attack stranded humanitarian workers like Ghanem.

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