Unforgettable heroes

Just 9.7 kilometres wide for two-thirds of its length of 33.7 kilometres, most of Gaza is a front line in the war Israel is waging on the strip. This is not a war against Hamas in retaliation for its Oct.7, 2023, attack which killed 1.139 in southern Israel, but a war against the 2.3 million Palestinians of Gaza. The Israel army admitted this when it announced that 83 per cent of the dead in this war were civilians. Presumably, this is also true of civilians who have been injured.

Experts said that this ratio is unprecedented in contemporary warfare. Rights groups argue this finding shows that Israel is committing genocide when this figure is paired with accusations it is starving Gazans to the point of famine.

Nevertheless, Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy told Al-Jazeera that the Netanyahu government has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Instead, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants to expel 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza City to the south and force them and others displaced there to leave Gaza, Levy added that this would amount to “ethnic cleansing,” a war crime.

This being the case, the challenge facing front line medics in Gaza is the greatest in any ongoing conflict and makes the medics heroes of the war. Gaza’s doctors, nurses, medical aides and ambulance drivers suffer along with other Gazan civilians, Medics endure displacement under Israeli evacuation orders, bombing and hunger, thirst, and lack of medical supplies caused by Israel’s blockade. Health workers are, however, meant to be granted protection from attack under international law. It says facilities with medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances unless they have been used for military purposes. Gaza’s health ministry has reported that in 22 months at least 1,600 health workers have been killed. When attacking hospitals, Israel has claimed without producing evidence that Hamas and other resistance groups have been basing themselves in or under these institutions.

Israel’s military strikes on and invasions of Gaza’s medical facilities have put half of its 36 hospitals and clinics out of service and drastically prevented surviving care centres from providing adequate medical services. Those still operating at diminished capacity are overwhelmed by need. They struggle with severe shortages of essential medicines and dressings for wounds, fuel for generators, and personnel. There are no functioning hospitals in northern Gaza and only one in the south. The World Health Organisation warned early this month that Gazans are dying from malnutrition, disease and treatable injuries. Israel has denied entry to Gaza to international medical teams.

Medicines San Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) cites the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which reported – in addition to fatalities among health staff – 417 humanitarian workers have been killed, including “12 MSF staff members, some killed while on duty or while sheltering with their families.” MSF summed up by saying since the war began, its teams have been driven from 20 health facilities and have endured 41 violent incidents, including air strikes on hospitals, tank shells fired upon shelters, troop invasions in medical centres, and attacks on convoys. Combined with the siege and abrupt evacuation orders, such Israeli actions “have stifled the urgently needed humanitarian response in Gaza at a time the needs are more dire than ever.”

MSF emergency coordinator Omar Ebeid said in June on the organisation’s website that since Israel reimposed its blockade in March, “World Central Kitchen has stopped being able to provide food for our patients and staff.” Consequently, Israel’s “siege means that we have had less than half the caloric intake for our patients to recover.”

Sabreen al-Massani, MSF psychotherapist stated in May when faced with displacement: “This time I don’t want to pack. No bags, no papers, nothing. I don’t know why, maybe my mindset is wrong, but I just cannot mentally process the idea of leaving home again. We are in a constant state of alert; we can receive a notification to flee at any time. We cannot sleep at night thinking we might be next.”

Writing in the “British Medical Journal” on July 31st, 2025, Elizabeth Mahase quoted Gaza-based Canadian emergency physician Tarek Loubani who stated, “What I see in [Nasser] hospital right now is that every single patient is starving.” At that time reports suggested that 147 people, of whom 88 were children, have died during the Gaza war through the end of that month. Loubani said official figures could be less than a 10th of the real toll as fatalities blamed on malnutrition were only counted as the sole cause of death. But malnourishment could also contribute to the deaths of people suffering from other ailments.

Loubani said he had lost 20 kilograms after arriving in Gaza. “Yesterday, all I had was a small handful of rice because that’s all that was available for the doctors,” he said, adding that his patients face greater hunger. When medical teams try to treat patients, “they cannot heal” and those donating blood for relatives cannot recover from blood loss because of malnutrition.

In this article Oxfam’s communications director in Gaza Ghada al-Haddad said, “Israel is weaponizing starvation. They block aid, then they allow a few trucks in under political pressure, they take photos, leaders upload them, and then Israel shuts the gates again – and the cycle repeats and repeats. We have been living through this engineered starvation.” She stated, “This is a drip feed meant to quiet the public outrage, not to save lives...this is not humanitarian relief. This is crisis management.”

Commenting on the Israeli army’s “calculated and systematic” efforts to destroy Gaza’s health care system, Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights has accused Israel of “genocide.”

Photo: TNS