Gaza Herald – Gaza’s only specialized psychiatric hospital was destroyed in Israeli strikes, forcing the facility out of service and leaving some of the territory’s most vulnerable patients without treatment, shelter, or medication.
The hospital had been the sole government-run institution providing inpatient psychiatric care in the Gaza Strip. When the building and its vital facilities were hit during Israeli bombardment, dozens of patients who depended on continuous medical supervision suddenly found themselves displaced among thousands of civilians in overcrowded shelters and camps.
Families described chaotic scenes as patients suffering from severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and acute psychosis, lost access to medication and medical monitoring. Some reportedly wandered through displacement camps or city streets, while others remained inside tents under the watch of exhausted relatives struggling to prevent self-harm or violent episodes.
Health officials said the destruction of the facility also erased critical medical records and wiped out one of the territory’s main stockpiles of specialized psychiatric medication. Without the hospital, Gaza effectively lost its only structured system for treating the most severe mental health cases.
Before the war, the hospital operated with 44 inpatient beds and a staff of dozens of specialists, including psychiatrists and mental-health professionals who handled hundreds of consultations every day. The center also served as the primary hub for psychiatric medications that are rarely available in private pharmacies in Gaza.
Officials from Gaza’s Health Ministry warned that the collapse of psychiatric services was occurring precisely when the population was facing unprecedented levels of psychological trauma after years of genocide, displacement, and loss.
Doctors and health planners estimated that roughly half of Gaza’s population may now suffer symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, while nearly all children in the territory require urgent psychological support.
Humanitarian organizations attempted to establish emergency counseling units in field hospitals and mobile clinics in displacement centers, but aid workers said the efforts were far from sufficient. According to health officials, only a small fraction of the psychiatric medications needed in Gaza was currently available.
Meanwhile, families of patients who once relied on the psychiatric hospital said they were left alone to cope with complex and often dangerous medical conditions inside overcrowded tents, fearing that without treatment their relatives, and the fragil communities around them, could face devastating consequences.
