WHO says only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still functioning after 15 months of Israeli attacks.

After the cease-fire in which Israel agreed with Hamas ended the more than 15-month war in Gaza, Dr Jamal Salaha spoke of the relief he felt as the dead and wounded stopped visiting his hospital.

“This is the first time that the hospital reception or the emergency department is empty,” Salaha, the head doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera on Monday.

In the past, ending the war it halted 471 days of continuous Israeli attacks that killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and injured more than 111,000.

Salaha had just started working at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital when the war broke out in October 2023.

He worked in the neurosurgery department for 33 days before he was forced to move to Al-Aqsa Hospital due to Israeli attacks.

Throughout Israel’s war in Gaza, Mr. Salaha said he only had three days off work and helped people in need.

“Every day we received injured people, most of them in a critical condition,” he said. “We did a lot of operations, … including some on the ground because we didn’t have enough power. (Often) we operated without gloves, without enough drugs and without ventilators.”

After announcing the ceasefire, Mr Salaha described it as “unbelievable news” and said he could sleep well.

But they remain cautious about the future, to mention the growth of destruction across the Gaza Stripthe destruction of his health system and the possibility of violence is occurring.

“There is happiness and joy (over the end) everywhere, and people think that this ceasefire will bring back normal life. But this is not true,” said Salaha. “Hospitals are very difficult.”

“We need more drugs and medical equipment to deal with all the (remaining) cases.”

The World Health Organization reported on Monday that half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still operating.

Almost all hospitals have been destroyed and only 38 percent of primary health facilities are functional, it added.

In most of the coastal areas, the cessation of hostilities appears to be taking place despite the occasional incidents of violence.

At least eight people have been injured by Israeli forces in Rafah in the south, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Mohammad Nemnem, a medical worker at the defunct Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described the extent of the damage after Israeli forces “burned and destroyed” the facility.

“There is no department in the hospital that can provide any medical treatment,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This hospital needs a lot of effort and a lot of time to become a hospital that can provide medical care.”