The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been carrying out an intensive bombing campaign on Gaza City since early September. The IDF released a statement on September 19 saying that it would hit the city with “unprecedented force”, after telling the population to evacuate towards the coast.
‘There are many patients who we haven’t been able to accept’
In a video and a series of voice notes, Salmiya told our team that his hospital is drowning under the constant arrival of people injured in the IDF’s strikes on Gaza City. The hospital, he says, is overwhelmed and under-resourced.
“Of course, the bombing of Gaza City continues. Our morgues don’t have enough space for all of the martyrs. Our medical teams are working in unprecedented conditions.
We are losing many of the injured people because we don’t have enough operating theatres, we also don’t have enough intensive care beds, or sufficient medical personnel. There are many patients who we haven’t been able to accept because we don’t have enough beds. We’ve been putting people on the floor in the hall.”
Salmiya was arrested by the IDF in November 2023, and he says that he was tortured during his imprisonment. He was finally released on July 1, 2024. On September 20, he learned that his brother and sister-in-law had died in the bombings when their bodies were brought to the hospital during his shift.
Salmiya and his staff have been speaking out about the horrific conditions at the hospital. An Australian doctor, who is volunteering at Al-Shifa, published an account on Sunday, September 21, saying that the hospital had become a “slaughterhouse”.
Salmiya continues:
"The situation at the Al-Shifa medical complex, as well as in the rest of Gaza City, is tragic in every sense of the term. It’s a catastrophe.
We don’t have medical supplies or medication. There are not enough operating theatres. Every day, hundreds of injured people arrive, and we are unable to save their lives. They are dying under our eyes."
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"It is also difficult to reach Al-Shifa because of the bombings. The ambulances are struggling to reach the hospital, and the wounded people who get here are already in a difficult situation.
Medical teams and the operating theatres are working 24 hours a day, but there is a real danger for all of us here in the Al-Shifa medical complex. Our hospital was already destroyed once, as was Kamal Adwan Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital.”
‘The burden on our hospital has become enormous’
Things got worse for the already overwhelmed hospital when the IDF partially destroyed Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City on September 17, 2025. It has now gone fully out of operation, Salmiya says.
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These photos – published by Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry and verified by the account @NemoAnno, which specialises in geolocating images – show the partial destruction of the children’s hospital.
Salmiya explains:
“The situation at Al-Shifa Hospital became really dangerous after Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital and the eye hospital stopped functioning, along with Sheikh Radwan clinic. The burden on our hospital has become enormous.
Every day, we receive dozens of martyrs and hundreds of injured people, as well as those who are malnourished or who have chronic illnesses. There are more than 480 patients in the complex, including 13 patients in intensive care and 300 dialysis patients.”
There are only a handful of hospitals still operating in Gaza City. Salmiya says that outside of Al-Shifa, there is just one maternity ward and two “partially functioning” hospitals.
‘We are asking for international protection’
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On September 21, Al-Shifa nurse Ashraf Abu Mohsen was killed alongside his wife and two children in an Israeli strike. Salmiya confirmed his death, saying that he died “after having finished his work at the hospital.”
“As a result, we are asking for international protection for Al-Shifa and the other hospitals, as well as for our staff.
We fear that there are tens of thousands of victims, because there are still hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza City.”
While a number of Western nations recognised Palestinian statehood at the United Nations on Monday, September 22, the IDF continues to bomb Gaza City. More civilians are dying every day.
An estimated 65,344 people, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israeli attacks between October 7, 2023, and September 22, 2025, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose numbers are considered reliable by the United Nations.
This article has been translated from the original in French.
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