‘We are witnessing tragic stories’: Gaza doctors struggle with scarce supplies, evacuation warnings

Dr Fadel Naim, head of the orthopaedic department in Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, had just finished a surgery on the evening of October 17 when he heard the “sound of two rockets” closing in. The false ceiling in the operation theatre collapsed. Though he sustained an injury on his head, Naim managed to run out.

“When I came out in the courtyard, it was full of body parts,” Naim told Scroll on a phone call from Gaza city. “…Dead people, injured people. We tried to help as many as we could.”

The explosion at the 41-year-old hospital in south of Gaza city killed between 300 and 500 people –patients, medical staff and displaced people who had taken shelther there.

“This was a big massacre,” Naim said. “Hundreds of people were thrown away.”

The source of attack on Al-Ahli Arab hospital remains contested. Authorities in Gaza have blamed Israel but Tel Aviv claims it was the result of a misfired rocket by Hamas.

Though hospitals and schools are counted as protected civilian establishments under international humanitarian law, data from the World Health Organisation shows that at least 51 health facilities have been attacked since Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7.

According to the Gaza health ministry, 49 medical staff have...

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