State of hospitals in Gaza as Israel-Hamas war hits 1-year mark

As the Israel-Hamas war hits the one-year mark on Monday, Gaza's already fragile health care system has "collapsed," according to aid organizations.

There are currently 36 hospitals and nine field hospitals in Gaza, according to data provided to ABC News by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of Sept. 24, the only fully functioning hospitals remaining are four field hospitals, all located in either central or southern Gaza, according to the WHO. Of the remaining total hospitals and field hospitals, 22 are partially functioning, with the remaining 19 non-functioning.

Tune into ABC News Live at 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 7, for "Oct 7th: Race to Survive" – special coverage of the anniversary of the conflict. Veteran correspondent Matt Gutman highlights voices of Israelis and Palestinians impacted by the war and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"The health care system in Gaza has collapsed. Fewer than half of the hospitals in Gaza are operational while people's medical needs are greater than ever," a spokesperson for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement to ABC News.

"The dismantling of the health system by Israeli forces has left people without access to care at a time when people's physical and mental health needs continue to grow exponentially," the statement added.

Israel has claimed that Hamas uses hospitals, and networks of tunnels beneath them, as bases to conduct and promote terrorist activity, and U.S. officials have backed this claim. Hamas, however, has repeatedly denied it.

In northern Gaza, there are 11 partially functioning hospitals, according to the WHO: Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital, Al-Hayat Specialized Hospital, Al-Helou Hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Sahaba Medical Complex, Haifa Charity Hospital, Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, Patients Friends Association Hospital, and Public Aid Cardiovascular Hospital.

Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was one of the first hospitals hit when the war began. An explosion on Oct. 17, 2023, in the parking lot of the courtyard resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health blamed Israel for the explosion, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed the explosion likely came from a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Several of the northern Gaza hospitals have been raided by the IDF, including Al-Awda Hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, Indonesian Hospital, and Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, which once had 800 beds, weathered a nearly two-week raid in March, in what Israeli military officials at the time called one of the "single-largest operations in the war". WHO workers, who gained access to the facility in early April after the raid, called the hospital "an empty shell" of itself.

After the raid, Israeli troops announced that they had killed 170 "gunmen" and that about 480 Hamas and Islamic Jihad "militants" had been detained. The IDF previously said it had uncovered a cache of weapons at Al-Shifa in a November raid.

The IDF also claimed it found evidence of Hamas operating in other hospitals. In November 2023, Israeli military officials brought several journalists, including ABC News' Matt Gutman, into the Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, and alleged that it was a Hamas command center.

"Most of the buildings are extensively damaged or destroyed and the majority of equipment is unusable or reduced to ashes," the WHO assessment read. "Restoring even minimal functionality in the short term seems implausible and will require substantial efforts to assess and clear the grounds for unexploded ordnance to ensure safety and accessibility for partners to bring in equipment and supplies."

It was only last month that the hospital reopened two of its departments, Al-Shifa Medical Complex Director Dr. Marwan Abu Saada told ABC News.

The reopened departments are the Emergency and Accidents Department – which has 70 beds, two operating rooms, one intensive care unit room and one X-ray room – and the Kidney Dialysis Department, which has about 22 kidney dialysis machines and serves 36 patients with kidney failure, Abu Saada said.

"As for the medical staff, there is a large deficit in medical personnel, but at least we want to work and serve the community," he said.

Patient Friends Association Hospital, located in Gaza City, is another hospital that was essentially destroyed. In a post on the social platform X in February, the WHO shared photos showing the burned remains of the hospital, saying it was non-functional and that patients and health care workers had evacuated "in search of safety." Nevertheless, the hospital reopened in June, then briefly closed in July "due to the recent outbreak" in violence but re-opened a few days later, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

Not every hospital has been able to reopen and 13 are currently not functioning, according to the WHO. Among them is Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only cancer hospital in Gaza, which ceased functioning as of Nov. 1, 2023, after suffering severe damage from Israeli airstrikes and due to a shortage of fuel, according to the U.K. medical journal The Lancet.

A number of specialty hospitals have also stopped functioning in the region, including at least two children's hospitals, three ophthalmic hospitals, a psychiatric hospital, and two hospitals specializing in rehabilitation, according to an ABC News analysis of WHO data.

In southern Gaza, just four hospitals are functioning, all of which are field hospitals: International Committee on the Red Cross (ICRC) Field Hospital, International Medical Corps Field Hospital, Jordanian Field Hospital, and UK-Med Field Hospital, WHO data shows.

The ICRC opened its 60-bed field hospital in May in Rafah, located in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt. It continues to remain operational despite the ongoing conflict there, according to the ICRC.

In addition to the ICRC field hospital, there are currently six partially functioning hospitals in southern Gaza: Al-Aqsa Hospital, Al-Awda Nuseirat Hospital, Al-Khair Hospital, Al-Amal Hospital, Nasser Hospital, and Yaffa Hospital.

MSF said this week that it is running medical activities at Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals, as well as at two field hospital in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, but noted that field hospitals "cannot replace the health care system that Israel has dismantled in Gaza."

"No amount of field hospitals will replace what was a functional health care system in Gaza before the escalation of war," Dr. Sohaib Safi, deputy medical coordinator for MSF in Gaza, said in a statement in August. "This is the last resort to provide urgently needed medical care, but it really is a drop in the ocean. As the facade of a ceasefire is presented time and again, the ability to sustain human life in Gaza diminishes."

Nasser Hospital, one of the largest in Gaza, has been attacked multiple times during the war. It was attacked by IDF troops in February, forcing patients and medical staff to evacuate, the WHO said at the time.

Nasser Hospital was rebuilt and partially reopened over the summer, helping women give birth safely, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

Currently, seven hospitals in southern Gaza are not functioning: Algerian Hospital, Al-Helal Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital, Al-Najjar Hospital, Dar es Salaam Hospital, European Gaza Hospital, and Kuwait Hospital, according to the WHO.

European Gaza Hospital, in Khan Younis, only recently stopped functioning, after the IDF issued an evacuation order in July for the area in which the hospital is located, with many patients fleeing to nearby Nasser Hospital, according to MSF.