Gaza: Healthcare facilities fuel stocks depleted
Gaza’s health ministry announced that healthcare facilities have exhausted their fuel supplies and cautioned that hospital generators will stop functioning entirely within hours, calling for immediate intervention from international organisations, The New Arab reported on January 8th.
The ministry stated that the fuel shortage is “directly endangering” patients’ lives, especially in Al-Aqsa Hospital, the Gaza European Hospital, and the Nasser Medical Complex.
The UN agency UNRWA described Gaza’s hospitals as “death traps” and highlighted that the combination of intensified attacks and cold weather in Gaza is worsening already critical conditions, noting that families in the Strip “are torn apart, children are freezing to death, starvation is cutting lives short”.
Currently, only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially operational, as Israeli forces intensified assaults on three medical facilities in northern Gaza, rendering them inoperative.
Gaza’s health ministry warned that the remaining hospitals face a “real disaster” due to the fuel crisis, compounding the suffering of patients seeking treatment.
The UK’s minister of state for development at the Foreign Office, Anneliese Dodds, criticised Israel’s decision to ban UNRWA’s activities, arguing that the organisation’s work is indispensable for Palestinian refugees.
“There is no doubt that there is no other organisation that can provide aid and services as UNRWA does, not only in Gaza but throughout the region,” Dodds said, and added “UNRWA has a clear authority and its work is absolutely essential”.
The unprecedented humanitarian crisis coincides with Israeli attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip, which killed at least 28 Palestinians on the morning of January 8th.
Medical sources reported that ten members of one family in central Gaza and three members of another family in Deir al-Balah neighbourhood were among those killed in the attacks.
This follows the deaths of at least 49 Palestinians, including children in a designated “safe zone”, who were killed by Israeli forces across the Strip on January 7th.
Among those killed in Gaza City on that day were two infants, one of whom was only 15 days old.
Healthcare professionals have been routinely targeted by Israeli forces, with an aid organisation denouncing Israeli actions in Gaza.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) issued a statement condemning Israel for “targeting and killing of women and healthcare workers” after Dr Thabat Salim, a renowned neonatal doctor, was killed on January 3rd.
Dr Alvaro Bermejo, the director general of IPPF, described her death in the Israeli air raid as “more than a tragedy” and added that “the US government… supplied more than $18bn in military aid last year”.
“These funds, meant for military support, translate into more murdered doctors, and many more murdered women and children. They translate to more men killed, injured or incarcerated, and more families shattered,” Bermejo added.
Other rights groups have criticised Israel’s actions, with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) reporting that the Israeli military has prevented Dr Hussam Abu Safiya from consulting a lawyer.
The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Abu Safiya, was detained by the Israeli military following repeated attacks on the hospital, during which parts of the facility were set on fire.
Despite a global campaign by doctors worldwide demanding his release, Dr Abu Safiya remains detained in the Sde Teiman prison.
READ: Israel stops detained Gaza chief doctor from seeing lawyer
“Despite our urgent requests to send an attorney, the military says he’s barred from lawyer visits until the 10th of January,” PHRI stated and added that the Israeli military is withholding information about him.
“Our numbers say that there are more than 20,000 people waiting for urgent medical evacuations. The reason is that there is no active healthcare system in Gaza and hundreds of medical professionals have lost their ability to care for their people,” PHRI’s statement continued.
READ: Israeli order to evacuate Gaza hospital not logistically possible
According to Maha Hussaini, a journalist and strategy director at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Dr Abu Safiya’s mother died of a heart attack while he remains in Israeli custody.
Since October 7th 2023, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 45,885 Palestinians and injured over 109,196 others. The attacks have destroyed entire neighbourhoods and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the Strip.
The New Arab
