Gaza Hospital 'Functioning at 300% of 100% Capacity' Says Doctor

Smoke rises from the battlefield in the Gaza Strip - (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Smoke rises from the battlefield in the Gaza Strip - (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
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Gaza Hospital 'Functioning at 300% of 100% Capacity' Says Doctor

Smoke rises from the battlefield in the Gaza Strip - (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Smoke rises from the battlefield in the Gaza Strip - (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Doctors at the Nasser Hospital say they are "are functioning at 300% of our 100% capacity", amid shortages of medical supplies and beds for the wounded in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas is raging in the besieged Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7. In response, Israel launched a relentless air and ground offensive that has killed at least 21,507 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday thanked the Biden administration for its continued backing, including approval for a new emergency weapons sale, the second this month, and prevention of a UN Security Council resolution seeking an immediate cease-fire.

Israel argues that ending the war now would mean victory for Hamas, a stance shared by the Biden administration, which at the same time urged Israel to do more to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians.

In new fighting, Israeli warplanes struck the urban refugee camps of Nuseirat and Bureij in the center of the territory Saturday as ground forces pushed deeper into the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that more than 21,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. The ministry, which does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and combatants, said 165 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours. It has said about 70% of those killed have been women and children.

The number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza combat rose to 170, after the military announced two more deaths Saturday.

The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless bombed. Palestinians are left with a sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.

With Israeli forces expanding their ground offensive this week, tens of thousands more Palestinians streamed into the already crowded city of Rafah at the southernmost end of Gaza.

Thousands of tents and makeshift shacks have sprung up on Rafah’s outskirts next to UN warehouses. Displaced people arrived in Rafah on foot or on trucks and carts piled high with mattresses. Those who did not find space in overwhelmed shelters pitched tents on roadsides.

“We don’t have water. We don’t have enough food,” Nour Daher, a displaced woman, said Saturday from the sprawling tent camp. “The kids wake up in the morning wanting to eat, wanting to drink. It took us one hour to find water for them. We couldn’t bring them flour. Even when we wanted to take them to toilets, it took us one hour to walk.”

In the Nuseirat camp, resident Mustafa Abu Wawee said a strike hit the home of one of his relatives, killing two people, according to the Associated Press.

“The (Israeli) occupation is doing everything to force people to leave,” he said over the phone while helping to search for four people missing under the rubble. “They want to break our spirit and will, but they will fail. We are here to stay.”



Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war, reported Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

After a strike killed several people in Khan Younis, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent.

"Is anything left for us? There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep," he said.

The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.

GAZANS FEAR PERMANENT DEPOPULATION

Israel has not spelled out its longterm aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu said troops were taking an area he called the "Morag Axis", a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement once located between Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the adjacent main southern city Khan Younis.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods reaching Gaza's 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations describe as a humanitarian catastrophe after weeks of relative calm.

Israel's stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas group which ran Gaza for nearly two decades and led the attack on Israeli communities in October 2023 that precipitated the war.

But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas-led police returned to the streets during the ceasefire. Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages which Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that ends the war.

Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza's Beit Lahiya on Wednesday opposing the war and demanding Hamas quit power. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.

The war began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.

Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel's order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.

Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment, said residents.

"Others stayed because they don't know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained," said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.

Markets have emptied and prices for basic necessities have soared under Israel's total blockade of food, medicine and fuel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but has nominal authority over hospitals in Gaza, said Gaza's entire healthcare system was at risk of collapse.