Al-Shifa Hospital: Annihilation and Resilience

More than a year into Israel’s most brutal assault on Gaza, much of the besieged enclave has been destroyed, including many schools and hospitals. We visited Gaza’s largest and most significant hospital al-Shifa last year as the conflict was just beginning, which was in danger of collapsing as a result of the Israeli siege of water and fuel. Al-Shifa was about to collapse, and the electricity was about to run out.

We return to the hospital where so many Palestinians were treated during the numerous attacks in Gaza more than a year later. After the most recent siege, Al-Shifa Hospital is now a shell. No patients remain at the facility. The majority of the equipment is unusable or reduced to ashes, and the majority of the buildings have been severely damaged or destroyed. The facility’s complete non-functionality has been reduced, further reducing Gaza’s ability to receive life-saving healthcare. It seems unlikely to be possible to restore even the most basic functionality in the near future, but it could be done.

Explosives and fire have severely damaged the hospital’s emergency department and the surgical and maternity ward. Both the neonatal intensive care unit’s (NICU) emergency department’s western wall and its northern wall have been destroyed. Among other things, 14 incubators in the NICU were destroyed, and at least 115 beds were burned in the emergency department.

Just outside the emergency departments and administrative and surgical buildings, there are numerous shallow graves. In the same area, numerous bodies were partially buried with visible limbs, and the hospital complex was suffocated by the smell of decomposing flesh.

During the siege, patients were being held in abominable conditions, according to the acting hospital director. They endured a severe lack of food, water, healthcare, hygiene and sanitation, and were forced to relocate between buildings at gunpoint.

What the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital means for Gaza’s healthcare system will be brought to light by this movie.