Dr. Abeer Al-Gharbawi, left, performs surgery under the illumination of a battery-powered light during a power outage at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
The main buildings of Shifa Hospital lie in ruins after Israeli air and ground offensives, with the hospital administration estimating that 70% of the facility has been destroyed, in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A mother carries her child into a patient treatment tent set up in the yard of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A warehouse built in the yard of Shifa Hospital is overcrowded with patients and suffers from poor ventilation, high temperatures, unsanitary conditions, and bug infestation, in Gaza City, Sunday, July 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Dr. Ashraf al-Bayya and his team perform surgery on a patient with a foot injury caused by an Israeli strike, in an operating room with unstable electricity at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
An unidentified, unaccompanied man lies on the floor of Shifa Hospital receiving treatment after a rocket strike, in Gaza City, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians are brought to Shifa Hospital after being wounded while on their way to an aid distribution center, in Gaza City, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A medical staff member prays in a room designated for sterilizing surgical tools, which also serves as a rest and prayer space for doctors and staff, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Dr. Abeer Al-Gharbawi performs surgery illuminated by the flashlights of two cellphones during a power outage at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
PHOTO ESSAY: Gaza’s main hospital barely functions after Israeli raids and 21 months of war
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Shifa Hospital was once the cornerstone of the health system in the Gaza Strip. Now, after 21 months of war and two major Israeli raids, it barely functions.
Dr. Abeer Al-Gharbawi, left, performs surgery under the illumination of a battery-powered light during a power outage at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Shifa Hospital was once the cornerstone of the health system in the Gaza Strip. Now, after 21 months of war and two major Israeli raids, it barely functions.
Its corridors are filled with people wounded in Israeli airstrikes, its morgue packed with bodies. Doctors and nurses perform surgeries in squalid conditions, often by the light of cellphones. Patients waiting outside for dialysis treatment sit beside the rubble of a bombed-out hospital wing.
Israel carried out two major raids on Shifa and , accusing Hamas militants of sheltering inside them. Medical staff have denied the allegations, but Hamas security men can often be seen inside such facilities and have placed parts of them off limits to the public.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
Hospitals can lose their protected status under international law if they are used for military purposes.
Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, including by evacuating such facilities and delivering aid to them. But medics say the raids have recklessly endangered patients and wrecked the health system from the ongoing war.
Israel , weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war. The military said the hospital served as a major Hamas command and control center but provided little evidence beyond a single tunnel leading to underground rooms near the facility.
Israeli forces , igniting days of heavy fighting in which the military said it killed some 200 militants who had regrouped there. The hospital’s emergency ward and a surgery building were destroyed.
Today, former storage rooms now house patients. because of Israel’s blockade and the breakdown of law and order in the territory, which has made it difficult for aid groups to deliver supplies. Power outages are routine because of a lack of fuel.
Much of the staff are volunteers working long hours without pay. Some rooms are so crowded that patients lie on the floor. Flies swarm throughout the facility, in part because of a lack of disinfectant.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.