Medics learn to improvise for Gaza's endless hurt

In the heart of Gaza City, the wounded and their wailing families stream into Shifa Hospital without end.

Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, has only an 11-bed emergency room and six operating theatres. Yet amid power cuts and the screams of the bereaved, doctors at the 600-bed facility have become masters of improvisation, spurred on by the seemingly unending conflict engulfing the coastal strip.

"If we are in the middle of an operation [and] lights go out, what do the Palestinians do?" asks Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has volunteered at Shifa on and off for 17 years. "They pick up their phones, and they use the light from the screen to illuminate the operation field."

The wounded from Israeli strikes usually arrive in waves. More than 3,000 Palestinians have been wounded in the past two weeks, health officials say. Many, including the most serious cases, end up at Shifa.

A new wave of casualties arrives after daybreak yesterday, following a night of heavy Israeli tank fire on Gaza City's Shejaiya neighbourhood. Hospital guards shout at drivers to make room for the next vehicles, pushing back journalists and onlookers.

Some of the wounded are treated in a hallway near the emergency room. A medic bandages the foot of an emergency worker writhing in pain on a mattress on the floor. A little boy with shrapnel wounds arrives and the emergency worker slides off the mattress to make room for him.

Nearby, a woman cries hysterically. A man holds up a dead child, wailing. Another carries a teenage girl whose right arm is bloodied and broken.