Gaza’s Hospitals in Ruins | The New Yorker

Physician's Experience in Gaza

• 💡 Clayton Dalton, an emergency physician, traveled to Gaza during a ceasefire as part of a medical aid team.
• 🎯 He witnessed astonishing devastation unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Targeted Hospitals and Infrastructure

• 🏥 Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis showed signs of a siege and raid by the IDF, with shrapnel, bullet holes, and destroyed ambulances.
• 🔍 Israeli forces had marked almost every room with an "X" hacked into the wall during their clearing operations.
• 💔 Alshifa Hospital, once comparable to an American hospital, was severely damaged, with its former state only visible in photographs.

Dire Medical Conditions and Resource Scarcity

• ⚰️ Makeshift graveyards were found in hospital courtyards, as there was nowhere to place deceased patients.
• 🛠️ Medical equipment, including in ICUs, appeared to be systematically disabled with bullet holes, which did not seem like collateral damage.
• ⚠️ There was a critical lack of space, personnel, medications, and sterile supplies like gauze and hospital gowns.
• 🦴 Many patients, estimated at 26,000, are living with external fixation hardware for broken bones due to the absence of orthopedic doctors and operating rooms.

Resilience Amidst Ruin

• 🏡 Hundreds of thousands of residents continue to live amidst the rubble, finding ways to maintain daily life, such as tending gardens and doing laundry.
• 👧 Children were observed playing and building forts among the collapsed buildings, even swinging from downed power lines.

Unspeakable Challenges for Healthcare Workers

• 💪 Palestinian healthcare workers are performing their duties under unspeakably difficult conditions.
• 🧠 For visiting aid workers, the experience felt like a nightmare they could wake from, but for residents, there is no escape from their daily reality.