‘We cannot operate, we have no drugs’: Gaza’s indirect casualties mount as health service decimated

Tens of thousands with life-threatening illnesses ‘defenceless’ after months without treatment, say doctors

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Health services in Gaza are “decimated”, with medical staff exhausted after three months of war forced to extract shrapnel without adequate pain relief, conduct amputations without anaesthetics and watch children die of cancers due to a lack of facilities and medicine.

Dozens of interviews with doctors and medical administrators in Gaza reveal a catastrophic and deteriorating situation as health services struggle to cope with tens of thousands of casualties of the ongoing Israeli offensive in the territory and the effects of the acute humanitarian crisis.