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GAZA, PALESTINE - AUGUST 8, 2025: Inside the corridors of Gaza City's Eye Hospital, the main facility for ophthalmic surgeries, the hum of medical equipment and the beeping of monitors in operating rooms mix with the heavy breaths of exhausted doctors racing against time to save the wounded. Etched on their faces is deep fatigue, the result of Israel’s systematic starvation policy and the suffocating blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, part of a genocide Tel Aviv has waged for 22 months. Driven by their humanitarian duty, doctors work for long hours in operating rooms under siege conditions that have turned a loaf of bread into a rare meal and made sugar and protein more expensive than gold, according to doctors who spoke to Anadolu. The UN’s World Food Program recently warned that one-third of the population (2.4 million) has gone without food for days, stressing that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached an “unprecedented level of deterioration” and people are dying of hunger. The UN said Gaza needs hundreds of aid trucks each day to end the famine caused by the blockade and genocide. Dr. Iyad Abu Karsh, head of the anesthesia department for 25 years, said malnutrition and food scarcity have caused severe fatigue, especially as working hours have doubled to round-the-clock shifts. Delicate surgeries to save sight or lives demand high concentration and energy, he said, “but our meals are meager.” (Footage by Anas Zeyad Fteha/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)