Gaza health crisis deepens for the chronically ill as war intensifies

Tahreer Azzam, a nurse at Makassed Hospital in east Jerusalem, has been caring for young, desperately-ill Palestinian patients for 16 years.
Since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last month, she now struggles to find them.
Usually, around 100 patients from Gaza receive care each day for complex health needs such as treatment for rare cancers and open heart surgery, at hospitals like Azzam’s, as well as in the occupied West Bank, Israel and other countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
That came to a halt after Oct. 7, when gunmen from the Islamist group Hamas broke through the Gaza border fence, killing nearly 1,400 people inside Israel and taking some 240 hostages. Israel imposed a complete siege on Gaza, bombarding the coastal enclave and launching a ground offensive. More than 10,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 children, have been killed, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.
Azzam and her colleagues have been trying to reach their patients ever since, including checking Facebook to see whether they are still alive.