Gaza’s healthcare system has suffered another catastrophic blow as the Martyr Mohammed al-Durrah Children’s Hospital was forced to shut down following an Israeli airstrike. The attack, which hit the facility two days earlier, destroyed its intensive care unit and backup power supply, leaving critically ill children without life-saving treatment.

With this closure, only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, struggling under severe shortages of medicine, equipment, and fuel. The targeting of medical facilities has become a grim pattern in Israel’s assault, with northern Gaza now devoid of any functioning public hospitals after the destruction of Kamal Adwan, Beit Hanoun, and Indonesian hospitals.

Since Israel resumed its offensive in March, thousands of civilians have been killed, and the blockade has pushed Gaza into famine. Families already grappling with starvation now face the unbearable loss of medical care.

“Where do we take our children now?” cried Fatima Abu Salem, whose son relied on the hospital’s oxygen machines. Her despair mirrors that of countless parents watching their children suffer without hope of treatment.

As Gaza’s healthcare system collapses, calls grow for urgent international intervention to protect hospitals and hold Israel accountable for what Palestinian authorities describe as a deliberate campaign to dismantle Gaza’s lifelines. With each strike, more lives are lost—not to war alone, but to the systematic denial of survival itself