The father of Rashad Yassin grieves at the morgue of the Al-Aqsa hospital on Tuesday. Mahmud Hams / AFP / Getty Images

Palestinian men look at the body of Hamas fighter Rashad Yassin, 28, in the morgue of the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Palestinians were killed as Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza at the start of a new campaign to stamp out rocket fire by Hamas fighters on southern Israel. Mahmud Hams / AFP / Getty Images

People carry a Palestinian, who medics said was wounded in an Israeli airstrike, into a hospital in Gaza City. At least 27 people were killed and more than 130 injured in strikes on the Gaza Strip during the latest assault, Palestinian officials said, as Israel threatened a lengthy offensive against fighters whose rocket fire reached as far as Tel Aviv. Ahmed Zakot / Reuters

Palestinians carry a man who medics said was wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. At least a dozen Palestinians were killed and about 25 wounded in the attack on the house, Palestinian officials said. Locals said the house belonged to a Hamas member's family. After a first strike, people gathered on the roof as human shields, hoping their presence would deter a second strike, residents said. Stringer / Reuters

A Palestinian medic tends to an injured person in Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital following an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday. Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza with more than 50 strikes after Hamas fired scores of rockets over the border, dragging the two sides toward a major conflict. Mohammed Abed / AFP / Getty Images

A doctor treats an injured man in a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. Doctors are strapped for supplies amid an influx of injured people coming in during an Israeli campaign of airstrikes against Hamas after the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, which sparked a conflagration of violence. Ramadan El-Agha/ Apaimages / Polaris

Dr. Ayman al-Sahbani rushed to attend to eight people, including two children, in the emergency ward of Al-Shifa hospital. With most suffering from shrapnel wounds, the injured came to Gaza's primary and largest hospital after an Israeli airstrike hit eastern Gaza City.

"Thank [God] their injuries are minor," Sahbani, the head of the hospital's emergency services, told Al Jazeera.

As Israel continues to pound Gaza with airstrikes — carrying out 50 bombings overnight Monday and more throughout the day on Tuesday — Sahbani expressed concern about the capacity of the territory's hospitals to attend to the many injured.

As of late Tuesday, at least 27 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli bombardment. More than 130 others were wounded, according to Palestinian officials.

All 12 beds in the hospital's intensive care unit were occupied on Tuesday.

"Most of those people here have medical referrals and were supposed to be receiving treatment at outside hospitals," Sahbani said.

"Now we can't get them out, and we can’t find a space for new patients if the airstrikes intensify."

He added that the closure of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt — the main lifeline through which medical supplies were brought into Gaza during Israel's last major offensive, in November 2012 — and the closure of the Rafah border crossing have exacerbated the problem.

"[In 2012] we were sending critical patients day by day to Egyptian hospitals, aid was coming from Arab and other solidarity groups, foreign doctors were coming to help us, fuel was available," Sahbani said.

"All that has gone."

Gaza also suffers from a shortage of medicine and medical supplies, Gaza's Health Ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qedra, told Al Jazeera. Gaza is completely missing about 30 percent of essential drugs, while 15 percent of the remainder is expected to be exhausted within days of an Israeli assault, he said.

"The medical services are in a very critical situation that we have never reached during the [Egyptian-Israeli] siege," Qedra said, adding that the ministry is running "extremely short" on items like gloves, urine catheters and other medical equipment.

Qedra said the ministry has appealed to the Palestinian consensus government, which was formed last month, to help.

"We are surprised that the government has not reacted so far to rescue the health care system," he said.

The persistent fuel crisis in Gaza, which leads to frequent electricity cuts, also puts patients at risk, especially those who rely on incubators and dialysis machines, and are admitted to emergency departments.

"In the past, we used to have a crisis in one field, not crises on all levels like today," Sahbani said.