Latest news with #alShifaHospital
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Gaza doctors ‘becoming too weak to treat patients' as hunger crisis deepens
Doctors and medical staff in Gaza say their increasing hunger and the lack of available food is beginning to leave them too weak to provide urgent medical care to patients inside hospitals full of malnourished and injured civilians. Almost a dozen medical staff across the territory have told the Guardian and the Arabic Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) of their increasingly desperate search for food and declining physical health due to hunger. 'They are in a state of extreme exhaustion. Some have fainted in the operating rooms,' said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, who said that like the people of Gaza, staff had not received any aid or had any meals in the past 48 hours. 'Medical services will be affected because our staff will not be able to hold out any longer in the face of this famine,' he added. Many of the doctors and medical practitioners who sent messages to the Guardian did not want to be named as they feared being targeted by the Israeli military. 'Today I have been on a 24-hour shift,' said one physician at al-Shifa hospital. 'At [the hospital] they are supposed to give us some rice for each shift, but today they told us there was none. My colleague and I [treated] 60 neurosurgery patients and right now I can't even stand.' Another general practitioner volunteering at al-Shifa hospital said: 'I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday and my family has nothing to eat. All day, I am thinking how can I get them flour or lentils or anything to eat [but] here's nothing in the markets. We are no longer able to walk. We don't know what to do.' One surgeon at Nasser medical complex in Gaza said that the workload facing overstretched medical staff was increasing as more patients were being admitted for symptoms related to malnourishment. 'There are a high number of patients suffering from gastroenteritis, fainting and low blood sugar across all age groups of patients coming into the hospital,' he said. There is also a noticeable increase in post-surgical complications after operations due to malnutrition. 'I couldn't eat for two days because I feared worsening my own gastroenteritis, and because of my low blood pressure I had to stop during a surgery on a girl who had been shot in the abdomen,' he said. Abu Selmia said medical staff were still working despite the lack of food, but that the scale of the malnutrition they were facing in patients was putting a huge strain on an already depleted and exhausted workforce. He said that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the past three days 'due to malnutrition and starvation'. '[These patients] need special nutrition, but there isn't any, so they face risks,' he said. 'Some die in their tents and homes and no one knows about it.' Yesterday, the Unrwa chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said that his team had received reports of healthcare and aid workers across Gaza fainting due to hunger and exhaustion because of a lack of food. Some medical staff spoke of having to decide whether to remain at work and provide urgent medical care or go out on to the streets to search for food for their families. Others spoke of their fear of being forced to go to food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and guarded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which are the only place where food and aid is being allowed to be passed on to civilians in Gaza. Since May, more than 1,000 people have died while seeking food from the centres and other humanitarian convoys, according to the UN Gaza's healthcare system has been decimated during the 23 months of the conflict. In May, the World Health Organization said that at least 94% of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip were damaged or destroyed and only 19 of the Gaza Strip's 36 hospitals remained operational. 'In recent days, healthcare workers in Gaza have collectively reported unprecedented levels of food insecurity, lowered immunity, repeated infections, severe fatigue, and frequent fainting during surgeries and rescue missions,' said Muath Alser, director of Healthcare Worker Watch, a Palestinian medical organisation. 'We cannot afford mere condemnation. We need urgent action.' In a statement, the IDF said that it is working to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid in order to allow hospitals in Gaza to continue to operate. It also said that 'following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted in the Southern Command and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned. The aforementioned incidents are under review by the competent authorities in the IDF.'
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Gaza ‘horror show': 21 children die from starvation and malnutrition amid Israel offensive
The head of Gaza's largest hospital on Tuesday said 21 children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days, while Israel pressed a devastating assault. Advertisement Gaza's population of more than two million people is facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with residents frequently killed as they try to collect humanitarian aid at a handful of distribution points. 'Twenty-one children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in various areas across the Gaza Strip,' Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, told reporters. Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals 'every moment'. 'We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza,' he added. Advertisement UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Gaza a 'horror show' in a speech on Tuesday, with 'a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times'.
South China Morning Post
22-07-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Gaza ‘horror show' sees 21 children die from starvation and malnutrition, amid Israel offensive
The head of Gaza's largest hospital on Tuesday said 21 children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days, while Israel pressed a devastating assault. Gaza's population of more than two million people is facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with residents frequently killed as they try to collect humanitarian aid at a handful of distribution points. 'Twenty-one children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in various areas across the Gaza Strip,' Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, told reporters. Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals 'every moment'. 'We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza,' he added. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Gaza a 'horror show' in a speech on Tuesday, with 'a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times'.
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Pope condemns ‘barbarity' of Israel's war in Gaza
Pope Leo XIV has condemned the 'barbarity' of the war in Gaza and the 'indiscriminate use of force' as Gaza's health ministry said at least 73 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food. The Hamas-run ministry said on Sunday that the victims had been killed in different locations, mostly in northern Gaza. It said 67 of the dead had been killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Separately, the director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told the Associated Press that since Sunday morning the hospital had received 48 people who were killed and 150 wounded while seeking aid from lorries expected to enter Gaza at the Zikim crossing. He could not say whether the dead had been killed by the Israeli army, armed gangs or both. Before these reports emerged, the pope called for 'an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict' at the end of the Angelus prayer at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence near Rome. The pope also spoke of his anguish over the Israeli strike on Gaza's only Catholic church last week, which killed three people and injured 10. Among the injured was the parish priest, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis. Israel has expressed 'deep sorrow' and opened an investigation into the strike on the church, which was sheltering about 600 displaced people, most of them children and many with special needs. 'This act, unfortunately, adds to the ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,' the pope said on Sunday. 'I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.' On Sunday the UN's agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) said Israeli authorities were 'starving civilians in Gaza', including 1 million children. 'Unrwa has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses,' it said in an earlier social media post that included photos of a warehouse in Al Arish, Egypt. 'Open the gates, lift the siege, allow Unrwa to do its work and help people in need among them 1 million children,' the agency said. Unrwa said last week that babies were dying from 'severe acute malnutrition'. Israel banned all cooperation with Unrwa in Gaza and the West Bank, accusing the agency of having been infiltrated by Hamas, although an independent review found Tel Aviv had failed to provide evidence of its claims that Unrwa employees were members of terrorist organisations. The agency had been the main distributor of aid in Gaza and provider of basic services, including health and education, to Palestinians across the region. Since May aid has been largely distributed by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in place of the traditional UN-led system. Food has become scarce, and very expensive, since Israel imposed a blockade on 2 March. The UN has said that as of 13 July, 875 people had been killed in recent weeks trying to get food, including 674 in the vicinity of GHF sites. The remaining 201 victims were killed on the routes or close to aid convoys run by the UN or its partners. Children have been killed fetching water for their families. Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Sunday in areas of central Gaza packed with displaced Palestinians, a sign of an imminent attack on neighbourhoods in Deir al-Balah, which has alarmed the families of Israeli hostages, who fear their relatives are being held there. The Israeli military dropped leaflets from the sky ordering people in several districts in southwest Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have been sheltering, to leave their homes and head south. 'The [Israel] Defense Forces continues to operate with great force to destroy the enemy's capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area,' the military said. Israel's forces have not yet entered these districts during the current conflict because they suspect that Hamas might be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed still to be alive. The war was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, of whom 53 remain in Gaza. At least 58,895 Palestinians have been killed and 140,980 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
Al Jazeera
20-07-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
LIVE: Israel kills 38 aid seekers in Gaza as Israelis demand truce deal
Israeli forces continue to pound Gaza, after killing at least 116 Palestinians on Saturday. The victims include 38 people killed near food aid sites in Rafah. Two more Palestinians, including a 35-day-old infant, has died of malnutrition at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, according to a doctor, as a Muslim group in the United States accused Israel of 'forcibly' starving Palestinians in Gaza, 'backed by billions in US taxpayer-supplied weapons and aid'.
