‘Each incubator is supposed to support one child. In the name of God.  

‘But due to the war and the accumulation of cases here mostly all of the cases from the north, Khan Younis and central Gaza are treated in Rafah. 

‘We have to have three or four babies in each incubator.  

‘This is what makes the treatment here less efficient than is necessary.’ 

‘With every shift, two or three infants die, due to infection and because of the health situation in Gaza.

‘Another point is that we do not have enough equipment for these children. For example, artificial respirators are not fully available here.  

‘There are many cases that require artificial respiration, but there are not enough devices for them, so we are forced to choose between these children, to see who among them has a better health condition and we put them on the artificial respiration, and not the others.

‘Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do for them.’ 

Amid the pain and uncertainty, Dr Aaliyah has found hope in the tiny form of a baby who she has taken in and named Malak.  

The newborn, whose identity and family background is unknown, arrived from Al-Shifa as Israeli military operations in the north led to a huge influx of people into Rafah.  

‘This little girl had a huge impact on me from the first day I saw her,’ Dr Aaliyah said.  

‘Her health condition was fairly good. From the first week she got better, after that there was no one to take her because there is no one who could recognize her.  

‘Unfortunately no one came to ask about her.

‘We had to keep her in the department for two months, and as you know, if she is in the department and she is in a good health condition with children who have health problems, this makes her vulnerable to any disease.

‘Many children suffer from sepsis as a result of their presence in the nursery section only. 

‘I was worried for this girl, because glory be to God, how God planted her love in me. I felt that she was from me, I felt that she means a lot to me, and thank God I was able to get her out of the department, and now she is with me at home and has been for a month and a half.’ 

‘Yes, she came under difficult circumstances. It is difficult for me and for her. But thank God, God is always standing with us. And all things become easy with regards to Malak, and there are no difficulties that I face.  

‘So I feel like it’s a nice thing that happened to me, and I don’t feel like it’s a burden at all. I do not feel the weight of responsibility towards her, it just feels like the responsibility of a mother towards her daughter, in very normal circumstances.’

The doctor had intended to keep working at the hospital if the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) extended their ground campaign, but now feels a responsibility to leave in order to keep Malak safe.  

‘In the beginning, before Malak, I had decided that in the event of displacement, I would stay in the hospital and keep doing my work, but since Malak has been with me, my situation has changed,’ she said.  

‘I became afraid for her, and afraid that displacement would happen.

‘Where can I take her to? And will I be able to provide her with the necessary facilities she needs or not?  

‘The thing that scares me the most is this topic.’ 

With the lives of her team and patients weighing in the balance ahead of the possible incursion, Dr Aaliyah had a message for the wider world.  

‘My message to the world is that, frankly, we hope that the war will stop because we are completely exhausted, she said. 

‘All our energy was drained by the war. 

‘We hope that the world will stop this war as soon as possible.’ 

The UN’s human rights chief said this week that he was ‘horrified’ by the destruction of Gaza’s Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals.

Volker Türk also called for an independent investigation into reports of mass graves at the facilities after IDF raids. 

The Israeli military rejected claims that it had buried bodies at Nasser in Khan Younis as ‘baseless’ and shared a post on X which claimed the grave was dug by Gazans.

Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine said: ‘The situation in Gaza is so dire that doctors are having to make impossible decisions about which patients to prioritise for care.  

‘It is heartbreaking to hear of newborn babies struggling to survive because there simply aren’t enough incubators to go around.  

More than half of the Palestinian territory’s 2.3 million population are thought to have fled to Rafah during the seven months of war.

The conflict has cost more than 34,000 Palestinian lives to date, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Mr Jafari spoke as the Israeli military signalled that it is preparing for an offensive on Rafah, saying that it plans to evacuate civilians from the city 

‘Medical staff are overwhelmed and exhausted, starving and traumatised,’ he said. ‘Gaza’s hospitals urgently need more medicines, fuel, food and water to keep them running, but aid is still not entering Gaza on anything like the enormous scale required.  

‘Aid must be significantly ramped up, immediately, to save Gaza’s health system from total collapse and prevent more people dying from malnutrition and disease.  

‘Ultimately however, the only way to stop the appalling death toll climbing any higher is for there to be a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, now.’ 

The IDF reposted content on X this week appearing to show hundreds of aid trucks moving into and out of Gaza.