“The only thing worse than the screams of a patient undergoing surgery without sufficient anesthesia are the terrified faces of those waiting their turn,” says a 51-year-old surgeon. When Israeli bombing intensifies and the wounded flood the hospitals in Gaza City, where Dr. Nidal Abed works, he treats patients wherever he can: on the floor, in hallways, in rooms packed with up to ten patients instead. fingers.
Without enough medical supplies, Abed makes do with whatever he can find: clothing to use as bandages, vinegar as an antiseptic, sewing needles for surgical operations.
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are on the brink of collapse due to the Israeli blockade that cuts off power and the supply of food and other essential items to the territory. They lack drinking water. They are running out of basic items to relieve pain and prevent infections. Fuel for their generators is dwindling.
Israel began its bombing campaign after Hamas militants crossed the border on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 200. Israel’s offensive has devastated neighborhoods, closed five hospitals , killing thousands and injuring more people than the remaining health facilities can care for. “We have a shortage of everything and we are faced with very complex surgeries,” Abed, who works with Doctors Without Borders, told The Associated Press from Al Quds Hospital. The medical center is still treating hundreds of patients in defiance of an evacuation order the Israeli military gave on Friday.
Some 10,000 Palestinians displaced by the bombings have also taken refuge in the hospital compound. “All these people are terrified, and so am I,” the surgeon said. “But there is no way to evacuate.”
The first food, water and medicine arrived in Gaza from Egypt this Saturday after being detained at the border for days. Four trucks in the 20-truck aid convoy were carrying medicines and medical supplies, the World Health Organization said. “It was not enough to address Gaza’s growing humanitarian crisis. “It’s a nightmare. If more help does not arrive, I fear we will reach the point where going to a hospital will do more harm than good,” said Mehdat Abbas, an official in the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
In the territory’s hospitals, ingenuity is being put to the test. Abed used cooking vinegar from the corner store as a disinfectant until supplies ran out. Now, he cleans the wounds with a mixture of saline solution and the contaminated water dripping from the taps because Israel turned off the water.
Shortages of surgical supplies forced some staff to use sewing needles to sew up wounds, which Abed said can damage tissue. A shortage of bandages forced doctors to cover large burns with clothing, which he said can cause infections. The shortage of orthopedic implants forced Abed to use screws that do not fit his patients’ bones. There aren’t enough antibiotics, so he administers single pills instead of multiple courses to patients suffering from terrible bacterial infections.
“We are doing everything we can to stabilize patients and control the situation,” he said. “People are dying because of this.” When Israel cut off fuel supplies to the territory’s only power plant two weeks ago, Gaza’s noisy generators sprang to life to keep life-support equipment running in hospitals.
Authorities are desperately searching for diesel to keep them running. United Nations agencies are distributing the remaining stocks. Motorists are emptying their gas tanks. In some hospitals, the lights have already been turned off.
At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis this week, nurses and surgical assistants held their iPhones above the operating table, guiding surgeons with flashlights as they operated. At Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, where Abed also worked this week, the intensive care unit runs on generators, but most other wards have no electricity.
Air conditioning is a luxury of the past. Abed wipes away beads of sweat dripping from her patients’ foreheads while she operates. People injured in the airstrikes are overwhelming the facilities. Hospitals do not have enough beds for them. “Not even a normal hospital with equipment could cope with all this,” Abed said. “It would collapse.”
Shifa Hospital, with a maximum capacity of 700 people, treats 5,000 people, says general director Mohammed Abu Selmia. Lines of patients, some in critical condition, leave the operating rooms. The wounded lie on the floor or on stretchers, sometimes stained with the blood of previous patients. Doctors operate in crowded, moaning hallways. These scenes—babies arriving alone in intensive care because no one else in their family survived, patients awake and grimacing in pain during surgeries—have traumatized Abed to the point of numbness. But what still hurts him is having to choose which patients to prioritize. “You have to decide,” he said. “Because you know many won’t make it.”
