Two of the largest hospitals in Gaza have given desperate pleads for help, warning that fuel shortages caused by the headquarters of Israel could soon transform medical centers into “silent cemeteries”.
Warnings from the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in southern Khan Younis came on Wednesday, while Israeli forces continued to bomb the Palestinian enclave, killing at least 74 people.
Muhammad Abu Salmiyah, director of the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest establishment in Gaza, told journalists that the life of more than 100 premature babies and 350 dialysis patients was in danger.
“The oxygen stations will stop working. An oxygen -free hospital is no longer a hospital. The laboratory and blood banks will stop and the blood units will spoil,” said Salmiyah.
“The hospital will stop being a place of healing and will become a cemetery for those who inside,” he said.
Abu Salmiyah accuses Israel of fuel “hike” to Gaza hospitals, and said that the Al-Shifa dialysis department had already been closed to keep energy for the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which cannot be without electricity for a few minutes.
‘Last hours’
In Khan Younis, Nasser’s medical complex said that “the last hours and last hours” had also been entered because of the fuel shortage.
“With the fuel counter near zero, the doctors entered the battle to save lives in a race against time, death and darkness,” the hospital said in a statement. “The medical teams are fighting in the last breath. They have only their conscience and their hope in those who hear the call – save the Nasser medical complex before it turns into a silent cemetery for patients who could have been saved. ”
Mohammed Sakr, spokesperson for the hospital, told the Reuters news agency that the establishment needed 4,500 liters (1,189 gallons) of fuel per day to operate, but it has only 3,000 liters (790 gallons) – enough to last 24 hours.
Sakr said doctors are doing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning, and that staff sweat flows in patient injuries, risking infection.
A video from Nasser Hospital, published on social networks, shows that doctors were sweating abundantly when they do surgery.
“Everything is disabled here. Air conditioning is deactivated. No fans,” said a doctor in the video when he demonstrates conditions in the neighborhood. “All the staff are exhausted, they complain () high temperature.”
The relentless bombing of Israel has decimated the Gaza health system during the 21 months since it launched its assault on the Palestinian enclave following the attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Since then, there have been more than 600 attacks registered against health establishments in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In May this year, only 19 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza remain partially operational, with 94% of all damaged or destroyed hospitals.
Israeli forces also killed more than 1,500 health workers in Gaza and held 185, according to official figures.
The WHO, on the other hand, described the Gaza health sector as “kneeling”, with fuel shortages, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass victims of Israeli attacks.
Suffocating seat
Marwan al-Hams, the director of Gaza field hospitals, told Tel Aviv Tribune that “hundreds of people could die in the territory if fuel supplies are not urgently brought.
This includes “dozens” of premature babies who could die in the next two days, he said. Dialysis and patients with intensive care would also lose life, he said, adding that injuries of the wounded aggravated in the midst of deterioration conditions, while diseases like meningitis spread.
UNICEF’s spokesman James Elder, who recently returned from Gaza, said: “You can have the best hospital staff on the planet”, but if they are refused drug and fuel, the exploitation of a health facility “becomes an impossibility”.
Israel has imposed a suffocating seat in Gaza since early March.
In recent weeks, it has enabled the distribution of food from Gaza to distribute by a group supported by the United States on sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been slaughtered by Israeli soldiers.
But fuel has not entered the territory for more than four months.
“The little fuel remains already used to supply the most essential operations – such as intensive care units and water desalination – but these supplies are exhausted quickly, and there are practically no more accessible stocks,” the United Nations Humanitarian Agency (OCHA) said on Tuesday.
“Hospitals are rationed. The ambulances are stoned. The water systems are by the edge. The deaths that this is probably caused could soon increase strongly unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel – emergency, regularly and in sufficient quantity. ”
The War of Israel against Gaza killed at least 57,575 people and injured 136,879, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. It is estimated that 1,139 people were killed in Israel during attacks on October 7, 2023 and more than 200 were taken in captivity.
