Two years into one of the most destructive wars Gaza has ever endured, the courtyard of the al-Shifa Medical Complex — once the beating heart of Palestinian healthcare — became the unlikely backdrop for a milestone. Before a crowd of family members, senior physicians, and community leaders, 168 Palestinian doctors received their specialist medical certifications, completing a journey that survived bombardment, displacement, hunger, and the collapse of the very system meant to train them.
The ceremony, held on 25 December 2025, unfolded in front of the hospital’s mangled façade — a location chosen intentionally by the graduates, who have named themselves the “Humanity Cohort.” Their message was unapologetically clear: Palestine’s medical future will not die in the rubble.
“Graduating under these circumstances is a declaration,” said Dr Ahmed Basil, one of the newly certified specialists. “A declaration that Palestinians love life, and that our commitment to science does not disappear even when buildings fall.”
Nearby stood rows of empty chairs carrying photographs of doctors, nurses, and paramedics killed during the war — colleagues who did not live long enough to see the community they helped train cross the threshold into specialist practice.
A Ceremony Built on Ruins
The symbolism of the venue cannot be separated from what al-Shifa has come to represent. Once Gaza’s largest hospital and its principal referral centre, al-Shifa was struck, invaded, besieged, and partially dismantled twice, leaving a facility now described by the WHO as “an empty shell.”
The hospital’s medical director, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who was himself detained for seven months after the first incursion in late 2023, told attendees that the hospital’s destruction was not simply an attack on infrastructure — but an assault on Gaza’s future capacity to heal itself.
“Throughout these attacks,” he said, “our human capital — our doctors, nurses, students — were targeted. But it failed. This graduation is the answer.”
The graduation almost reads as an act of collective defiance:
- buildings , but training completed
- wards collapsed, but exams written
- colleagues killed, yet new specialists approved
As one parent whispered to a neighbour in the crowd: “They tried to stop time. But our children kept studying.”
A Healthcare System on the Brink
To understand the significance of the ceremony, one must examine what remains of the healthcare system the graduates are now entering. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health and WHO health cluster data:
36 hospitals operated in Gaza before the war
only 18 are now partially functioning, many with extremely limited capacity
over 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed in the past two years
more than 300 medical staff have been detained, some reportedly subjected to abuse
at least five medics have died in detention
18,500 critically ill patients require medical evacuation, many of them children
The war has produced not only casualties, but a generational medical gap. Pediatrics, oncology, trauma surgery, neurology, and obstetrics — all fields where Gaza already faced shortages — have lost experienced doctors faster than they can be replaced.
This is what gives the “Humanity Cohort” its relevance:
in a moment of unprecedented loss, Gaza’s future medical leadership has emerged not despite the war, but through it.
Learning Medicine While Treating War
Training to become a specialist in any country requires years of coursework, clinical rotations, research, and examinations. In Gaza, those demands were complicated by:
- continuous displacement of both patients and staff
- interrupted power and laboratory services
- shortages of medication and surgical equipment
- repeated evacuations of hospitals
- trauma-level admission volumes normally associated with major wars
Some doctors slept in hospitals for weeks at a time. Others studied between shifts in overcrowded emergency rooms or temporary camps. A few completed exam preparations while mourning relatives or colleagues lost in the conflict.
A senior physician who supervised the graduating cohort described their path as “postgraduate training inside a disaster zone.”
Attacks on Hospitals
The ceremony comes against the backdrop of what human rights groups argue is a systematic pattern of attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector. According to UN reporting, the methodology has followed near-predictable stages: initial strikes on medical sites, encirclement, mass detentions, forced evacuations, then withdrawal — leaving facilities nonfunctional and communities without care.
UN officials and several human rights organisations have warned that the cumulative effect amounts to the dismantling of Gaza’s ability to treat the living, not merely the destruction of buildings.
The Future These Doctors Are Walking Into
The new specialists will immediately be confronted by a system that:
- lacks beds
- lacks equipment
- lacks stable buildings
- lacks fuel
- lacks medicines
- lacks colleagues
Yet it is precisely their presence that prevents collapse from turning into total void.
Health administrators in Gaza say the cohort will:
- fill surgical shortages
- restore specialist rotations
- reopen select departments
- train the next generation of medical students
become the backbone of a rebuilding process that will take years
As one newly certified doctor said privately:
“We are not replacing the dead. We are responding to them.”
Why This Moment Matters Beyond Gaza
The graduation has resonated internationally for three interconnected reasons:
It reframes resilience as professional continuity, not just emotional endurance.
It challenges assumptions that Gaza’s medical future has been irreparably erased.
It puts human capacity — not infrastructure — at the centre of reconstruction debates.
For the international medical community, the event poses a provocative question:
What does global responsibility look like when the world has witnessed the dismantling of an entire healthcare system in real time?
A Graduation Without Celebration
Despite applause and speeches, the mood at al-Shifa was not one of triumph. The war has not ended. Ceasefire violations continue. Thousands still require evacuation. Entire districts remain uninhabitable.
The ceremony carried pride without celebration, achievement without joy.
As families packed their folding chairs and photographs of lost loved ones were carefully collected from the rows, a soft rain began to fall over the hospital grounds — revealing the damage of the past two years where paint once covered walls.
One graduate lingered near a broken doorway before leaving, placing his stethoscope briefly against a fragment of concrete as if listening for a heartbeat.
“We trained among the ruins,” he said. “Now we must rebuild among them.”
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