‘We lose many patients’: Inside Gaza’s last hospitals

Dr. Moataz Harara – HEAD OF EMERGENCY ROOM AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: 

Hospitals have become targets for the Israeli occupation and the Israeli army. Many hospitals have been destroyed. They have been taken out of service and burned. Doctors, nurses, and medical teams have been kidnapped from hospital premises. It’s become difficult at times to convince some medical staff to remain in the hospital. They tell you: “Maybe the Israelis will come at night and kidnap me like they did my colleague?” 

Narrator: 

The abduction – or worse – of Gaza’s medical workers is a documented reality. According to NGO Healthcare Workers Watch: Since October 2023, Israeli forces have detained at least 405 Palestinian healthcare workers, including 28 specialist doctors – among them surgeons, pediatricians, and ICU specialists. Twenty staff were kidnapped from hospitals during military raids; while others were detained while evacuating. Two senior physicians reportedly died in detention from torture, their bodies are still being held by Israeli authorities. 

Dr. Moataz Harara – HEAD OF EMERGENCY ROOM AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: 

All resources, capabilities, and supplies have been exhausted. Before, to treat one patient, the whole hospital would come to your aid to treat one patient with a serious injury. Now, hundreds of serious injuries arrive, and you might find one staff member working on one patient. Or you find one doctor treating ten patients, and they are all serious injuries. Of course, this affects the quality of the work; we lose many patients. 

Dr. Sara Khodr Al Hin – EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: 

There’s a shortage of medicine and a shortage of space, so we’re forced to treat patients in the corridors. We are admitting around 800 people every day in the Emergency Room, every 24 hours. 

Dr. Moataz Harara – HEAD OF EMERGENCY ROOM AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: 

The air strikes, artillery, and tank fire have not stopped—this is one problem. We have faced an additional problem, which is the injured people waiting for aid, because they went to the aid distribution sites in Netzarim or Zikim. Those injured at the aid distribution sites come in large numbers because they are all gathered in one place. So, any strikes or shootings create huge casualties. Imagine that in one or two hours, you get 100 or 200 injured people. If we accept more cases, we will have to admit them on the floor and treat them on the floor. 

Narrator: 

The dangers at aid distribution sites are catastrophic. According to the UN Human Rights Office: Between the 30th and 31st of July – over the course of one day – 105 Palestinians were killed and 680 injured near aid routes in Zikim, Khan Younis, and GHF sites.

Since May, at least 1,373 people have died while seeking food. The OHCHR states most killings were committed by Israeli forces, with no evidence those targeted posed any threat. 

Dr. Moataz Harara – HEAD OF EMERGENCY ROOM AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL:  

Medical teams are the only people who are still working in Gaza, compared to other institutions. Imagine a doctor arrives, and he’s hungry—he hasn’t eaten, he’s thinking about his children, his family—how to get food for them: bread, flour, water. They are suffering just like everyone else, and to that, they have to witness a lot of injuries, wounds, corpses, body parts, and blood. It’s been about two years that they have been witnessing these scenes. Of course, it’s had an impact on their mental state. 

Dr. Sara Khodr Al Hin – EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR AT AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: 

Medicine is a humanitarian profession. It used to be hard before; now, it’s even harder. Mostly, doctors don’t find time to rest, working sometimes for more than 24 hours. I believe that my role is still active and important, in the service of the sick, even though the challenges have increased in light of these circumstances. But we are ready to continue—even until our last breath.