Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza is forcing doctors in crammed medical facilities to make difficult decisions about who to treat as they have to scale back operations to the minimum, leaving no way to save lives, Al Jazeera reports.

“Before the war, I used to receive dialysis three times a week, with each session lasting four hours,” Omda Dagmash, a dialysis patient, told Al Jazeera at the barely-functioning al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “Now we can barely make the journey to the hospital, particularly [as] we are not eating well.”

“The journey here is long and costly,” said Rowaida Minyawi, an elderly patient. “After all this exhaustion, we sometimes can’t find treatment. I have heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.”

“What should we do? Die at home?”

“Only a few departments are working. We had to cut electricity to the rest,” said Ziad Abu Humaidan, from the hospital’s engineering department.

“The hospital’s yards turned into graveyards rather than a place of care and healing. Without electricity, there is no lighting, no functioning medical equipment, and no support for other essential services.”

Medical personnel work in an operating room at Nasser Hospital, which Gaza’s health ministry says is at risk of shutting down due to the Israeli blockade of fuel, as the ongoing shortage has already forced the facility to reduce its capacity, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 9, 2025. — Reuters
Medical personnel work in an operating room at Nasser Hospital, which Gaza’s health ministry says is at risk of shutting down due to the Israeli blockade of fuel, as the ongoing shortage has already forced the facility to reduce its capacity, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 9, 2025. — Reuters

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