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. Last year, as the war was just beginning, we visited Gaza’s largest and most important hospital – al-Shifa – as it faced collapse following the Israeli siege on water and fuel. The electricity was about to run out and al-Shifa was close to collapse.

Now, more than a year later, we go back to the hospital that served so many Palestinians throughout so many attacks on Gaza. Al-Shifa Hospital ­is now an empty shell after the latest siege. No patients remain at the facility. Most of the buildings are extensively damaged or destroyed and the majority of the equipment is unusable or reduced to ashes. The scale of devastation has left the facility completely non-functional, further reducing access to life-saving healthcare in Gaza. Restoring even minimal functionality in the short term seems implausible but with a partial reopening, not impossible.

The hospital’s emergency department and surgical and maternity ward buildings are extensively damaged due to explosives and fire. The western wall of the emergency department and the northern wall of the neonatal intensive care department (NICU) have been torn down. At least 115 beds in what once was the emergency department have been burned and 14 incubators in the NICU destroyed, among other assets.

Numerous shallow graves have been dug just outside the emergency department, and administrative and surgical buildings. In the same area, many bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible, a smell of decomposing flesh engulfing the hospital compound.

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

This film will bring to light the devastation of al-Shifa Hospital, and what this means for the healthcare system of Gaza.

Credits:
A film by Zainab Walji
Edited by Jameel Hodzic
Filmed by Media Town in Gaza