Gaza Hospitals in 'Complete Chaos' Treating Civilians amid 'Crisis' Situation: Reports

A doctor at Nasser Hospital told NBC News that the majority of ICU beds there are "occupied by kids less than 10” years old

Hospitals in Gaza are overcrowded, running low on supplies and in “complete chaos" as they try to treat civilians amid the war between Israel and Hamas, according to reports.

Following Hamas' deadly attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, subsequent Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and a call from Israel for the 1.1 million civilians in Gaza City to evacuate, local hospitals are struggling to keep up with an excess of patients, doctors have told both ABC News and NBC News.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Mohamed Ziara described the scene at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest hospital, as “complete chaos," noting that “tens of thousands” of injured people were still arriving as of Friday, with “no place to leave a foot" in the hospital, per NBC News.

At Nasser Hospital, which is the second-largest in Gaza City, Dr. Mohammed Qandil told NBC News that the location has opened "tents" outside of the hospital to treat more patients and that the hospital ultimately had to decide "if these tents will have to be for the critical patients, patient post-op, or the patient who will go after finishing their management."

“This is like a humanity crisis,” Qandil said, adding that medical supplies are low and doctors have to decide which patients are most in need of ventilators.

"We are treating civilians — most of the ICU beds are now occupied by kids less than 10 years,” he said.

Related: Israeli Defense Minister Calls for ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza Strip Two Days After Hamas' Surprise Attack

Qandil also told the outlet that fuel is running low and internet access is at risk, potentially putting the hospital in jeopardy.

“Even in the next few hours we might lose the last store of fuel, so the hospital will shut down completely," he told NBC. "And then even the wifi connection, which is very weak, we will lose it so we will be severed totally from the world."

Another doctor at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Ahmad Almoqadam, told ABC News this week that there is a shortage of water, medication, and blood for transfusions at the hospital. The lack of medical supplies and gauzes, Almoqadam told the outlet, will "afflict the health of the patient."

Some patients are without hospital beds and some locals are also sheltering in the hospital due to their homes being destroyed, Almoqadam also said, adding that he too is without a home after finding it destroyed on Wednesday.

"There's more people and the more and more injured people and they need medical help on surgeries or orthopedic intervention or intervention due to a variety of explosive injury and traumas and variety of the people who were injured," Almoqadam added. "There is no discrimination in the types of the people."

Related: Israeli Man Shares 'Last Happy Moments' in Photos from Music Festival Just Before Hamas Attack (Exclusive)

On Thursday, the World Health Organization said that local hospitals in Gaza were at their "breaking point," with fuel "due to run out," shortages of medical supplies, and a focus on "lifesaving emergency care," impacting those who require other "essential health services."

WHO also said they have documented 34 "attacks on health care in Gaza since last Saturday," which killed 11 health workers dead, injured 16 and damaged 19 health facilities and 20 ambulances.

This week, The Associated Press reported that Al Shifa's morgue, which typically holds 30 bodies at a time, had overflowed on Thursday, with bodies being stacked on top of each other, some in the parking lot, as a nurse called the site a "graveyard."

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) told ABC News this week that many of their patients at Gaza City clinics are children with "the majority of the injured in Gaza are women and children, since they are the ones who are most often in the houses that get destroyed in the airstrikes," according to deputy project coordinator in Gaza, Ayman Al-Djaroucha.

"We are talking about more than a million human beings," MSF shared in a statement posted on their website on Friday, in reference to the call for evacuations. "'Unprecedented' doesn't even cover the medical humanitarian impact of this. Gaza is being flattened, thousands of people are dying. This must stop now. We condemn Israel's demand in the strongest possible terms."

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces issued a press release that called “for the evacuation of all civilians of Gaza City from their homes southwards for their own safety and protection and move to the area south of the Wadi Gaza."

“The Hamas terrorist organization waged a war against the State of Israel and Gaza City is an area where military operations take place,” the IDF statement read. “This evacuation is for your own safety.”

The IDF further said that Hamas terrorists in the city are hiding in tunnels underneath houses and in buildings with innocent civilians, calling for residents to "distance" themselves from members of Hamas "who are using you as human shields."

Meanwhile, Hamas brushed off the Israeli military’s evacuation warning and called for people to stay in Gaza. The group said, according to The Washington Post: “Our Palestinian people reject the threat made by the leaders of the occupation and its call for Gazans to leave their houses and leave to the south or to Egypt.”

The evacuation orders followed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's own announcement that Israel was “putting a complete siege on Gaza" following Hamas' surprise attacks on Israeli civilians last weekend.

The announcement meant “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas" for the area, according to a statement shared to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency  has since described the call for a mass evacuation as “horrendous," with commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini sharing in a news release that it would "only lead to unprecedented levels of misery and further push people in Gaza into the abyss."

As reported Friday, 1,300 people, including 27 Americans, have been killed in the Hamas attacks in Israel, NBC News said, citing U.S. officials. The Palestinian Ministry of Health also previously shared that 1,537 people had been killed in Gaza.

Related: 'I Wish I Didn't See What Happened': The Children Killed in the Israel-Hamas Conflict

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