Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – In the dimly lit corridors of al-Amal Hospital in western Khan Younis, one of the 17 partially operational healthcare facilities in Gaza, a rare sense of hope grips the staff and patients.Mediators have announced a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel to end the 15-month war on Gaza, and although the Israeli cabinet has yet to approve the deal, optimism is contagious.
For the first time in months, orthopaedic consultant Dr Khaled Ayyad speaks with confidence as he reassures patients of soon receiving the medication and procedures they urgently need and hospitals have been unable to provide due to Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries to Gaza.
“We’ve done the impossible. We’ve had to improvise ways to handle cases so grave in scope and so large in number and for the longest stretch of time to get this far,” Ayyad explains.
Along with other medical staff and patients, he was forced by the Israeli army to leave his post at the Palestinian Red Crescent-run al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City a month after the war began on October 7, 2023. The 53-year-old surgeon had since been operating out of al-Amal, relying on what he describes as “minimal capabilities”. Advertisement
Throughout Israel’s war on Gaza, “each medical centre or humanitarian delivery system has been or is being destroyed,” according to a January 7 report by the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders, known by its French …
