Israel’s resumption of its military campaign in Gaza has led to a decrease in functioning hospitals, while healthcare facilities have become overloaded by casualties, according to a Médecins Sans Frontières medical co-ordinator working in the Strip.
Speaking from Al-Mawasi safe zone in Gaza on Tuesday, Dr Chiara Lodi said MSF had seen “an increase in wounded patients in all facilities” since Israel resumed fighting on March 18th after a January ceasefire broke down.
“The number of hospitals now available in Gaza is decreasing week after week. Operational health facilities are receiving more patients than before,” she said.
Dr Lodi said hospitals are “overloaded, the healthcare workers are overwhelmed, they have been working nonstop” since the war began 18 months ago, and “they are now seeing increasing violence because of the bombing”.
MSF is also treating increasing numbers of chronic and paediatric patients, and pregnant and lactating women, she said.
Dr Lodi said international organisations, the health ministry and the UN have been rehabilitating damaged and destroyed hospitals by building nearby extensions.
“This requires an investment for some months of financial resources and time,” she said, adding that new facilities can be bombed again: “Some have been bombed two or three times.”
United Nations secretary general António Guterres said he is “deeply alarmed” at Sunday’s strike by Israeli forces on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, his spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“Under international humanitarian law, wounded and sick, medical personnel and medical facilities, including hospitals, must be respected and protected,” the spokesperson said.
[ Israel says its account of 15 rescue workers killed in Gaza was partly ‘mistaken’Opens in new window ]
He said the attack dealt “a severe blow to an already devastated healthcare system in the Strip”, adding there was strong concern that medical supplies are running low as well as food and water.
Two Israeli missiles hit the major Gaza hospital on Sunday, destroying the intensive care, surgical and emergency departments of the only functioning hospital in Gaza City.
Health officials at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital evacuated patients after a phone call from someone who identified himself as Israeli security shortly before the attack.
Head of the emergency department, Dr Moataz Harara told the Guardian that before the attack the hospital had 120 in-patients and saw 300-500 patients a day. After the strike, he said patients were sent to other partially-operational hospitals.
This was the fifth time Al-Ahli was targeted. The Israeli military said the hospital was hosting a Hamas “command and control” centre and posted on X that “steps were taken to reduce the chance of harm to civilians and the hospital, including providing early warning in the area”.
Hamas denied the allegation.
“Mass casualty events are now the norm and those hospitals that are treating trauma patients are doing so amid severe shortages of critical supplies, including critical medicine,” UN aid co-ordination agency spokeswoman Olga Cherevko told UN News.
Foreign hospitals have not been spared. While the EU-funded European hospital near Khan Younis continues to function, the Turkish-Palestinian cancer hospital has been demolished, and the Indonesia Hospital no longer functions.
Al-Jazeera has provided a partial list of major attacks on hospitals in the Strip. In November 2023, MSF doctors Mahmoud Abu Najaila and Ahmad al-Sahar were killed along with doctor Ziad al-Tatari at Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp.
In March 2024, the Israeli army said it killed 90 people in a raid on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza. This initiated a 14-day siege during which hundreds were reported killed.
That October, an air raid on Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah killed five people and wounded 65. In December, the Israeli army raided the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, killing about 20 people, and arresting about 240, including director Hussam Abu Safia.
On March 23rd, 2025, 15 Palestinian Red Crescent medics and civil defence personnel in an ambulance convoy were killed during a rescue mission in Rafah. One was arrested and it was later revealed that another - Ass–d al-Nassrah - was–imprisoned in Israel.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. According to Gaza’s health authorities, more than 50,900 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive.
This includes a figure of 1,449 people killed and 3,647 injured since the two-month ceasefire ended on March 18th. – Additional reporting: Reuters
