Small things, simple gestures or just unsaid things that haunt the corridors like ghosts: since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, something has changed at Rambam hospital in Haifa. In ordinary times, the establishment, where Jews and Arabs – Muslims, Christians and Druze – work, nevertheless enjoys a peaceful climate, in the heart of one of the most mixed cities in Israel.
In this country bristling with political, social, religious and geographical barriers, the public hospital usually represents a kind of oasis, where communities live and work in harmony. But, after October 7 and the Hamas attack in southern Israel, then Israel’s military response in Gaza and the West Bank, fine cracks appeared. Although most caregivers continue to work smoothly and do their best to maintain team cohesion, a deep unease runs through the services.
The first thing that strikes you when you arrive at Rambam Hospital, the fourth largest in the country, are the Israeli flags: small ones, big ones, simple pennants or real standards, installed on the facade, at the entrance, but also in all services. The establishment is not an exception in Israel, where these banners have flourished everywhere since the massacres committed by Hamas. Officially, the blue and white flag is that of the entire population, Israeli Jews and Arabs combined, the latter representing approximately 20% of the population. But Palestinians in Israel, as they self-identify, cannot recognize themselves as easily as Jews in this Star of David emblem. However, in Rambam, as in other public spaces, Arab staff now work in the shadow of this not entirely neutral symbol.
To avoid a possible deepening of the fissures, the official narrative appears to have been carefully cemented. Certainly, the situation is not easy, admit those responsible for the establishment, but it is under control. It must be said that the balance between communities is priceless in this institution where, according to Avi Weissman, deputy director of the establishment, Arabs represent a good third of the caregivers. That is to say approximately the percentages recorded in the entire public hospital sector: 25% of doctors, 30% of nurses and 60% of pharmacists were Israeli Arabs in 2021, according to figures communicated by Doctor Bishara Bisharat, president of the Arab Population Health Society in Israel. Suffice it to say that the country cannot do without these graduates, who have sometimes chosen this path due to lack of being able to pursue other professions, in tech for example, too linked to the army to be accessible to them (Israeli Arabs are exempt from compulsory military service).
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