Gaza’s Shifah Hospital

Two years on, a graphic and harrowing look behind the scenes at the Shifah Hospital in Gaza during the seven weeks of Israeli attacks in July and August 2014.

Maybe they could stop the bombing. Maybe the children of Palestine, the small kids in Gaza, could sleep one night without the sound of Israeli jets and bombs.

by Dr Mads Gilbert, anaesthetist and trauma expert

The Shifah is Gaza’s biggest and oldest medical facility and the dead and injured were brought there day and night during almost two months of bombardment by Israeli forces.

Thousands also took refuge in and around the hospital while Palestinian medics often put in 30 hour shifts.

The conflict in Gaza in the summer of 2014 claimed 2,220 lives, two-thirds of whom were civilians. Over 11,000 more were injured and many of these were treated at the Shifah Hospital.

Space, medicines, equipment and beds were all limited, power cuts frequent and the Out Patients department took a direct hit.

Here, cameras record the suffering, chaos and distress – and we hear from Dr Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian anaesthetist and trauma expert.

A frequent visitor to the Shifah until his ban by Israel in November 2014, Gilbert brings desperately needed supplies – but also joins the Palestinian doctors in the constant, brutal decision-making about which patients should live and who should be left to die.