168 Doctors graduate as Gaza’s health system lies in ruins

A new generation of Palestinian specialists qualifies after training through war, siege and the destruction of hospitals

By Abdullahi Yusuf

A group of 168 Palestinian doctors have completed advanced medical training in Gaza, graduating amid the devastation of a health system shattered by nearly two years of war.

The doctors received their Palestinian Board certifications at the al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, once the territory’s largest hospital, now largely destroyed following repeated Israeli military operations.

Rather than a conventional ceremony, the event unfolded against collapsed buildings and scorched hospital wards, underscoring the extraordinary conditions under which the doctors trained and sat their examinations.

The graduates, who named themselves the “Humanity Cohort”, completed their specialist programmes while working continuously in hospitals overwhelmed by mass casualties, shortages of food and medicine, and repeated attacks on medical facilities.

Many treated patients while displaced themselves. Others were wounded during the war, detained, or lost close family members.

“This is not a graduation from classrooms,” said Youssef Abu al-Reish, a senior official at Gaza’s Ministry of Health. “It is a graduation born from suffering, bombardment and perseverance.”

Training under siege

Throughout the war, Gaza’s medical education system continued in improvised form. Doctors attended lectures online when electricity allowed, revised by torchlight and studied between emergency surgeries, often without anaesthetics, antibiotics or basic equipment.

Dr Ahmed Basil, one of the newly certified doctors, said completing specialist training inside a destroyed hospital was a deliberate statement.

“It says that despite everything, we choose life, knowledge and service,” he said. “This is proof that science and humanity can survive even here.”

Empty chairs placed at the ceremony bore photographs of healthcare workers killed during the conflict, a reminder of the cost paid by Gaza’s medical community.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 1,722 healthcare workers have been killed since the war began in October 2023. Hundreds more have been injured or detained.

Al-Shifa: from flagship hospital to ruins

Al-Shifa Medical Complex has become a symbol of Gaza’s collapsing health system.

The hospital was raided twice by Israeli forces — first in November 2023, when its director, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, was arrested and held for seven months, and again in March 2024, when much of the facility was destroyed.

A World Health Organization (WHO) assessment in April 2024 described the complex as “an empty shell with human graves”, according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

While limited rehabilitation work has since been carried out, most of the hospital remains unusable.

Dr Abu Salmiya said the targeting of hospitals was part of a broader effort to dismantle Palestinian society.

“They tried to destroy Gaza’s human capital by destroying its healthcare system,” he said. “But these doctors are evidence that they failed.”

A system pushed to collapse

The destruction of al-Shifa mirrors conditions across Gaza.

Of the enclave’s 36 hospitals, only 18 remain partially operational, most functioning far beyond capacity and with severe shortages. All but three field hospitals face critical limitations.

The WHO Health Cluster has documented 825 attacks on healthcare facilities since October 2023, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths and about 2,000 injuries.

More than 18,500 patients — including around 4,000 children — urgently require medical evacuation, a process largely blocked by border restrictions.

The UN Human Rights Office has reported a repeated pattern in hospital attacks: aerial bombardment followed by ground sieges, raids involving heavy machinery, mass detentions of staff and patients, forced evacuations, and withdrawal leaving facilities unusable.

Palestinian rights group Al-Haq has described the process as the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system.

Medicine as resistance

For the graduating doctors, the ceremony was less about celebration than continuity.

“We are not graduating into comfort,” said one participant. “We are graduating into responsibility.”

Since October 2023, Gaza’s Ministry of Health says at least 70,942 Palestinians have been killed and more than 171,000 injured. Even after a ceasefire announcement in October this year, officials report continued violations, with hundreds more deaths and bodies still being recovered from under rubble.

Against that backdrop, the graduation served as a declaration that Gaza’s medical community intends to endure — even as hospitals fall, supplies vanish and lives are lost.

As one banner at the ceremony read: “They destroyed buildings, not knowledge.”

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