Gaza hospitals still not fully running after a year of truce

Gaza hospitals remain far from recovery a year into the ceasefire, with none fully working, an Israeli rights group says, as curbs on medicine cost lives.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) set out the findings in a new report on Thursday. It said limits on supplies, on treatment outside the enclave and on rebuilding have stopped the health system from recovering.

In fact, some services have worsened since the truce began on October 10, 2025. As a result, thousands of patients still cannot reach lifesaving care, the group said.

Milena Ansari, who wrote the report, said a year of truce should have brought real relief and a rebuilt health system. Instead, she said, the system “remains devastated.”

Gaza hospitals gain just one intensive care bed

PHRI measured current services against prewar levels and against the first days of the truce. Of the strip’s 36 hospitals, 20 now offer partial care, compared with 14 earlier. Still, not one has resumed full operations.

By July, the strip counted 104 intensive care beds, just one more than the 103 available at the truce’s start. Only 12 percent of facilities offered dialysis, against 17 percent before, and no MRI service existed anywhere in the territory.

Using Israeli military data, the group found that 69 percent of health items cleared for entry from January to May did not reach Gaza. In addition, the World Health Organization recorded at least 143 more attacks on health care during the truce’s first seven months.

Earlier this month, the WHO warned that delays in moving medicines and prosthetics into Gaza risked “devastating consequences” for patients. Its representative, Reinhilde Van De Weerdt, urged Israel to “release the pressure on medical supplies.”

Patients die waiting to leave

With Gaza hospitals so limited, patients depend on medical evacuations. However, those remain far below prewar levels, even though the need is now much greater.

From the start of the truce to mid-September, about 5,700 patients went abroad for care, the report said. That compares with 50 to 100 departures a day for treatment before the war.

At least 1,570 patients lost their lives while awaiting evacuation from October 2023 to July 2, 2026, Gaza’s health authority said. Those deaths included at least 264 children and 505 people with cancer.

PHRI said Israel still bars patients from transfer to Palestinian hospitals across the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem. In July, Israel’s High Court declined to step in and asked the state for another update in December.

Furthermore, the group cited WHO figures showing Israeli fire had left at least 1,422 Palestinians dead and 5,150 wounded from the truce until the end of September. In Ansari’s words, the ceasefire “did not stop the genocide” but only altered its methods.

Nutrition gains offer some hope

Still, separate findings point to some gains after aid access widened. MedGlobal, a US-based charity, found that acute malnutrition among young children halved. Among under-fives, it stood at 8.4 percent in July 2026, down from 16.8 percent twelve months earlier.

The worst cases fell even faster, with the severe rate now at 2.1 percent compared with 6.8 percent. “The gains are real, and they are reversible,” said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, the group’s president.

However, the IPC hunger monitor still expects 74,200 children aged six months to five years to need care for acute malnutrition through April 2027. Over 11,400 of them face the severe form.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks have killed more than 74,000 Palestinians since the war began in October 2023. Most of Gaza’s people remain displaced, and with Gaza hospitals still broken, many ask whether the ceasefire exists only on paper.