The director-general of the World Health Organization has warned that a critical fuel shortage in the Gaza Strip could have a “catastrophic” impact on already devastated health services in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Desperate fuel shortages have been a constant problem in the besieged Palestinian territory, which has faced intense Israeli bombardment since a deadly October 7 Hamas attack inside Israel sparked the ongoing war.
“Further disruptions to health services are imminent in Gaza due to a severe fuel shortage,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday evening.
The UN health agency warned that only 90,000 litres of fuel had entered Gaza on Wednesday, while the health sector alone needs 80,000 litres per day.
This forces WHO and its partners working in Gaza “to make impossible choices,” Tedros said.
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Gaza is completely sealed off and everything that enters it is controlled by the Israelis.
Fuel, which is particularly hard to obtain because of Israeli fears it could benefit Hamas fighters, is essential for running hospital generators as well as humanitarian and emergency vehicles.
WHO said its partners were currently delivering limited fuel supplies to “key hospitals,” including the Nasser Medical Complex and Al Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis and the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah.
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Fuel will also be provided to 21 ambulances operated by the Palestine Red Crescent “to prevent services from being paralyzed,” Tedros said.
He pointed out that the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis had been out of service since Tuesday and warned that “losing more hospitals in the Gaza Strip would be catastrophic.”
The Hamas attack on October 7, which sparked Gaza’s deadliest war, left 1,195 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
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Hamas militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, 42 of whom died according to the army.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 38,011 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.
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