GAZA: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that hospitals have only two days’ fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the conflict-stricken territory is being crippled.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in scores of people killed or missing. Marwan al Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory “will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry”.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit” at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia said it was “deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day” on Friday and that “one doctor and some patients were injured”.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: “The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt.” He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities “have been banning commercial imports” while “a surge in armed looting” has hit aid convoys.

‘The world... to put an end’

Israel on Oct 6 began an air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia. Gaza’s health ministry says the operation has killed thousands.

The UN says more than 100,000 have been displaced from the area, and an official told the Security Council last week that people “are effectively starving”.

In Gaza City, just south of Jabalia, one man who said he took his cousins to hospital after a strike urged “the world... to put an end” to the conflict. Belal, who gave only his first name, said 10 members of his family had been killed.—

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2024