I got a match on Bumble for the first time in two weeks. Her name was Rose, and I really liked her profile. As an ‘opening move question’ she asked, ‘What’s your ideal first date,’ so I responded, ‘Holding hands while sky diving- although that’s definitely not happening on our first date!’ Then I sat in the living room watching NBA highlights, hoping she would reply.

I grabbed my phone as soon as it chimed, but instead of Rose it was Shalzed. “Doctors Without Borders is planning to stop working in Gaza,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied, checking if maybe by chance Rose had also messaged at the same time.

“I can’t understand it,” Shalzed continued. “Israel is just asking basic questions for its own security. How could an organization devoted to helping victims of conflict pick up and leave because of that?”

Suddenly, I was in the black tunnel with points of light. I wished I had my phone with me, but it was no longer in my hand. It might not even work wherever Shalzed was taking me. Then I was outside a large, white medical tent. It had rows of folding chairs, filled with people waiting. Children were running and crawling around on the floor. There was a row of smaller tents with examining tables outside. Doctors and nurses wearing white scrubs with the Doctors Without Borders logo hurried about.

Shalzed was next to me, looking around. “Gaza city,” he said. Then he caught site of a woman with short hair and large, round glasses walking towards the road. He strode towards her, and so I followed.

“Excuse me,” Shalzed called. “Can you explain why Doctors Without Borders is threatening to leave?”

The woman turned, and I saw she was wearing an ID that said ‘Claire San Felippo, Emergency Coordinator for Palestine.’

“Are you with Israel?” she asked, looking at Shalzed suspiciously. “If so, you can’t be here.” She put her hands on her hips.

Even though I wasn’t an Israeli citizen, I still felt uncomfortable being in Gaza. I moved closer to Shalzed.

Shalzed shook his head. “I just want to understand why you are threatening to leave rather than complete the simple registration process the Israeli government now requires.”

San Felippo glanced towards the road, where a man holding a clipboard was waiting. “Simple process?” she asked. “They want to know the identities of all our staff, Palestinian and international. What if Israel uses the information to target them? Do you know how many humanitarian workers have already been killed by the Israeli army?”

“A lot of so-called humanitarian workers are also Hamas,” I told her.

“We would never knowingly employ anyone engaged in military activity,” she shot back.

To my surprise, Shalzed interrupted. “Israel says you have.”

San Felippo shook her head. “It was just a few isolated incidents. We dealt with it right away.”

A woman in her early twenties wearing a badge identifying her as a nurse passed by. “I don’t want you giving my name to the genocide army,” she said.

One of my brothers moved to Haifa and is in IDF reserves, and I have several cousins also in the army. It makes me mad to hear people say that.

“We won’t do anything without your consent,” San Felippo told to the nurse. Then she turned to Shalzed. “That’s what this is really about, Israel is trying to scare away all our employees to force us out.”

“If you go around accusing Israel of genocide, why would you expect its government to cooperate?” I asked San Felippo.

She turned to me. “Bearing witness is one of our key principles, no matter where we work. We see genocide with our own eyes as we struggle to treat the wounded. Our mission requires us to speak up.”

“You can’t see genocide,” I told her. “That’s just your opinion. Israel believes everything it does is necessary in self-defense.”

“Isn’t neutrality one of your core principles also?” Shalzed asked her. “Accusing Israel of genocide, along with calling for boycotts and arms embargoes, hardly seems neutral.”

I heard a siren in the distance. All three of us turned, and I saw what looked like an ambulance approaching.

“Neutrality means we give medical treatment to anyone in need without conditions,” San Felippo said. “But neutrality doesn’t stop us from speaking out about what we are witnessing here on the ground.”

A nurse went to the waiting tent and called a name. A boy who seemed like eight or nine got up. His left foot was in a bandage, and he hopped along by leaning on what looked like a broomstick under his armpit. The siren was getting louder. A man came by, pushing an empty wheelchair towards the road. “Just in case,” he said to San Felippo.

“Do you know what it is?” she asked.

The man shook his head. “Electricity is out, so there’s no internet. I know nothing.”

San Felippo turned to Shalzed as soon as the man passed by. “The security concerns are just lies Israel is using to try to push us out and deny Gaza residents medical care. And if we leave, they know exactly what will happen,” she said.

“Rather than address Israel’s concerns, you’re trying to stir up global outrage about hundreds of thousands of people left without medical care so you can keep doing everything exactly the way you want,” I told her.

“Look at the Red Cross,” Shalzed added. “They don’t go on social media campaigning for embargoes or boycotts, and Israel has never threatened to kick them out.”

“That’s their choice,” San Felippo said. “The Red Cross stays silent in order to preserve access. Our values are different than theirs.”

A Red Crescent ambulance pulled up and several people got out. The driver immediately started arguing with the man who had brought the wheelchair, who was helping an elderly man who was clutching both hands to his chest out the back. They spoke in Arabic, so I couldn’t understand them.

“I’ve got to go,” San Felippo said, starting towards the road. “But just to let you know, in the end we are planning to comply with Israel’s requirements. They’ll probably still try to kick us out anyway.”

The man with the wheelchair smiled when he saw her, and she said something to the driver that seemed to calm him down. Then I was back in the black tunnel, and a moment later in my apartment. It took me a moment to orient myself to being back home. I suddenly felt thankful that I lived in the United States, where we have electricity and health care, rather than Gaza.

My phone chimed. I looked around and Shalzed wasn’t with me, so I thought maybe he was calling. But instead it was a message from Rose. It said, ‘Ha ha. I’d rather donate the money we’d spend on sky diving to an organization that helps people in need, like Doctors Without Borderes. What about you?”

I chuckled. I’m all for helping people in need, but I’d prefer an organization that isn’t so anti-Israel. I wondered whether I should try to explain that to Rose, or if that would end our relationship before it even had a chance to get started.