NASSER HOSPITAL

Nasser Hospital is the last remaining partially functional Ministry of Health hospital in southern Gaza. Its maternity wards and intensive care units for children and newborns are among the few that remain functional in the south. Our teams at Nasser provide support to various units in the facility, including the following:

• Trauma, orthopedic, burn, and pediatric wards
• Inpatient therapeutic feeding center for children with malnutrition
• Emergency room for pediatric and maternal care
• Infection prevention and control
• Mental health care
• Health promotion activities

Activities we support also include its pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and newborn intensive care unit (NICU), and an outpatient department for specialist and maternity services, including specialist consultations for delivery, pre- and post-partum care, gynecology, and obstetrics.  

KHAN YOUNIS PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTER

The Khan Younis primary health care center is an MSF facility providing services including outpatient consultations; vaccination; care for non-communicable diseases; mental health care; malnutrition care, including screening for children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, and an outpatient therapeutic feeding center; sexual and reproductive health care; wound care; physiotherapy; and health promotion.

AL-ATTAR PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTER

This MSF clinic provides general and pediatric consultations for acute and chronic conditions; vaccination; emergency and wound care; family planning; pre- and postnatal care; psychosocial and mental health care; health promotion; malnutrition screening and outpatient treatment for severe and moderate cases; a malnutrition program for children under 6 months old; and a 24-hour emergency service to stabilize and refer patients. 

AL-MAWASI PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CLINIC

After a brief suspension of activities due to the advancement of Israeli troops in the Al-Mawasi area in March, MSF teams have returned to the clinic. Our teams there provide outpatient services, including general and pediatric consultations for acute and chronic conditions; vaccination; reproductive health care including prenatal and postnatal care and family planning; wound dressing; minor surgery; psychosocial and mental health services; and health promotion. The clinic has a 24/7 emergency room to stabilize and refer severe patients. It also provides malnutrition screening and outpatient therapeutic feeding treatment for children, infants, and pregnant or lactating women with severe or moderate malnutrition. Wound care and physiotherapy services are also available. 

AL-AQSA HOSPITAL

Our teams at Al-Aqsa Hospital focus mainly on supporting the emergency department and wound care clinic. We provide hands-on support during mass casualty incidents and daily activities, including training for ER medical staff and ensuring adherence to infection prevention and control measures and medical protocols.

MSF relocated the wound care clinic to the Ministry of Health’s Deir al-Balah primary health care center. The wound care team now conducts malnutrition screenings of children under 5 years old, as well as referrals. 

DEIR AL-BALAH FIELD HOSPITAL

After relocating from wards in Nasser Hospital, MSF teams moved some services to our field hospital in Deir al-Balah to run its burns and orthopedic wards. It has 63 inpatient beds and also provides outpatient services. 

MSF CLINIC

Our teams at the MSF clinic in Gaza City provide primary health care, including general consultations and screening for non-communicable diseases and malnutrition. Our teams there also offer wound care, physiotherapy, and sexual and reproductive health care including follow-up for pre- and postnatal care, gynecological consultations, family planning, and therapeutic nutrition care for children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women. 

AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL

Al-Shifa remains the Ministry of Health’s main secondary care facility, serving half of Gaza’s displaced population, however its pre-war capacity has been reduced drastically, with a reported bed occupancy of 250 percent. To help meet the urgent needs, MSF is opening a 40-bed inpatient department in the maternity building, with an intermediate operating theater for post-operative trauma care and advanced wound management. 

SHEIKH RADWAN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTER

MSF is supporting the emergency room and trauma stabilization point at Sheikh Radwan, providing emergency trauma and medical care and responding to mass casualty incidents in the area. We also provide technical supervision and training for staff. 

AL-HELOU MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Maternity services at Al-Shifa Hospital were relocated to Al-Helou Maternity Hospital, where MSF teams support the emergency room, inpatient department, delivery rooms, operating theaters, and NICU, as well as providing infection prevention and control, mental health care, and health promotion. 

Israeli forces’ have decimated Gaza’s water network. Water treatment plants and other water infrastructure have been attacked, damaged, and destroyed. Gaza has no independent means of producing drinkable water, as groundwater is too salty or contaminated by sewage and agricultural chemicals to be fit for human consumption. As part of the siege, Israeli authorities’ have cut off or restricted the flow of fuel and electricity, which the remaining water plants need in order to function.

Israeli authorities have also blocked the entry of key water production supplies. For example, since June 2024, only 11 percent of MSF’s requests to bring in desalination supplies have been approved. Some authorization requests for items like water pumps, spare parts, and water tanks have been pending for months.

Lack of water is life-threatening and can contribute to health issues like diarrhea, jaundice, and scabies—all of which are on the rise in Gaza. Dehydration can be lethal and also makes it harder to recover from other diseases. As such, water and sanitation is a significant part of MSF’s response in Gaza. We carry out water trucking activities, establish distribution points, and provide technical support to desalination plants. Despite the challenges, the desalination plants we support produced more than 9.5 million gallons per week in the first half of August. However, the needs far exceed our capacity to respond at scale.

Our teams also work in partnership with PARC (the Agriculture Development Association) to provide sanitation support to a camp hosting 400 people with disabilities and camp shelters in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. 

Israel’s systematic deprivation of aid—including food, water, electricity, and medical supplies—has led to preventable deaths, malnutrition, and profound trauma; and has manufactured a situation of famine in Gaza. At the same time, it has prevented humanitarian organizations from responding to the needs at scale, severely inhibiting the flow of supplies needed to operate.

Prior to the total siege launched on March 2, MSF provided over 636 tons of logistic and medical equipment from our international supply centers—as much as 30 planes or 130 trucks full. However, some supplies that are critical to our operations and the security of our staff have been difficult to transport into Gaza. These include generators, desalination stations and motor pumps, oxygen concentrators, vehicles, and equipment for communication.  

As the Israeli offensive intensifies, our teams are again receiving mass casualties following bombings and attacks, with many patients requiring care for war wounds, crush injuries, and burns. MSF teams have seen an increase in the number of patients with burn injuries—most of them children. Many of these children were burned by bomb blasts; others by boiling water or fuel used for cooking or heating in makeshift shelters. 

Infections resulting from poorly treated wounds are a growing concern, driven by the difficulty wounded people face accessing care and follow-up, shortages of supplies, and lack of access to hygiene. There is also high risk of infectious diseases including diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections, and hepatitis due to overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions in camps where displaced people are sheltering, and shortages of medicines and medical supplies. 

With the aid blockade hindering the entry of food, including therapeutic food for malnutrition care, the nutrition situation in Gaza is deteriorating further as the risk of malnutrition increases. On August 22, 2025, the United Nations-coordinated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system officially declared famine in Gaza governorate, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Famine thresholds are expected to be crossed in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates by the end of September. Many of our staff have reported eating just one meal a day. In our hospitals, we're seeing children with severe burns from bomb blasts and cooking accidents who aren't healing properly because they aren't getting enough calories each day to fuel their recoveries.   

Even before the current war started, many years of instability had already taken a toll on the physical and mental health of Gaza’s children, leaving many with life-changing injuries, amputated limbs, and the trauma of losing parents and other loved ones along with their homes and schools. Children are also especially vulnerable to various health risks arising from the lack proper access to water, food, and warm shelter. The health needs of children are so high that the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital was operating beyond its bed capacity from July to December 2024. Over a quarter of patients were admitted for respiratory distress syndrome, a condition that can present in premature infants and makes them even more vulnerable in dire living conditions many face in Gaza.  

Pregnant women in Gaza are forced to navigate severe obstacles to reach medical facilities for prenatal care or delivery, including traveling dangerous routes amid fighting and without safe transportation, which can delay access to care and increase the risk of complications. Those able to reach a hospital often find them without capacity, and end up giving birth in deplorable conditions in plastic tents or public spaces; others must return to their makeshift shelters mere hours after undergoing cesarean sections. MSF teams in Gaza have assisted more than 13,000 deliveries to date. By January 2025, MSF teams were carrying out more than 100 cesarean sections per month. 

MSF teams are running out of medical supplies such as anesthetics, pediatric antibiotics, and medicines for chronic conditions like epilepsy, hypertension, and diabetes; and it has been impossible to restock items due to the blockade. Teams have been forced to start rationing medications and even turn some patients away because they don’t have the proper tools to treat them.