Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators amid fuel shortages
GAZA: At Gaza's largest hospital, doctors say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in a single incubator as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while the Zionist entity presses on with its military campaign. Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyses hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummeled during 21 months of war. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the fate of Zionist hostages in Gaza with US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, patients at Al-Shifa medical center in Gaza City faced imminent danger, doctors there said.
'We are forced to place four, five, or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,' said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, Al Shifa's director. 'Premature babies are now in a very critical condition.' The threat comes from 'neither an airstrike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel,' Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, told Reuters.
The shortage is 'depriving these vulnerable people of their basic right to medical care, turning the hospital into a silent graveyard,' he said. Gaza, a tiny strip of land with a population of more than 2 million, was under a long, the Zionist-led blockade before the war between the Zionist entity and Palestinian militant group Hamas erupted. Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Zionist military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects.
The Zionist entity accuses Hamas of operating from medical facilities and running command centers underneath them, which Hamas denies. Patients in need of medical care, food and water are paying the price. There have been more than 600 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, the WHO says, without attributing blame. It has described the health sector in Gaza as being 'on its knees', with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties.
Just half of Gaza's 36 general hospitals are partially functioning, according to the UN agency. Abu Selmia warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and accused the Zionist entity of 'trickle-feeding' fuel to Gaza's hospitals. COGAT, the Zionist military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza's medical facilities and the risk to patients.
Oxygen risk
Abu Selmia said Al Shifa's dialysis department had been shut down to protect the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which can't be without electricity for even a few minutes. There are around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are at serious risk, he said. Before the war, there were 110 incubators in northern Gaza compared to about 40 now, said Abu Selmia.
'Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil,' Abu Selmia said, adding that the hospital could become 'a graveyard for those inside'.
Officials at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 liters of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 liters, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr. Doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning. The sweat from staff is dripping into patients' wounds, he said.
Earlier this year, the Zionist entity imposed a total blockade on Gaza for nearly three months, before partly lifting it. The Zionist entity accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something Hamas denies. 'You can have the best hospital staff on the planet, but if they are denied the medicines and the pain killers and now the very means for a hospital to have light ... it becomes an impossibility,' said James Elder, a spokesperson for UN children's agency UNICEF, recently returned from Gaza. — Reuters
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Kuwait Times
12-07-2025
- Kuwait Times
Zionists kill Gaza children with no ceasefire in sight
GAZA: A Zionist airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical center in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected after Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu said Gaza demilitarization was a condition of permanent ceasefire and Hamas said disagreements over the free flow of aid into Gaza and the Zionist military withdrawal were sticking points. Verified video footage from the strike in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. Rabih Torbay, the head of US medical charity Project Hope, which runs the facility, called it 'a blatant violation of humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no one and no place is safe in Gaza, even as ceasefire talks continue'. Hamas called it 'an atrocious crime'. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart. 'She didn't do anything, she was innocent, I swear. Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school,' said Samah Al-Nouri, sitting by the body of her daughter who was killed in the blast. 'She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?' she said, with other bodies laid out around her at a nearby hospital. Yousef Al-Aydi, said those in the queue for nutritional supplements heard a drone approaching, then an explosion. 'The ground shook beneath our feet and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams,' he added. The Deir el-Balah missile strike came as Zionist and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce. A senior Zionist official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks, however US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal. 'I think we're closer, and I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while,' Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia. Repeated attacks by Zionist forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave's few remaining hospitals. Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said. 'We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,' said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition. US President Donald Trump met Netanyahu this week to discuss the situation in Gaza amid reports that the Zionist entity and Hamas were nearing agreement on a US-brokered ceasefire proposal after 21 months of war. The Zionist official who was in Washington with Netanyahu said that if the two sides agree to the ceasefire plan, the Zionist entity would use that time to offer a permanent truce requiring Hamas to disarm. If Hamas refuses, 'we'll proceed' with military operations in Gaza, the official said on condition of anonymity. A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether the Zionist entity would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved. Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told AFP on Thursday: 'We cannot accept the perpetuation of the occupation of our land and the surrender of our people to isolated enclaves under the control of the occupation army. This is what the negotiating delegation is presenting to the occupation so far in the current round of negotiations in Doha.' Hamas was particularly opposed to Zionist control over Rafah, on the border with Egypt, and the so-called Morag Corridor between the southern city and Khan Yunis, he added. The Zionist announced earlier this year that the army was seizing large areas in Gaza and incorporating them into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants. Naim also said the group wanted an end to the current delivery of aid by a US- and Zionist-backed group, a system which has seen scores killed while seeking handouts. In Gaza itself, there was no let-up in casualties on Thursday, with the civil defense agency reporting at least 52 people killed in Zionist strikes and shootings. Overall, the health ministry in Gaza said at least 57,762 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the conflict. There has also been repeated violence in the Zionist-occupied West Bank. A Zionist man was killed at a shopping center in the territory on Thursday by two Palestinians, who were then shot dead, police said. In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was shot dead after he stabbed and injured a soldier, the army said. – Agencies
Kuwait Times
12-07-2025
- Kuwait Times
Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators amid fuel shortages
Gaza hospitals fear dwindling fuel supplies will lead to shutdowns GAZA: At Gaza's largest hospital, doctors say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in a single incubator as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while the Zionist entity presses on with its military campaign. Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyses hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummeled during 21 months of war. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the fate of Zionist hostages in Gaza with US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, patients at Al-Shifa medical center in Gaza City faced imminent danger, doctors there said. 'We are forced to place four, five, or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,' said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, Al Shifa's director. 'Premature babies are now in a very critical condition.' The threat comes from 'neither an airstrike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel,' Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, told Reuters. The shortage is 'depriving these vulnerable people of their basic right to medical care, turning the hospital into a silent graveyard,' he said. Gaza, a tiny strip of land with a population of more than 2 million, was under a long, the Zionist-led blockade before the war between the Zionist entity and Palestinian militant group Hamas erupted. Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Zionist military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects. The Zionist entity accuses Hamas of operating from medical facilities and running command centers underneath them, which Hamas denies. Patients in need of medical care, food and water are paying the price. There have been more than 600 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, the WHO says, without attributing blame. It has described the health sector in Gaza as being 'on its knees', with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties. Just half of Gaza's 36 general hospitals are partially functioning, according to the UN agency. Abu Selmia warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and accused the Zionist entity of 'trickle-feeding' fuel to Gaza's hospitals. COGAT, the Zionist military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza's medical facilities and the risk to patients. Oxygen risk Abu Selmia said Al Shifa's dialysis department had been shut down to protect the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which can't be without electricity for even a few minutes. There are around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are at serious risk, he said. Before the war, there were 110 incubators in northern Gaza compared to about 40 now, said Abu Selmia. 'Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil,' Abu Selmia said, adding that the hospital could become 'a graveyard for those inside'. Officials at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 liters of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 liters, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr. Doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning. The sweat from staff is dripping into patients' wounds, he said. Earlier this year, the Zionist entity imposed a total blockade on Gaza for nearly three months, before partly lifting it. The Zionist entity accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something Hamas denies. 'You can have the best hospital staff on the planet, but if they are denied the medicines and the pain killers and now the very means for a hospital to have light ... it becomes an impossibility,' said James Elder, a spokesperson for UN children's agency UNICEF, recently returned from Gaza. — Reuters
Arab Times
04-07-2025
- Arab Times
Dozens Killed in Gaza While Hoping for Humanitarian Relief
DEIR al-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early Friday, while a hospital said another 20 people died in shootings while seeking aid. Meanwhile, the U.N. human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within the span of a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid. Most were killed while trying to reach food distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization, while others were massed waiting for aid trucks connected to the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, it said. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said 'it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points' operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were 'GHF-related,' meaning at or near its distribution sites. 'Information keeps coming in,' she added. 'This is ongoing and it is unacceptable.' The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel's military. In a statement Friday, GHF cast doubt on the casualty figures and accused the U.N. of trying 'to falsely smear our effort.' The army says it fires warnings shots as a crowd control measure or opens fire if its troops are threatened. The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis in southern Gaza and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast. 20 killed Friday while seeking aid Since GHF began distributions in late May, witnesses have said almost daily that Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians on the roads leading to the food centers. To reach the sites, people must walk several kilometers (miles) through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road. Officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least three Palestinians were killed Friday on the way to GHF sites in the area of Rafah in southern Gaza. On Friday, in reaction to the U.N. report, the Israeli military said it was investigating reports of people killed and wounded while seeking aid and that it had given instructions to troops in the field based on 'lessons learned' from reviewing the incidents. It said it was working at 'minimizing possible friction between the population' and Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes. Separately, witnesses have said Israeli troops open fire on crowds of Palestinians who gather in military-controlled zones to wait for aid trucks entering Gaza for the U.N. or other aid organizations not associated with GHF. The crowds are usually made up of people desperate for food who grab supplies off the passing trucks, and armed gangs have also looted trucks. On Friday, 17 people were killed waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis in the Tahliya area, officials at Nasser Hospital said. Three survivors told the AP they had gone to wait for the trucks in a military 'red zone' in Khan Younis and that troops opened fire from a tank and drones. It was a 'crowd of people, may God help them, who want to eat and live,' said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in the leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had grabbed. 'There was direct firing.' Airstrikes also hit the Muwasi area on the southern end of Gaza's Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes are sheltering in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in the strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital. Israel's military said it was looking into Friday's reported airstrikes. It had no immediate comment on the reported shootings surrounding the aid trucks.
