Palestinian patients evacuated from the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital are treated at the Kuwait Red Crescent Society's field hospital in Gaza City, on April 15, 2025. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)GAZA, April 20 (Xinhua) -- On a rusty stretcher inside a makeshift tent at Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, 38-year-old Khader Abu Ajwa has been lying in agony for days, awaiting surgery that may never come.Abu Ajwa, a father of four, was severely wounded when an Israeli shell struck his home in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood east of Gaza City. His right leg was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and he was given only basic painkillers as overworked medics had to attend to dozens of other injured patients."They told me I need urgent surgery, but there is no room in the operating theater, and the hospital does not have enough doctors," Abu Ajwa told Xinhua, clenching his jaw in pain. "I feel like my body is rotting. I am afraid the wound will become infected or that worms will come out, like what happened to others around me."His 13-year-old son, Mohammed, sat quietly beside him, holding his hand. "We see death every moment," Abu Ajwa said. "A young man next to me was bleeding from the head. He waited for a doctor, but no one came. He died right there, in front of us."A Palestinian checks the damage at a building inside the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, on April 13, 2025. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)Around Abu Ajwa, a number of women and children lay on the ground or on stretchers. Among them was 11-year-old Ahmed al-Kilani, whose left leg was severely injured and amputated after an Israeli shelling in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City three weeks earlier.His mother, Om Ahmed, sat beside him, gently cradling his head. "We have not seen a doctor in days... the wound is open and smelly," she lamented.Ahmed had first taken her son to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital after he was injured, but soon, the hospital itself became a target of Israeli bombardment.An Israeli airstrike hit the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City last Sunday, damaging key medical equipment and forcing the facility to shut down.The Israeli military said the strike targeted "a Hamas command and control center" located within the hospital compound. In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Security Agency stated that Hamas operatives had been using the facility to coordinate attacks.The hospital went out of service following the attack. The emergency room, laboratory, X-ray machines, and pharmacy were destroyed. Fifty patients were transferred, with 40 others in critical condition remaining there, according to the World Health Organization.A Palestinian girl evacuated from the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital is treated at the Kuwait Red Crescent Society's field hospital in Gaza City, on April 15, 2025. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)"Following the destruction of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, we were forced to expand our operations into tents," Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, told Xinhua. "The pressure is immense."Wounded patients now crowd into Al-Shifa's courtyard. Flies swarm over open wounds under poor sanitary conditions, while the air reeks of blood and antiseptic smell."The influx of wounded patients has overwhelmed Gaza's already collapsing healthcare system," Abu Salmiya said. "Doctors are working around the clock, but the situation is catastrophic... We are running out of everything: anesthetics, sterilizers, basic medicines."According to Marwan al-Hams, head of Gaza's field hospitals, Israeli strikes have devastated Gaza's health sector."We have lost 83 percent of orthopedic procedures and 73 percent of general surgeries," he told Xinhua. "More than 80 percent of our hospitals are now either partially or completely out of service.""The health sector in Gaza has collapsed," he said, adding that "we urgently need international intervention to supply fuel and medical equipment. We are working in inhumane conditions. Without help, the wounded will die."A worker sorts medications at a warehouse of Gaza-based health authorities in Gaza City, on April 17, 2025. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)