In the heart of Gaza City, the Abdelaziz Al Rantisi Children’s Hospital has become an epicenter of resistance and tragedy amid an unrelenting military offensive. This hospital, the only specialized pediatric center in the enclave, has been a direct target of Israeli attacks amid the intensified bombings and ground offensive hitting the city since mid-September 2025.
On Tuesday, September 16, three consecutive strikes carried out by Israeli drones directly hit the upper floors of the hospital, causing visible damage to the pediatric oncology department, dialysis, and several intensive care and neonatal units. At that time, the hospital had approximately 80 patients, including children with chronic and critical illnesses, many in delicate conditions requiring continuous care. In the chaos that ensued, about 40 sick children and their families managed to flee the building, desperate to find safe refuge, but another 40 patients remained there, along with nearly 30 healthcare workers, enduring the Israeli bombings, power outages, and lack of fuel for generators.
Testimonies from inside the hospital describe a scene of extreme precariousness, pain, and anguish. Doctors and healthcare staff had minimal resources, facing a constant influx of wounded patients and the impossibility of evacuating everyone due to the severity of the cases and the relentless siege by the Israeli army. War wounds in children, shortages of blood and antibiotics, and the constant threat of new bombings are daily realities for the children and medical personnel.
This hospital, which in previous years had already suffered direct attacks that damaged its infrastructure—leaving images of children forcibly abandoned by Israeli army gunfire, with their bodies decaying in their pediatric beds in a graphic record of which the Israeli authorities boasted—now withstands again amid relentless fire, with the staff forcing themselves to maintain essential medical care despite exhaustion, fear, and despair. The parents who remain inside resist to keep hope amid circumstances that staff describe as a struggle against death, not only from the siege but also from the collapsing humanitarian conditions.
The Gaza Ministry of Health openly accused Israel of implementing a systematic policy to destroy and paralyze medical services in Gaza, and of repeatedly and directly attacking a children’s hospital, an act that violates international humanitarian law. Meanwhile, hospital workers’ accounts show that these actions cause immeasurable harm to children with diseases that otherwise could be treated, leaving them vulnerable in one of the worst possible scenarios.
Despite the temporary establishment of an evacuation route by the Israeli army, limited to a single street, the situation inside and around the hospital remains extremely dangerous and desperate. Evacuating the most vulnerable children becomes an odyssey amid constant bombings and the risk of attacks along evacuation paths.
In the tally of dead and wounded in Gaza, the Abdelaziz Al Rantisi hospital has witnessed the relentless flow of injured children arriving due to the offensive, adding a human and devastating dimension to the conflict. Hundreds of deaths have been counted in recent days in Gaza City hospitals, and hundreds more lie alive and dead beneath rubble, including entire families. The medical team works under extreme conditions, in an environment marked by despair and urgent need for aid.
This chronicle is a testimony to the suffering of children and health workers in Gaza under an unrelenting siege, and a call to the international community to take the utmost urgent measures to protect the most vulnerable and to guarantee respect for international humanitarian laws, which prohibit attacks on hospitals and civilian populations in armed conflicts. Stop this horror, all this cruelty, all this suffering.
Quds News Network
