Doctors in Gaza relieved, but fear for the future after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
WHO says only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational after 15 months of Israeli attacks.
After a cease-fire negotiated by Israel and Hamas halted more than 15 months of war in Gaza, Dr. Jamal Salaha spoke of the relief he felt as the dead and wounded people finally stopped pouring into his hospital.
“This was the first time that the hospital reception or the emergency department was empty,” Salaha, a general practitioner at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Monday.
The day before, cease-fire it stopped 471 days of relentless Israeli attacks that killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 111,000.
Salaha had just started working at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when war broke out in October 2023.
He worked in the neurosurgery department for 33 days before being forced to move to Al-Aqsa Hospital due to Israeli attacks.
During Israel’s entire war against Gaza, Salaha said he only had three days off and treated people under excruciating conditions.
“Every day we received wounded people, most of them in critical condition,” he said. “We did a lot of operations, … including some on the floor because we didn’t have enough capacity. Me [often] operated without gloves, without enough medicine and without a respirator.”
When the ceasefire was announced, Salaha described it as “amazing” news and said he could finally sleep better.
But he remains cautious about the future, citing scale destruction throughout the Gaza Stripthe breakdown of the health system and the possibility of a resurgence of violence.
“There is joy and excitement [over the ceasefire] everywhere, and people think that this ceasefire will bring life back to normal. But that is not true,” Salaha said. “The situation in hospitals is very chaotic.”
“We need a lot of medicines and medical supplies to cope with everyone [the remaining] cases.”
The World Health Organization said Monday that only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational.
Almost all hospitals have been damaged, and only 38 percent of primary care homes are working, it added.
A ceasefire appears to be holding in most parts of the coastal enclave despite reports of isolated incidents of violence.
At least eight people were injured by Israeli forces in Rafah in the south, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
Mohammad Nemnem, a medical worker at the now-defunct Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described the extent of the damage after Israeli forces “set fire and destroyed” the facility.
“No department in the hospital can offer any medical service,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The hospital needs a lot of effort and a lot of time to be a hospital that can provide medical services to people again.”
