As Israel obliterates medical facilities, schools turn 'hospitals' in Gaza

Rows of books on varied subjects once lined the shelves. But the cupboards are now filled with packs of medicines and saline injections.

The chalk and blackboard have been replaced by the scalpel and the stethoscope.

The classrooms, which once reverberated with the joyous laughter of children and the baritone voice of teachers imparting lessons, are now filled with the moans and groans of the sick and injured.

In the devastated and dystopian world of Gaza, where Israel’s military has laid waste to healthcare facilities and killed and detained hundreds of medical professionals, the few remaining schools are now serving as makeshift hospitals.

Without proper equipment and supplies, doctors and paramedics struggle to treat patients on desks and benches that serve as examination beds. The surgical wards are just corners of classrooms separated by clothes hung from ceilings and fans.

“All people know that schools are just for education,” says Dr Khalid Abu-Habel, who has been providing medical services at the privately-run Khadija Girls School in central Gaza’s Deir al Balah.

“However, we were forced to reopen the school as an on-ground hospital after the Al Aqsa Hospital was put out of service by Israeli troops. Every day, we receive hundreds of cases, including explosive injuries, multi-fractures, infected wounds, and follow-up cases,” he tells TRT World.

All educational institutions in Gaza were shut down in October. Most of them are now serving as temporary shelters for millions of people forced out of their homes by the Israeli assault.

The Khadija Girls School was turned into a hospital in December.

Gaza’s devastated healthcare system

In response to Hamas’s October 7 blitzkrieg, Israel has waged a devastating and disproportional war on the densely-populated enclave of Gaza, killing nearly 34,500 people and injuring and maiming thousands of others. Most of those killed are children and women.

Israel’s attack on Gaza’s healthcare has been brutal.

According to the Gaza Media Office, 26 hospitals out of Gaza’s 36 have been destroyed or put out of service by the Israeli military.

The ten remaining are “barely functioning”, according to the World Health Organization.

Israeli bombardment and ground offensive have also killed at least 485 medics and injured an estimated 520 healthcare workers since October 7. A large number of healthcare professionals have also been detained by Israel.

Health authorities say the ten remaining hospitals are now functioning minimally due to a lack of medical supplies and manpower.

Most of the major hospitals in Gaza have come under attack several times over the past seven months.

Israeli tanks and drones have targetted the Al-Awda Hospital in the Al Nusairat refugee camp and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital multiple times, killing and injuring dozens of people.

These two hospitals are the only functioning healthcare facilities in central Gaza, where around a million people are taking shelter.

But perhaps the most murderous attacks on Gaza’s healthcare took place at the Nasser and Al-Shifa medical complexes in Khan Younis and Gaza City, respectively – the lifelines for millions of people in the besieged enclave.

After the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Nasser Medical Complex, nearly 300 bodies were retrieved from mass graves.

In March, Israeli troops raided the Al-Shifa Hospital and turned it into a slaughterhouse, killing more than 300 people and burying them in mass graves that were uncovered earlier this month.

Last year, barely days after the October 7 attack, Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians and medical crews.

Schools are for education?

At the Khadija Girls School campus, children play football in the courtyard, their shrieks of joy hiding the trauma they carry in their hearts.

Inside the makeshift hospitals, however, the signs of trauma are everywhere—patients lie on benches doubling as hospital beds and blood pools on the floor.

The school is also a shelter for around 500 people displaced from the north of Gaza, all of whom carry injuries from the war.

Dr Khalid Abu Habel is one of the handful of medics in the hospital, serving hundreds of patients daily.

“Hospitals have been repeatedly targeted since the war broke out. Al-Aqsa Hospital was attacked twice,” says the doctor, who volunteered at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital since the war on Gaza broke out.

But even these makeshift hospitals are not safe.

In January, Dr Abu Habel escaped by a whisker when three rockets slammed into an adjacent building. The shockwaves partially destroyed the school and also killed one of his female colleagues, Dr Tasneem Abu Sebah.

Close to the Khadija Girls School is the Al Salah Benevolent School, which is now home to more than 5,000 displaced people from north Gaza. The school also has a medical centre to treat first-degree war injuries, ailments, and infections.

However, the lack of supplies severely hampers the work of the small crew of eight healthcare workers.

“Our biggest challenge is the scarcity of essential medical supplies, such as beds, devices, and medications. In fact, what we can provide here is limited. We can only provide first aid to war injuries, treatment for normal diseases, and follow-up to chronic diseases,” says Ramadan Eid, one of the nurses at the makeshift hospital.

“Another dilemma we face here is viral infections. Lack of hygiene, malnutrition, and pollution make for the fast spread of infections, especially hepatitis A virus and scabies,” he tells TRT World.

As ‘isolation wards’ are not available in the crammed school, the number of “infections increases every day”.

Running out of solutions

In the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, five schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are now serving as the first points of medical care for thousands of people.

With more and more people arriving from Rafah, where an Israeli military invasion is imminent, Deir al Balah is now home to more than half a million people.

At the Deir al Balah Prep Girls School—which shelters more than 10,000 refugees—Dr Asala Hamad heads the makeshift medical centre and battles a shortage of medicines and equipment to treat hundreds of patients daily.

“The problem we face in UNRWA schools is the staggering number of people, which exacerbates the spread of infections and skin diseases,” she tells TRT World.

Dr Hamad’s biggest regrets are medical cases when patients die due to a lack of equipment and supplies at the school.

“We try to prevent such incidents, but we’re running out of solutions…We desperately need more medical supplies, more surgeons and doctors to work, and more surgery and patients’ rooms to help the people.”

Ahmed Al Ostath, a nurse who works with Dr Hamad, says that apart from bombs and bullets, the fear of being detained by Israeli troops hangs over medics in Gaza.

“Surgeon Khalid Hamouda of Al Awda Hospital and orthopedist Akram Abu Ouda of the Indonesian hospital were detained by Israeli forces. (But) we don’t know what happened to them…We call on the world to provide more protection and support to us during these difficult times. We simply want an end to this brutal war," he tells TRT World.

As the situation deteriorates with each passing day and Israel’s military ravages the remaining healthcare facilities, the medical professionals desperately seek more global help to take care of the Gaza residents battered by bombs, bullets and infections.

For, the medics know that the makeshift hospitals could never provide the level of healthcare that the people of Gaza desperately need.

“Even if we bring all necessities to the school and provide it with all medical supplies, it remains a school and will never have the nature of a hospital. It can’t really serve as a hospital at all,” says Dr Abu Habel.

For these doctors and nurses, however, there is no alternative but to continue to help the people the best they can.