Ramallah, Occupied West Bank —
For over 16 months, loss and grief have haunted the granite-floored corridors of the Retno Hotel.
On the evening of October 6, 2023, the family-run hotel was nearly fully occupied. Among the 70 or so guests were Palestinian Americans, but the majority were from Gaza. Expecting to return home soon, they had packed only enough clothes for a week’s stay.
Among them were 72-year-old Ahmed Ayyash, a civil engineer from Gaza City, and his 62-year-old wife, Maha. Also present were 44-year-old Shadia Abu Mrahil from Deir el-Balah and her 25-year-old son, Karam.
Like most guests from Gaza, they were regular visitors to the modest limestone building with its 45 double- or triple-bed rooms. It wasn’t the quiet north Ramallah street or the small courtyard with its plastic tables and chairs that drew them—though on sunny days, guests would sip coffee under the bright pink bougainvilleas.
They came for medical treatment—for cancer, heart problems, and developmental disorders—unavailable in Gaza. Both Ahmed and Shadia have leukemia.
They would travel via the Beit Hanoon crossing, managed by the Israeli army and known to Israelis as Erez, in northern Gaza to Ramallah. They’d stay at the hotel for a few days while receiving treatment before returning home. Relatives often accompanied them, and some had been doing this for years. For Ahmed and Maha, these trips also offered a chance to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and enjoy kunafa with friends in Nablus, 50km away.
October 6, 2023, was a quiet Friday. Most businesses in Ramallah were closed, and many guests took a break from treatment. Ahmed and Maha, married for 44 years, went to pray at a nearby mosque. They had arrived the previous day and bought bread, cheese, chocolate, fruits, and vegetables for their stay. That evening, they dined in the hotel’s dining hall, chatted with fellow guests, and retired to bed.
When they awoke the next morning, everything had changed. Following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, Israel launched a massive bombardment of Gaza, cutting off food, water, and electricity. The Palestinian American guests fled, while those who stayed—hospital patients and their families—waited anxiously for news from Gaza. Phone services were down, and many were unable to reach loved ones. Some crowded into the hotel owner’s office to watch the news on TV, wondering what the escalating war would mean for their families and treatments.
Ahmed stayed in his room, scrolling through Telegram updates from journalists in Gaza. Guests who managed to contact loved ones during sporadic phone service restored shared their news with others. Many never got through.
“Some guests lost their children in the first month of the war, and I heard of the martyrdom of many family members—my cousin’s children, his wife, my cousin and her husband, and their children, as well as some friends,” Ahmed recalled.
“The bad news was constant.”
Stranded at the Retno
Since 2017, the Retno Hotel has housed patients and their families from Gaza during their visits to Istishari Hospital, a 10-minute taxi ride away.
It is part of a network of accommodations—mostly hotels, but also UNRWA facilities—that house Palestinians granted temporary permits by Israel to leave Gaza for medical treatment in the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, and beyond. The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Health covers the treatment costs.
Over the years, 66-year-old Nawaf Hamed, the hotel’s owner and manager, has tried to keep the place cheerful. The common areas often filled with music—Western folk, classical Arabic—and guests would sometimes play the instruments Nawaf kept in the lobby: a tabla, guitar, or qanun. “We would sing and dance!” he reminisced wistfully. Those joyful nights stopped with COVID lockdowns and never fully returned.
When the war began, the permit arrangements for patients from Gaza quickly broke down. Those in Jerusalem hospitals had to flee to the West Bank, scrambling to register with the PA and find new hospitals. None could return to Gaza.
“The people were very afraid of the future,” Nawaf recalled.
Today, 400 patients from Gaza are registered with the PA, staying in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, and Jenin. Over the months, more patients have moved into the Retno. It is now a temporary home to 33 adult and 14 child patients, plus 37 family members. Seven patients at the hotel have died since the war began. As the others continue their health battles, their homes and former lives have been destroyed.
On a November afternoon, Shadia sat on a light gray couch in the hotel lobby, where many guests gather. “What the war has done to my family, to my home, to my Gaza, kills me more every day than the cancer ever will,” she sighed.
As frail residents emerged from the elevator, they greeted one another before heading to the hospital in shared taxis. A shuttle bus would bring them back later.
Karam, his hair and beard neatly groomed, sat beside his mother with his hands gently clasped. Nearby, Ahmed, in a blue sweater and green button-down shirt, slouched in his chair, while Maha smiled warmly at passing residents. Others stopped at the front desk to ask for fresh towels or to complain about noisy neighbors.
“Our feelings are in Gaza, and it impacts every moment of our lives,” said an exhausted Shadia. “I am tired and sick from the cancer treatment. And our thoughts of the future, of continuing day after day, are clouded not only by our life-threatening illnesses but by the total destruction sweeping our homes, families, and communities in Gaza.”
They Cry at Night
Nawaf, a stout man often with reading glasses on a cord around his neck, runs the family business while stopping to chat with guests.
In his small office next to the lobby, Nawaf peers through the glass doors, beckoning guests inside for coffee. The black leather couches are arranged in a semicircle around a table, making the space more inviting. Guests come to discuss their treatments, watch the news, or sit by the fireplace on cold winter nights.
One sunny afternoon, as Nawaf sipped Arabic coffee in the courtyard, Ahmed approached. “How are you, my friend?” Nawaf called out, shaking Ahmed’s hand.
“Peace be upon you,” Ahmed replied with a faint smile before heading inside.
“That man was a great civil engineer in Gaza!” Nawaf declared as Ahmed disappeared through the entrance.
Nawaf and his father, Nayef, started building the hotel in 2000 and opened it four years later. They ran it together until Nayef passed away two years ago. Nawaf’s 11 siblings and his two daughters, in their 20s and early 30s, are all involved in the family business.
Most hotels in the occupied West Bank are empty these days, with tourism halted and travel restricted. The Retno is a rare exception. However, even with its occupancy, the hotel is under financial strain. While the PA covers patients’ accommodation costs, payments became erratic when Israel began withholding the PA’s tax revenues in April.
“Every week, we struggle to figure out how to pay the bills the next week,” Nawaf explained, sitting in the courtyard lined with potted citrus trees. “We don’t know what to do, how to spend money for breakfast. Since June, the workers haven’t received their regular salaries,” he added, referring to his 20 employees.
From the time breakfast is served, Nawaf keeps the hotel running while addressing residents’ concerns, like broken bulbs or faulty toilets.
Over time, some guests have grown restless. Some get aggressive, while others worry that after 16 months of living in the hotel for free, the arrangement won’t last.
“Some of them don’t let us clean their rooms,” Nawaf explained. “They think we’re just going to use
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