Main Quote
So that tells you a lot about the resilience of the Gazans. The rehabilitation started while the war was ongoing - it never stopped. From day one there were plans of rehabilitation, stages of rehabilitation. The first time, in August 2024, four months after the attack on Al-Shifa Hospital, they opened the emergency department and some inpatients for 120 bed capacity. And since then there was a big project to rehabilitate the women's hospital building, because that was the only one which was at least intact as a building, but from inside was totally destroyed. We had to get the instruments, the patient beds, the anesthesia machines from under the rubble from the other hospital areas to get this back to there. Luckily, now Al-Shifa Hospital is running with more than 350 bed capacity, with 20 beds of ICU, more than 10 operating theaters operating at the time. The generators and the system are up and running, the clinics are restarted, and they are gradually restarting services back.
Reporter (Hind Khoudary):
We’re currently in Al-Shifa Hospital in the maternity department. This building has been renovated recently by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. As you see, the walls are painted. The ceiling looks perfect. But let me show you the rooms inside.
These rooms are definitely not rooms to receive patients. There’s no oxygen, there’s no monitors, and there’s no medical supplies. According to doctors, these beds were retrieved from under the rubble. And we see how torn they are. Doctors are saying they lack a lot of medical supplies — Palestinian hospitals have been completely destroyed by the Israeli forces. According to doctors in the Palestinian Ministry of Health, they were suffering and striving to find the tools and supplies to renovate the maternity building. But as you see, most of the departments of this building are still burned and destroyed.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya:
We restored the buildings. We are short of the basic medical equipment and operating rooms as well as anesthesia. We are currently managing with the little equipment we pulled from under the debris. Our engineers spent days repairing them. The Israeli army already destroyed most of them and are now denying the entry of spare parts. If we are not provided with these essential supplies, the hospitals will remain only useless buildings. We want to restore our effective capacity to serve the Gaza Strip. And as you know, the occupation forces destroyed all the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip. There is no medical service at all. The Shifa Medical Complex was and still is the first destination in the Gaza Strip for all the sick, the patients, and the wounded.
Reporter:
All of these beds have been retrieved from under the rubble, but also these beds need spare parts in order to use them for the patients. According to doctors, the Israeli authorities have been restricting and preventing all types of spare parts from the beginning of the war. And not only that, they have been banning and preventing all types of medical supplies from entering the Gaza Strip. This renovation is just the start. Al-Shifa Hospital has a long journey for its reconstruction, along with 33 other health facilities that have been destroyed by the Israeli forces.
Reporter 2: We can speak to Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati. He’s a plastic surgeon and the former head of the burns unit at Al-Shifa Hospital. You worked there, I think, until June 2024, didn’t you? It was once the largest hospital in Gaza, provided all sorts of critical care to the population, but it was heavily targeted by the Israelis. Tell us what they did to it and what that meant for Palestinians in Gaza.
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati:
Al-Shifa Hospital used to be the biggest hospital in Gaza and the West Bank, with more than 750 bed capacity. All specialities were provided in this hospital — comprehensive care for cardiac patients, from catheterization to open heart surgery, and the only, or the biggest, dedicated burn unit with ICU, as well as all of the cancer treatment and advanced medicine treatment. It was formed of three hospitals: the surgery hospital, the medicine hospital, and the women’s hospital.
It was targeted the same way they target a military system. The first time they targeted the hospital in November 2023, just before the ceasefire started at that time, they targeted every critical station or facility in the hospital — the oxygen station, the generators, the telecommunication room, the electricity control room. So they kept the hospital out of service.
Reporter 2:
And so that was a terrible impact for Palestinians who needed care at obviously a very critical time.
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati:
Exactly. And that’s with the continuous attacks and hundreds of casualties every day. The second attack in March 2024 — they realized that they want the hospital to be out of service forever. So they destroyed the buildings of the surgery hospital and the medicine hospital, and they were able to get Al-Shifa out of service. And that had implications on everything, including no ICUs in the whole of northern Gaza for more than one year. Definitely no cancer treatment, no burn unit, no burn services, and patients were left without treatment — except for small hospitals like Al-Ahli Hospital, which is a church hospital with a maximum 30 bed capacity, that had to serve as the main hospital in Gaza. There were many trials to rehabilitate the system, they expanded this over time, but you imagine — you have a full siege, nothing getting in at all. Hospitals are being targeted continuously with a lot of casualties coming in.
Reporter:
Okay. Despite everything that you’ve described, there are now efforts to get Al-Shifa back up on its feet as best you can. Tell us about that and what challenges you’re facing.
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati:
So that tells you a lot about the resilience of the Gazans. The rehabilitation started while the war was ongoing – it never stopped. From day one there were plans of rehabilitation, stages of rehabilitation. The first time, in August 2024, four months after the attack on Al-Shifa Hospital, they opened the emergency department and some inpatients for 120 bed capacity. And since then there was a big project to rehabilitate the women’s hospital building, because that was the only one which was at least intact as a building, but from inside was totally destroyed. We had to get the instruments, the patient beds, the anesthesia machines from under the rubble from the other hospital areas to get this back to there. Luckily, now Al-Shifa Hospital is running with more than 350 bed capacity, with 20 beds of ICU, more than 10 operating theaters operating at the time. The generators and the system are up and running, the clinics are restarted, and they are gradually restarting services back.
So it was a lot of effort to reach that point. But to tell you — we have been recycling the instruments and the equipment from within the Gaza system. There was nothing new coming into Gaza for more than two years, with hundreds of thousands of casualties and a lot of burden on the health system.
Reporter 2:
So Al-Shifa is really rising from the ashes, isn’t it? But Gaza is still well short of the medical care it needs by a country mile. What is most critically required in Gaza as far as medical care is concerned, and is it likely to come through?
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati:
The first thing — the system is still collapsed. What we are showing are signs of resilience, trying to just stand up again. But the problem is there is no proper treatment for cardiac patients, or cancer patients, or patients for reconstruction. Most of the elective surgeries were stopped for more than two years. You imagine — more than two million people with accumulated cases for elective surgery. No proper diabetic treatment. I remember one of my uncles asking me whether it’s okay to take medicine which has been expired for three months. They have to take whatever is in the market.
No proper treatment for diabetes patients, and that will have implications for years. We lost more than half of our dialysis patients because of the lack of treatment. So there is no treatment. There are more than 30,000 patients waiting for referrals outside Gaza to be treated, and we hardly managed to get 3,000 out during this time.
There are no proper instruments getting in at all. No medicines at all — anesthesia, pain management — and a lot of specialities missing. Adding to this, we lost more than 30% of our capacity as healthcare workers. Many of them were killed, detained, or left Gaza just to flee with their families, and they are not allowing anyone to get back in. Just yesterday they denied access to one plastic surgeon and two orthopedic surgeons — and those are just the ones I know. Every day. And that’s the third time they denied their access.
All the Palestinians who left Gaza at one stage just to flee with their families — they are not allowed to go back. All the doctors, the nurses. Whoever left Gaza is a loss, and we can’t replace this at all, either by international or by local staff.
Reporter 2:
It’s a time of dire, dire need. But you tell us also an extraordinary tale of resilience. Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, thank you for your time.
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati:
Thank you. Thank you very much.