‘We Can’t Even Stand’: Starving Doctors In Gaza Too Weak To Treat Dying Patients

Last Updated:July 24, 2025, 17:59 IST

Doctors in Gaza are too weak from hunger to care for patients in collapsing hospitals.

North Gaza residents leave their homes after Israel's evacuation warning | File Image: AFP

Doctors and medical workers across Gaza warned that they are growing too weak from hunger to care for the wounded and malnourished patients flooding the territory’s collapsing hospitals. Almost a dozen healthcare workers said that they are surviving without food while continuing to perform life-saving procedures in operating rooms, emergency wards and shelters now functioning as makeshift clinics, The Guardian reported.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said, “They are in a state of extreme exhaustion. Some have fainted in the operating rooms. Medical services will be affected because our staff will not be able to hold out any longer in the face of this famine."

Many medical professionals described working 24-hour shifts without a single meal, as per the outlet. One physician at al-Shifa said, “Today I have been on a 24-hour shift. At [the hospital] they are supposed to give us some rice for each shift, but today they told us there was none. My colleague and I treated 60 neurosurgery patients and right now I can’t even stand."

A general practitioner volunteering at the same hospital echoed the desperation, telling the outlet, “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday and my family has nothing to eat. All day, I am thinking how can I get them flour or lentils or anything to eat but there’s nothing in the markets. We are no longer able to walk. We don’t know what to do."

At the Nasser Medical Complex, another surgeon said patients arriving with symptoms linked to starvation have surged. He said, “I couldn’t eat for two days because I feared worsening my own gastroenteritis. Because of my low blood pressure, I had to stop during a surgery on a girl who had been shot in the abdomen."

Gaza’s healthcare system has been devastated by nearly two years of conflict. The World Health Organization reported in May that 94% of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, with only 19 out of 36 still functioning.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini also confirmed receiving “credible reports of healthcare and aid workers fainting due to hunger and exhaustion." In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it is working to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid and acknowledged that harm to civilians at distribution sites had occurred.

“Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted in the Southern Command," the IDF said, adding, “Instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned."

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News world ‘We Can’t Even Stand’: Starving Doctors In Gaza Too Weak To Treat Dying Patients