The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that severe fuel shortages in the Gaza Strip could have a “devastating” impact on the war-torn Palestinian territory’s already devastated health services.
Fuel shortages ‘catastrophic’ for Gaza’s dilapidated health services: WHO {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}}
Severe fuel shortages have been a constant problem in the besieged Palestinian territories, which have faced heavy Israeli shelling since the war began on Oct. 7 with a deadly Hamas attack inside Israel.
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“Severe fuel shortages in Gaza are imminent, leading to further disruptions to health services,” World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter late on Thursday.
The UN health agency warned that just 90,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza on Wednesday, despite the health sector alone needing 80,000 litres each day.
Tedros said this was presenting the WHO and its partners in Gaza with “an impossible choice.”
Gaza is completely blockaded and everything that enters it is controlled by Israel.
Fuel has been especially hard to obtain due to Israeli concerns that it could benefit Hamas fighters, but it is essential to keep hospital generators and humanitarian and emergency vehicles running.
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WHO said partners were currently providing limited fuel supplies to “key hospitals”, including the Nasser Medical Facility in Khan Younis, Al Amal Hospital and Kuwait Hospital in Rafah.
Tedros said the country was also providing fuel to 21 ambulances run by the Palestinian Red Crescent “to prevent any disruption to their services.”
He noted that the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis has been out of operation since Tuesday, and warned that “the loss of further hospitals in the Gaza Strip would be devastating.”
Hamas’ October 7 attack, which sparked the deadliest war in the Gaza Strip, killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Hamas fighters also captured 251 hostages, of which 116 remain in Gaza, and the military said 42 were killed.
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According to Health Ministry figures in Hamas-controlled areas, Israeli retaliatory attacks have killed at least 38,011 people, the majority of them civilians.
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