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Family, friends welcome home Michigan doctor who was trapped in Gaza on medical mission

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Family, friends welcome home Michigan doctor who was trapped in Gaza on medical mission

Back on U.S. soil for the first time in weeks, Dr. Ammar Ghanem smiled broadly Saturday, hugging and shaking hands with each of the roughly 25 friends and loved ones who had gathered to greet him in the international arrivals area at Detroit Metro Airport.

His daughter, Haneen, 10, and sons, Yaser, 22, and Zied, 16, couldn’t wait to see their father, who had been stranded in Gaza when the border with Egypt shut down amid increased fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces.

“I was worried that my dad wouldn’t come back,” said Haneen, who hopes now that he’s home, the family will be able to go to the zoo together to see the red pandas.

Ghanem told the Free Press: “I’m so happy to be here, so happy to see the support from my community. My kids and my family really went through a lot more than me, I will say, because they have been worried about my safety and they have had no updates.”

It has been a very long 18 days for Ghanem, a critical care physician and vice president of the Syrian American Medical Society. He volunteered to go on a humanitarian medical mission to the European Hospital near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza to help the sick and injured. He arrived May 1 in the Palestinian territory that has been ravaged by fighting, and where food, clean water and medical supplies are scarce.

But when the border closed and the Israeli Army ramped up its presence in Gaza in early May, with tanks in the streets in the nearby city of Rafah and bombs dropping from the sky, Ghanem realized he would be unable to return home as planned.

Dr. Amjad Rass, an internal medicine physician from Bloomfield Hills, tried to help secure his release.

“Things escalated, and the border crossing with Egypt was closed,” said Rass, who is past president of the medical society and Ghanem’s close friend. “This was when we started inquiring: How are we going to get him out? And nobody could give us an answer. They said, ‘Oh, we’ll wait on Rafah’s border crossing to open.’ And we were like, ‘What’s the timeline on this? What’s your plan B?’ And there was none.

“Then, we reached out to whoever we could reach. The WHO (World Health Organization), the National Security Council, the State Department, and thank God, he made it out.”

Ghanem’s wife, Amnah Allboani Ghanem, waited for him Saturday at their West Bloomfield home, where she hosted a celebration for his return, complete with trays of fresh fruit and Middle Eastern pastries.

A friend used FaceTime to call her from the airport so she could see that her husband had made it there safely. Tears of joy spilled from her eyes.

An hour later, the family’s home was full of friends and family, all of whom gathered to welcome Ghanem. He sat beside his wife in the living room, his hand on her leg, talking about his ordeal and plans for the future.

Though he’d been traveling for nearly 24 hours, Ghanem said he is coming back to the U.S. reenergized.

“I’m not going to say I’m tired,” he said. “I’m saying I have a lot of work to do.”

Ghanem said he won’t be deterred from traveling again to help people who are suffering and are in need of medical care.

“Regardless of the country, I want to go in other places,” Ghanem said. “I want to do more humanitarian work. I’m more insistent about doing this.”

The horrors of what he witnessed are fresh in his mind.

When a home was bombed a little more than a football field’s length from the hospital, Ghanem said the entire family came to the emergency department to be treated for their injuries. But the youngest among them didn’t survive.

“Five children, all siblings, died,” he said. “The rest of the family had injuries but we were still working on them. You hear these stories on a daily basis.

“I am against killing of civilians — anytime, anywhere,” Ghanem said. “We have to stop this war. This is what the people have as a request. They are dying … in massive amount, and unless we do something for them, we really are going to be in a big loss for humanity forever.”

In Gaza, he said, “every corner has a story of suffering, but at the same time, you see a lot of hope.”

And gratitude, too. Even the sick, the wounded, the exhausted Palestinians he treated in the hospital who had fled their homes and left behind all of their belongings still found something to share with Ghanem to thank him for his assistance.

“They appreciate you — even though they are suffering and they know they are stuck there … they always give you something,” whether it be a small gift, a cup of tea, something sweet to eat.

His wife said she knows that when the time comes for Ghanem to go on another medical relief mission, she will agree to it.

“I know some people need his help,” Allboani Ghanem said. But perhaps, she suggested, he could wait a little while before he leaves again. “I need time to recover, or maybe get strong.”

Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Free Press.

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