‘Hungry treating the hungry': Gaza's doctors are collapsing as famine reaches hospitals

Indian Express

a day ago

Inside Gaza's Nasser Hospital, Dr Mohammad Saqer was midway through a shift when his vision blurred and his knees buckled. He hadn't eaten in nearly a day. 'My fellow doctors caught me before I collapsed,' he told CNN. 'They gave me IV fluids and sugar.' The only food around? A foreign doctor's small carton of juice.
That was all it took to bring him back — a reminder of just how little sustains Gaza's doctors now. Most are surviving on one plate of rice a day, even as they labour through 24-hour shifts surrounded by patients suffering from the same thing: hunger.
'We are physically drained,' Saqer said. 'The hungry treating the hungry. The weak treating the weak.'
This is not just a crisis behind hospital doors. It's a collapse — one unfolding in plain sight, one that is hollowing out Gaza's medical staff even as they fight to keep the dying alive.
In Nasser's paediatric wing, entire rows of babies lie quietly in cribs, their tiny bodies reduced to bone and skin. 'The bones in their faces, spines, and ribcages appear to be protruding,' CNN reported. 'Their limbs resemble limp noodles.'
Formula is scarce. Breastfeeding mothers can't produce milk without food. 'She needs fruits. She needs vegetables,' said Yasmin Abu Sultan, trying to feed her baby Mona through a syringe. 'But there's nothing.'
At Al-Tahrir Hospital, Dr Ahmad Al-Farra said the situation is so dire, staff are starting to mentally unravel. 'Most of them are now suffering from depression, general weakness, inability to concentrate, and memory loss,' he said. 'They've lost their passion for life.'
It's the kind of crisis that distorts a child's sense of the world. Dr Al-Farra recounted the moment he heard a little girl, too young to understand war, whisper to her mother after learning potassium comes from bananas — a fruit long gone from Gaza shelves.
'The girl asked her mother if there were bananas in paradise and she answered yes. The girl said 'then let's become martyrs so I can eat bananas and get better,'' Dr Al-Farra recalled.
'Can you imagine a child wishing for death just to get food?'
Outside the hospital, the desperation is no different.
In Gaza City, Hidaya Al Mtawwaq watches her three-year-old son wither. Mohammad weighs just six kilograms. 'He can't even stand on his feet,' she told CNN. 'All because of the famine.' Her husband is dead. She can barely afford a bottle of milk. 'I'm truly exhausted,' she said. 'Exhausted, exhausted.'
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid since May, according to the UN. Aid convoys are still being blocked or looted. Food prices are astronomical: flour now costs $92 (Rs 7,953.93) for just two kilograms, Dr Saqer said.
The UN says every one of Gaza's 2.1 million people is now food insecure. Gaza's Health Ministry estimates 900,000 children are going hungry. In just two weeks, Doctors Without Borders has seen severe malnutrition in children under five triple.
In northern Gaza, Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Hospital director Dr Fadel Naim said some of his colleagues have collapsed while operating. 'If we have one meal a day, we are lucky,' he told CNN. 'Most people are working 24/7. Their energy is gone.'
Doctors say the hunger is no accident. 'As peaceful Palestinian people, we are being collectively punished,' Dr Naim said. 'President Trump must take a strong stance.'
Meanwhile, Israel denies accusations that it is restricting aid, despite widespread warnings from the UN, WHO, and other agencies that the conditions amount to man-made famine.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, has called it 'mass starvation.'
Despite the exhaustion, Dr Saqer, who hasn't seen his family in three months, says he will not abandon his duty.
'This profession is rooted in humanity,' he told CNN. 'And under no circumstances can we abandon our duty or the oath we took.'