Abstract
Background
The ongoing genocide (as declared on September 16, 2025 by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel) and militarized siege in Gaza has led to the systematic collapse of the health system, with hospitals overwhelmed by targeted bombings, mass casualties, infrastructural annihilation, and profound psychological suffering. Nurses have been subjected not only to extreme occupational stress but to deliberate conditions of deprivation and moral violation.
Research aim
To explore the lived experiences of nurses in Gaza’s hospitals, documenting compassion fatigue, burnout, and moral injury within a genocidal context of healthcare destruction.
Research design
A qualitative design was employed using thematic analysis of in-depth testimonies.
Participants and Research Context
Testimonies were collected from nurses working in Gaza’s remaining hospitals between late 2023 and mid2025. Participants served as frontline caregivers while enduring forced displacement, starvation, and personal bereavement.
Ethical considerations
Ethical approval was obtained from local review boards. Informed consent, confidentiality, and emotional safety were ensured under exceptionally high-risk conditions.
Findings
Six themes were identified: (1) collapse of hospital care; (2) nurses’ bodies and minds under siege; (3) maternal starvation and neonatal death; (4) burden of infection and decay; (5) solitary mourning and improvised funerary practices; and (6) the struggle to endure and find meaning. Nurses reported compassion fatigue, moral injury, somaticexhaustion, and cognitive impairment, all intensified by the genocide’s material and emotional toll.
Discussion
Caregiving persisted despite repeated targeting of medical personnel and infrastructure. Findings extend conventional models ofburnout and secondary trauma by situating experiences within the concept of ‘medicide,’ defined as the systematic destruction of health systems.
Conclusions
This study provides an empirically grounded account of nursing labor under conditions described by international bodies as genocidal. Insights have urgent implications for nursing ethics, international humanitarian law, and interventions to support health workers in colonized and militarized settings.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
