Gaza Herald_ As Gaza struggles through one of the darkest chapters of its modern history, medical teams are sounding the alarm: patients are dying every single day because essential supplies are deliberately kept out of the besieged Strip. Doctors warn that the health system, already shattered after two years of bombardment, can no longer sustain life for the sick, the injured, and the most vulnerable.
A Health System Starved of Supplies
According to Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital, more than 1,000 Palestinians in need of treatment have died since the start of the war due to the ongoing Israeli blockade of medicine, equipment, and basic lifesaving materials.
He said that since the ceasefire began on October 11, only 10 percent of the required medical supplies have entered Gaza, nowhere near enough for a population enduring mass injuries, chronic illness, and widespread displacement.
More than 350,000 people with chronic diseases face life-threatening disruptions in treatment. Hospitals report receiving the bodies of patients, young and old, who died simply because the medication they need no longer exists inside Gaza.
“Without treatment, their fate is death,” Abu Salmiya said.
Twenty-two thousand Palestinians require medical evacuation abroad, including 18,000 whose paperwork was already approved. Yet Israel’s closure of all crossings has frozen every one of those cases, leaving critically ill patients trapped.
Women, newborns, and pregnant mothers are among the most endangered. Infant mortality has skyrocketed—from 10 percent before the war to over 40 percent today, and maternal deaths have risen sharply as well.
‘They Were Dying Before Our Eyes’
Abu Salmiya’s warnings came just hours after Israel launched a lethal wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, shattering the fragile ceasefire.
In less than 12 hours, 104 Palestinians were killed, including 46 children, and hundreds more were wounded.
“The escalation only deepened the collapse of an already crushed health system,” he said. “It was a massacre. The wounded were dying before our eyes, and we were powerless to save them.”
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said rescue crews were stretched beyond capability, responding to 87 emergencies during the bombardment.
Thousands of people throughout the war have died under rubble, he said, because civil defense teams still lack the heavy machinery needed for rescue operations. Basal stressed that not a single bulldozer, excavator, or piece of equipment meant for civilian rescue has been handed over to Palestinian teams, despite countless appeals.
Any machinery that entered Gaza, he said, was intended only to retrieve the bodies of Israeli captives, not to save Palestinian civilians.
A Devastation Too Vast to Measure
Since October 7, 2023, at least 68,643 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 170,000 wounded, the overwhelming majority civilians. Around 10,000 people remain missing, believed buried beneath mountains of rubble.
Doctors, rescue workers, and aid teams warned that unless the blockade on medical supplies is lifted immediately, the death toll will continue to rise, not only from airstrikes, but from untreated illness, infections, and preventable conditions.
For Gaza’s hospitals, the message is simple:
People are not dying because they are too sick.
People are dying because they are being denied the right to survive.
