Gaza City, Gaza – Yousef Abu Sakran was dozing next to his injured child and wife, Iman, in a tent ward at al-Ahli Arab Hospital when the sounds of people running and shouting woke him up.
He stepped into the hospital courtyard well before dawn on Sunday to ask what was happening but found no clear answer, only vague news that the Israeli army had made calls to people living around the hospital, demanding the expulsion of everyone in the medical facility.
The 29-year-old father reacted instantly. He scooped up his five-year-old son, Mohammad, and he and Iman ran towards the gate.
Mohammad has severe injuries across his body, including third-degree burns on his back and legs, but Yousef had to keep running with him.
“I was carrying my son, whose body was burned, and running while he screamed,” Yousef said. “His back was bleeding – his wounds were bleeding heavily – and he was screaming in agony.
“[So many people’s] injuries reopened from the sudden movement. I saw the family of a girl with spinal injuries trying to pull her bed, but it was stuck in the debris.
“Just seconds after we left the hospital, it was struck by two missiles that shook the entire place. I told my wife: ‘Imagine if we had been a minute later. We’d be dead.’”
Where to go with an injured boy?
Yousef and his wife were in the street with everyone else from the hospital.
“It was around 2am, and I had no idea where to take my injured son. He was in pain and bleeding. There were no clinics or hospitals, and the tent we live in is very far and completely unsuitable for his condition.”
Mohammad had been injured in an Israeli air strike on a block of homes in Gaza’s Shujayea neighbourhood, which killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens.
An hour after the hospital was bombed, Yousef and his wife decided there was nothing they could do other than take Mohammad back to al-Ahli.
“The place was pitch-black, and it reeked of gunpowder and dust. I went to the surgery building at the far end of the hospital, where I found a nurse who took pity on Mohammad’s condition, treated his wounds and admitted him.”
Bombing a hospital like this, Yousef said, is a stain on humanity’s conscience.
“They bomb our homes over our heads and then bomb hospitals while patients and the wounded are inside. Where are we supposed to go?
“Isn’t all this grief and suffering enough?”
Dragging himself out of danger
Suhaib Hamed, 20, was asleep in another tent ward, right next to the hospital’s emergency building, which was hit.
Hamed was injured when he went to fetch flour for his starving family on February 29, 2024 – a day known as the “Flour Massacre“, during which Israel killed 109 Palestinians and wounded dozens while they waited for food aid.
He was shot in the leg by Israeli tanks, damaging his bones and tissue to the point that he needed metal implants and has been in the orthopaedic department since then.
“My brother, who usually stays with me, wasn’t there. I don’t even know how I managed to stand on my injured leg, grab my crutches and flee,” Suhaib told Al Jazeera as he exited the surgery department after having the wounds to his leg cleaned and checked.
“I forgot my pain because of what I saw around me. Everyone was screaming in terror and fear, just trying to survive. It felt like the Day of Judgement.”
Suhaib also managed to get out of the hospital minutes before two Israeli missiles landed.
“My leg couldn’t handle it any more, and my wound reopened and started bleeding again.”
He couldn’t keep walking, so he stopped and called his brother, who came and supported him to their home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, a half-hour’s walk for a healthy person on undamaged roads.
The pain in his leg kept Suhaib up, but he was also worried about the hospital being forced to close.
“I’ve been staying in the hospital [for more than a year] because of my condition,” he said. Suhaib has a medical referral to travel outside Gaza for treatment but has been waiting to leave for a year.
“Isn’t the closure and banning of our travel enough? They even target the hospital that was still treating us with the little that’s available.”
Making a catastrophic situation worse
The Israeli strike on al-Ahli has exacerbated an already catastrophic situation for Gaza’s healthcare system, which has been collapsing as Israeli bombardments and a blockade on medicines, medical supplies and fuel continues.
In the panic that ensued because Israel did not give hospital staff even the bare minimum of time to evacuate patients, a child died due to lack of oxygen, Fadel Naeem, director of al-Ahli, told Al Jazeera.
Israel destroyed the vital emergency, radiology, laboratory and central pharmacy departments, the doctor continued.
“We’ll need weeks or months to resume operations,” he noted. “This hospital is a hub for services and includes all essential facilities, including the only CT scan machine available.
“The fate of patients and the wounded is now unknown. We’ll have to distribute them to other hospitals, but no hospital is equipped to provide full services.”
