Beset by virus, Gaza's hospitals now struggle with wounded

Just weeks ago, the Gaza Strip’s feeble health system was struggling to cope with a surge of coronavirus cases.

Now hospitals in the crowded coastal enclave are confronting a different crisis: treating victims of airstrikes in the latest eruption of violence between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Relatives rushed the wounded by car to Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest.

Exhausted doctors hurried from patient to patient, frantically bandaging wounds.

Virus patients were moved from intensive care units to make way for those with shrapnel wounds and broken bones.

The health care system in the territory of more than 2 million has been left vulnerable by years of conflict and a blockade.