Gaza’s Medical Catastrophe Intensifies: Anaesthesia And Blood Supplies Running Out.

Gaza City – Dr. Muhammad Abu Selmiya, director of Al‑Shifa Hospital, has issued a stark warning to Al‑Jazeera Arabic: Gaza’s healthcare system is collapsing. Hospital occupancy now exceeds 300 percent, and critical shortages of anaesthetic drugs and blood jeopardise lifesaving surgery.

• Anaesthesia supplies are expected to last less than 48 hours.
• Blood units are virtually exhausted.
• Most incoming injuries affect the upper body trauma, overwhelming the severely reduced number of operating theatres.
  Patients are dying, sometimes before surgical intervention becomes impossible.

Broader Context: Collapse of Healthcare Infrastructure

From October 2023 until today, Gaza’s health system has endured relentless bombardment, blockade, and displacement. Before the conflict, 36 hospitals were serving the population; now only 12 to 17 remain partially functional. Supply routes are severely disrupted, and over 600 attacks on healthcare facilities have been documented since late 2023.

In Gaza City’s Al‑Shifa Hospital, a former 700-bed facility with 21 operating theatres, only three ORs are currently operational, with half of its staff either detained or killed. Medical teams perform surgeries under rubble, often without power, anaesthetic, or adequate support.

New Reporting Confirms Dire Shortages: Fuel Crisis, Incubator Overcrowding, And Oxygen Threats.

A Reuters report from July 2025 highlighted that critical fuel shortages force staff to place multiple premature babies in single incubators, with dialysis units shut down and oxygen supplies at serious risk. Despite deliveries of over 160,000 litres of fuel under UN management, many hospitals, including Al-Shifa, are still receiving insufficient or poorly distributed aid.

Blood Banks In Freefall:

Today’s coverage and a recent video report show that blood banks across Gaza are on the brink, as severe malnutrition among potential donors has led to plummeting donation rates, just as demand surges from mass trauma cases.

Humanitarian Toll: Hunger Amid The Siege:

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed five additional hunger-related deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the Gaza Strip’s total to 193, including 96 children, a grim testament to the humanitarian crisis unfolding concurrently with the medical emergency.

“Healthocide”: Targeting Healthcare In Conflict.

Medical and academic experts have adopted the term “healthocide” to describe the deliberate dismantling of healthcare facilities during conflicts. The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition recorded 3,623 violations against health services globally in 2024, the highest ever. In Gaza, nearly 1,000 medical personnel have been killed, and dozens remain detained without charge.

Loss Of Senior Medical Personnel Deepens The Crisis:

The recent death of Dr. Marwan al‑Sultan, a prominent cardiologist and former hospital director in northern Gaza, has further crippled the system. He was one of only two cardiologists in the region. His death widens a void created by the loss of over 1,400 health workers killed since October 2023, many of them senior specialists and mentors.

Crisis Indicators:

• Occupancy Rate – Over 300 percent at Al‑Shifa Hospital
• Anaesthesia Supplies – Estimated to run out within 48 hours
• Blood Stock – Critically low due to lack of donations and malnutrition among donors
• Operating Rooms – Reduced to three; complex and upper‑body surgeries prioritised
• Functional Hospitals – Only 12–17 of 36 are partially operational; many are lacking power, staffing, or supplies
• Killed Medical Staff – Over 1,400; few specialists remain
• Fuel & Electricity Access – Severe shortages hinder incubators, dialysis, lighting, ventilation, and surgery
• Hunger-Related Deaths – 193 deaths in total (96 children), five in the past 24 hours

In Summary: Deliberate Systematic Collapse, Not Accidental Crisis.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not a humanitarian tragedy born of war’s chaos; it is the deliberate dismantling of a health system designed to sustain life. When Al‑Shifa’s director warns that patients are dying due to a lack of anaesthesia and blood, not from the severity of their wounds, it is an indictment of a blockade that has weaponised medicine itself.

This is not simply the result of war. It is the culmination of strategic deprivation, bureaucratic strangulation of aid, and calculated targeting of healthcare infrastructure under the guise of “security.” Gaza’s hospitals have been bombed, besieged, and denied the most basic humanitarian guarantees. The international silence, or worse, hollow appeals to “both sides,” emboldens this destruction.

The numbers speak volumes: over 190 deaths from hunger, nearly half of them children; more than 1,400 medical workers killed; and hospitals operating at 300 percent capacity with no anaesthesia, no blood, and barely any power. These are not collateral statistics; they are the direct result of policy choices and military decisions that strip Palestinians of their right to life, care, and dignity.

When a health system is collapsed from the inside out, its people are not merely dying; they are being systematically abandoned. This is not just a war on Gaza’s infrastructure. It is a war on survival itself.

And without immediate international intervention, not just aid drops but accountability, the world will bear witness to the first genocide in modern history carried out in slow motion, through hunger, disease, and medical collapse.

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