“Hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have electricity due to a lack of fuel,” the Hamas government’s deputy health minister told AFP on Monday, adding that they were now “out of service.”
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“Six premature babies” and “nine patients in intensive care” died, he lamented, while fighting between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Hamas was concentrated in the north of the Gaza Strip, where Israeli tanks are increasing their hold on Gaza City and especially its hospitals, which, according to Israel, house Hamas bases.
The situation is particularly tense in Al-Chifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip.
Youssef Abou Rich, who is in the hospital where he said there are also “around 20,000 displaced people,” reported to AFP that “six premature babies” and “nine patients in intensive care” died “because there was no electricity.” gives”. ” in al-Chifa.
On Saturday, the hospital announced that 39 premature babies were still in al-Chifa and that nurses were performing “hand-held breathing massage” to keep them alive.
A doctor from the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also said that 17 patients were in intensive care.
Restarting the generators would require fuel, which is becoming increasingly scarce due to the “total siege” by Israel.
The 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip are now threatened with a complete blackout: the telecommunications ministry’s generators should be switched off on Thursday, he announced.
Doctors have posted pictures online showing them working with candles, flashlights or just the light from cell phones because hospitals lack electricity.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari assured on Sunday evening that he had “offered the army to provide fuel for the urgent needs of the hospital,” al-Chifa, but that “the Hamas leadership is preventing the hospital from recovering the fuel. “
In nighttime images posted by the Israeli army on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday evening, we can see soldiers placing cans near a building.
Mohammed Abou Salmiya, director of Al-Chifa Hospital, told AFP that “the (Israeli) army called him twice to tell him that they were delivering fuel,” that at one point they would drop “500 meters.” from al-Chifa.”
“First they told me 2,000 liters, then they came back and said 300 liters on the condition that they would not be handed over to Hamas,” he continued.
“I told them: ‘If you want to help, I need at least 8,000 liters to run the main generators and save hundreds of patients and injured’, they refused and we don’t know what the situation is,” Mr Abou Salmiya added added.
Outside hospitals, Mr. Abou Rich describes “dozens of dead and hundreds of injured where no one has access because ambulances are being shot at” and “calls from women who had to give birth on the street or at home without a carer-female”.
For several days, the Israeli army has been opening safe corridors so that displaced people can leave hospitals.
“The patients and nurses at al-Rantissi Hospital were all evacuated (Sunday) under threat of army fire,” Mr Abou Rich responded.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented bloody attack by Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil.
On the Israeli side, 1,200 people were killed on the same day of the attack, most of them civilians. In retaliation, Israel launched an offensive to “eradicate” the Islamist movement and relentlessly shelled the Gaza Strip, plunging it into a catastrophic humanitarian situation.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, the war claimed 11,180 lives on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, including 4,609 children.