More than 1,000 Palestinians in need of medical treatment have died since the war began due to Israel’s ongoing restrictions on essential supplies entering the Gaza Strip, the director of al-Shifa Hospital has said, amid an “already collapsing health system.”
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that since the start of the ceasefire on 11 October, only 10 percent of needed medical supplies have reached the besieged enclave.
He said more than 350,000 patients with chronic health conditions are in urgent need of medication.
Hospitals receive the bodies of patients succumbing to their illnesses as a result of lacking medicine on a daily basis, he warned.
Without treatment, “their fate is death,” he added.
Meanwhile, 22,000 Palestinians require treatment abroad, including 18,000 who have completed all the necessary paperwork to be transferred out of Gaza.
However, the continued closure of crossings by Israel is preventing them from travelling, Salmiya said. He highlighted that women and children are among the most vulnerable.
Mortality rates among newborns have risen sharply, from 10 percent before the war to over 40 percent now. The lives of mothers are also at risk, with pregnancy-related mortality rates rising drastically, he added.
‘Dying before our eyes’
Abu Salmiya’s comments came hours after Israel launched a wave of heavy air strikes across the Gaza Strip, the latest major ceasefire violation.
In under 12 hours of bombardment, Israel killed 104 people, including 46 children. Hundreds more were wounded.
“The escalation only exacerbated the already dire and collapsing health system in the complete absence of everything,” Abu Salmiya said.
“It was a massacre. The wounded were dying right before our eyes and we are powerless to provide them with medical attention.” The majority of victims were women and children, the doctor added.
Speaking alongside him, Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense search-and-rescue team, said their crews were overwhelmed, responding to 87 cases during the bombardment.
He added that a severe lack of equipment had drastically limited their ability to carry out rescue operations.
“Thousands of people in Gaza have died [during the war] because civil defense teams were unable to reach them immediately and efficiently to rescue them,” he explained.
Israel, he said, has yet to allow heavy equipment into Gaza for use by the civil defense. Any machinery that has entered so far was not intended for civil defense operations but to retrieve the bodies of Israeli captives killed in Gaza.
“We, as civil defense, have not received a single piece of equipment – neither a bulldozer, an excavator, nor any heavy machinery to extract our citizens from under the rubble,” he said.
Overall, Israeli forces killed at least 68,643 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 and wounded over 170,000. Most of those killed are civilians, according to leaked military data.
Around 10,000 are missing and believed to be dead and buried under rubble.
IMAGE CREDIT: A wounded Palestinian child receives treatment, following an Israeli strike on a house, at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, 28 October, 2025 (Reuters/Dawoud Abu Alkas)
[ SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST EYE ]
