Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals
Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyse hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummelled during 21 months of war.
Patients at Al Shifa medical centre 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 air strike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel", Dr Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, said.
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, Israeli-led blockade before the war between Israel and Hamas erupted.
Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Israeli military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects. 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 Israel of "trickle-feeding" fuel to Gaza's hospitals.
COGAT, the Israeli 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.
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 Yunis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 litres of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 litres, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr. — Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Observer
2 days ago
- Observer
Blockade puts Gaza's pregnant women at severe risk
GAZA CITY: Like most women at the Gaza City hospital where she attends her pregnancy check-ups, Fatima Arafa's face looks fatigued, a sign of the malnutrition affecting her due to wartime shortages. With the war in Gaza now in its 22nd month and Israel only slightly easing an aid blockade of the Palestinian territory, shortages of everything from food to clean water have hit pregnant women particularly hard. "I am in my sixth month and I can't provide the basic minimum needs to complete this pregnancy," Arafa said before returning to the makeshift camp where she and her family found shelter after being displaced from their home in the north. "Doctor Said will give me a blood transfusion because there is no nutrition and when I want to eat or buy food to eat, I cannot because there is nothing to eat," the 34-year-old said, her face thin and pale. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its teams in Gaza were witnessing "a sharp and unprecedented rise in acute malnutrition", with the number of cases at its Gaza City clinic nearly quadrupling over the past two months. "Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and poor water and sanitation levels, many babies are being born prematurely. Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator," said Joanne Perry, an MSF doctor in Gaza. Fathi al Dahdouh, an obstetrician at the Al Helou Hospital where Arafa has her check-ups, said that miscarriages had soared since the start of the war. Fatima Arafa eats a meal inside her tent, where she has taken shelter with her family after fleeing their home in Gaza City. - Reuters "There are eight to nine miscarriages per day (in Gaza City), and we do not know whether this is due to the effects of war and explosive materials or due to a lack of nutrition and immunity," he said. Dahdouh said the war was particularly hard on pregnant women and new mothers. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warned in May that 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza would require treatment for acute malnutrition over the next 11 months. The warning came as Israel enforced an aid blockade of Gaza in the hope of forcing Hamas to surrender, only letting aid back in at a trickle in late May. "They come here suffering from low blood pressure, weakness, fatigue and exhaustion due to the country's situation and the lack of nutrition," Dahdouh said. For Arafa, just getting to her medical appointments is a challenge. The area around Al Helou Hospital is relatively undamaged by the war but fuel shortages mean Arafa must walk to and from her camp in the searing heat. Once at her shelter -- a damaged house with plastic tarpaulins for walls -- Fatima, her husband Zahdi and their four children share a meal provided by a charity. The stew of pasta and lentils -- the only foods available to most in Gaza -- was cooked on a fire lit on the floor tiles of the home for lack of cooking gas. UN agencies and aid groups say the volume of aid reaching Gaza is still not nearly enough and health workers are working in dire conditions. - AFP
Observer
2 days ago
- Observer
UN reports 798 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks
GENEVA: The UN rights office said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation. After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF's aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards. "(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we've recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva. The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, said the UN figures were "false and misleading". It denies that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites. "The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid site have been linked to UN convoys," a GHF spokesperson said. "Ultimately, the solution is more aid. If the UN (and) other humanitarian groups would collaborate with us, we could end or significantly reduce these violent incidents." The Israeli army said in a statement that it was reviewing recent mass casualties and that it had sought to minimise friction between Palestinians and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes. Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp, in Khan Yunis. — AFP The OHCHR said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground. Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by the OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said. "We've raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food," she said. After the GHF assertion that the OHCHR figures are false and misleading, Shamdasani said: "It is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns - what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid." Israel has said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023. The GHF said on Friday it had delivered more than 70 million meals to Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted" by Hamas or criminal gangs. An Israeli air strike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected. Verified video footage from the strike in Deir Al Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart. The Deir Al Balah missile strike came as Israeli 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. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, and the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by "hungry civilian communities". There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel's military campaign in Gaza, during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced. — Reuters
Observer
3 days ago
- Observer
Israeli strike kills children near Gaza clinic
JERUSALEM/CAIRO: An Israeli air strike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected. Verified video footage from the strike in Deir Al Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amidst dust and screaming. 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. Israel's military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured bystanders and that the incident was under review. The Deir Al Balah missile strike came as Israeli 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. Palestinians react near casualties following an Israeli strike near a medical centre in Deir Al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Thursday. — Reuters Repeated attacks by Israeli 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. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was "hopeful" about the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza, telling reporters on Thursday that negotiations were "closer" than they had been in some time. Israel and Hamas began their latest round of talks on Sunday, with representatives seated in separate rooms within the same building. "We're hopeful... It appears that generally the terms have been agreed to, but obviously now you need to have talks about how you implement those terms", Rubio said on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian countries in Malaysia. "I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while and we're hopeful, but we also recognise there are still some challenges in the way". He acknowledged that previous rounds of talks had fallen apart at similar stages. "One of the fundamental challenges is Hamas' unwillingness to disarm, which would end this conflict immediately", Rubio said. — Agencies
