The Year That Israel Collapsed Gaza’s Health Care System

At the one-year mark of Israel's ongoing siege, medical workers describe how the destruction of Palestinian health care has reached every corner of society.

Rajaa Musleh quietly sat on the fifth floor of downtown Chicago’s Marriott hotel, where the medical aid group she works for, MedGlobal, was holding a conference filled with panelists and attendees. Recalling her escape from Gaza less than a year ago, the Palestinian nurse began to fight back tears and the urge to dissociate.

After the Israeli military bombed her house in Gaza City, Musleh sheltered at Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest medical complex. But despite medical facilities being so-called deconflicted zones, Israeli forces trapped Musleh and thousands of others in the hospital for more than 40 days while killing patients and health care workers alike.

The hospital was nothing short of chaos. As a humanitarian worker, Musleh helped distribute medication and equipment to hospital staff. Then she would use her medical training to help patients in the operating room. The overcrowding meant patients were being treated without painkillers on the emergency room’s blood-covered floor. Musleh saw little children without heads, boys crying for her to attend to their phantom limbs and a severely burned 9-year-old girl who died while holding her hand. All the while, Israeli soldiers were abducting health care workers, Musleh recalled to HuffPost.

“I still smell the burned skin. Sometimes I use heavy perfume, to be honest with you, I use that just to cover the smell of the burn,” Musleh said. “I’m feeling the skin on my hand of this child, and I wash my hands maybe 30 times to remove [the feeling of her] skin. This is what I feel.”

Musleh’s experience is not uncommon in Gaza, which was besieged on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people while about 240 more were taken hostage. One year later, Israel’s ongoing military offensive ― which has now spread to the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen ― has killed about 42,000 people in the territory, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Medical workers estimate the number is likely closer to 119,000, and many in the international community now describe the invasion as genocide.