Last week, my son Khaled cut his finger and urgently needed stitches. I wrapped his small hand in a clean piece of cloth and carried him through the shattered streets of Gaza City. Our first stop was Al-Shifa Hospital.
The hospital was a scene of chaos and bloodbath.
The emergency room overflowed, bodies lay on mats in the hallways, some barely moving, some not moving at all. The moans, the shouted names, the rush of gurneys made my voice almost vanish when I pleaded for a nurse.
No one heard me. I waited for nearly two hours, hoping someone would help, but all in vain, until a nurse told me, “There are hundreds here waiting for treatment. The Israeli strikes haven’t stopped. The doctors prioritize those who are critically injured, saving lives or preventing amputations.”
I left the hospital, rushing to another, Al-Rantisi Hospital. “We don’t have sutures,” a tired paramedic told me. “Go to the Baptist Hospital, they might have.”
I left, holding Khaled close. He was crying from the pain, blood soaking both my clothes and his.
The Baptist Hospital wasn’t much better. The waiting room was crowded with ash-covered children and mothers holding them tightly, all eyes fixed on the medics whenever they spoke, hoping it would be their turn.
It took me two hours to reach the hospital, half the journey on foot and the rest by cart. The hospital gates were open, but the staff looked overwhelmed.
“No antibiotics. No anesthesia. Only thread to stitch the wound. I’m sorry, sister,” the nurse told me.
By then, the cloth wrapped around Khaled’s finger was soaked through. He rested his head on my shoulder as I glanced up at the sky, a thick plume of smoke rising in the distance after an Israeli attack.
I didn’t have the luxury to cry while mothers around me were losing their sons to Israeli assaults. My heart ached as the nurse began stitching Khaled’s finger without anesthesia, and he cried out in pain.
Silent Suffering in Gaza: Lives Are Being Lost
Nouran Muhammed, a nurse at the Baptist Hospital, described for me the grim reality within its walls. Since the early months of the Israeli assault, she explained, doctors have been forced to prioritize the most critically injured due to severe shortages of medicine and medical supplies, compounded by the overwhelming number of casualties.
“There are days when we have ten injured patients and only enough resources to treat one,” she said.
“We choose the one closest to death. The rest… they suffer, waiting for a turn that may never come. We don’t even have basic equipment. We perform surgeries without anesthesia.”
The weeks-long Israeli blockade on aid, including vital medical supplies, along with repeated attacks on hospitals and medical centers, has pushed Gaza’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse.
Patients with complex injuries wait in vain for care that doesn’t exist, according to the nurse.
“There are dozens of critically injured people who need specialized doctors, equipment, and medicine we simply don’t have here,” she added. “And while they wait, they die, quietly, painfully, and unseen.”
Timeline: Israel’s Attacks on Gaza’s Healthcare System Since Start of Genocide
Israel has repeatedly struck hospitals across the Gaza Strip since the beginning of its assault on the enclave in October 2023.
Andrew Cayley, who is leading the International Criminal Court (ICC) Palestine investigation, questioned the reliability of claims about Hamas’s military activity in Gaza’s hospitals which have been made by the Israeli military to justify the attacks on healthcare facilities in the war-torn enclave.
He said: “I think that has been grossly exaggerated, but we need to be able to demonstrate very clearly what the level of military presence was, if at all, in these hospitals because I think we’ve been misled about that in the press.”
Hospitals, as well as medical infrastructure and personnel, have specific protections under international humanitarian law. Attacks against them are prohibited, but there are certain circumstances in which medical facilities can lose their protected status if they are used for combat activity.
Here’s a list of some of the major attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October 2023:
October 17, 2023
Hundreds of people sheltering in the car park of al-Ahli Hospital were killed in an Israeli attack, according to Palestinian health officials. In the days leading up to the incident, the hospital director reportedly received warnings from Israel. Israel claimed that the explosion at the facility was misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an allegation denied by the armed group.
November 3, 2023
An ambulance convoy was destroyed by an Israeli air attack outside al-Shifa Hospital, killing many Palestinians.
November 21, 2023
An air raid on al-Awda Hospital killed Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr. Ahmad al-Sahar of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and another doctor, Ziad al-Tatari.
January 22, 2024
Several people were killed while sheltering about 150 metres (about 500 feet) from the entrance of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Evacuees sheltering in the area suffered due to attacks and forced evacuation orders.
March 20, 2024
The Israeli military said it killed 90 people in its raid on al-Shifa Hospital during a siege as displaced Palestinians sheltering in the facility described long detentions and abuse.
March 31, 2024
Many people were killed and injured in an air raid on the yard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, just outside the emergency room where many internally displaced people were sheltering.
April 1, 2024
A 14-day siege of al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the enclave, by Israeli forces saw hundreds of people killed, including medical staff, and mass arrests of its staff and others.
October 14, 2024
An Israeli air attack on Al-Aqsa Hospital killed five people and wounded 65. Tents of displaced people caught fire while people were sleeping.
December 28, 2024
The Israeli forces arrested Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, after refusing to follow orders to abandon one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. His arrest came a day after the military killed approximately 20 Palestinians in a raid inside the hospital, which was one of the “largest operations” conducted in the territory until that time.
November 2023
Israeli forces laid siege to the Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahiya for days. The Israeli forces left the hospital in ruins, with charred and decomposing bodies piling up in corners.
January 4, 2025
The Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza was put out of service following repeated attacks by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
March 23, 2025
Israeli forces shot 15 Palestinian medics, working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, dead during a rescue mission in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood.
Gaza’s Healthcare System on the Brink of Collapse
On Tuesday, the UN confirmed that the health sector in Gaza is in a critical situation with “45 percent of essential supplies are already out of stock. Nearly a quarter more could run out within 6 weeks”. It added that “vital medicines” were nearly depleted.
Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, warned this week that Gaza’s health sector is facing a total collapse, where machines are shut down, and people’s lives are lost before help can even reach them. Here’s some insights:
Medical Disaster in Numbers
- 22 out of 38 hospitals out of service
- Only 61 of 157 primary care centers partially functioning
- 100% shortage in cardiac surgery and catheterization supplies
- 86% shortage in eye surgery supplies
- 47% shortage in medicine
- +65% shortage in medical supplies
- 87% shortage in orthopedic surgery supplies
- Operating rooms, incubators, and ventilators shut down
Israeli Attacks on Health Sector
- 720 on medical facilities
- 186 attacks on ambulances
- 1,581 medical staff killed
- 360 medical teams abducted
- 917 people killed and over 1,000 injured inside hospitals
- 70 patients abducted from medical facilities
- Medical teams working under fire
The World Health Organization also warned on Tuesday that Gaza’s health system is “at a breaking point,” citing Israeli military operations, mass displacement, and blocked humanitarian access pushing medical services across the strip toward collapse.
“As global attention shifts to escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, Gaza continues to be decimated–largely out of sight, but not out of danger,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, told a UN briefing in Geneva.
Only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently partially functional, with just four, including Nasser Medical Complex, serving as referral facilities.
“The health system simply can’t afford the loss of Nasser hospital,” Peeperkorn said.
Located within an evacuation zone announced last week, the hospital is “currently the sole provider of ICU and neurosurgery services in Khan Younis” and its dialysis unit “is currently serving more than 200 patients,” he said.
In Gaza City, Al-Shifa Hospital is operating at a “200% bed occupancy rate,” he said, while Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis “is currently completely inaccessible due to ongoing military operations in the vicinity and is unable to admit new cases, hence non-functional.”
Fuel and medical supply shortages are severely impacting care. “More than 50% of WHO’s medical stocks in Gaza are depleted,” and “33 WHO trucks await at Al Arish and 15 in the West Bank,” he said.
“Seventeen hospitals, seven field hospitals, and 43 primary health centers — barely running on minimum daily fuel — will soon have none left.”
“Since March 18, 2025, only 6 medical evacuations have taken place,” while “over 10,000 people need medical evacuation outside Gaza.”
“Without fuel,” Peeperkorn warned: “All levels of care will cease, leading to more preventable deaths and suffering.”
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Nour Dawood is a Gaza based writer
Originally published in Quds News Network
