The few overwhelmed hospitals still functioning across the Gaza Strip could be completely out of commission if the diesel generators needed to keep the lights on and power life-saving medical equipment are not replaced or maintained soon, the ministry warned Saturday. of Gaza Health.
The ministry said it expected several hospital generators to fail soon because Israel, as part of its siege of the territory, was preventing the entry of necessary spare parts.
“This means certain death for the sick and injured and the complete end of the health service,” the ministry said in a statement.
One of the main generators at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah recently broke down, leaving the medical center with only one still operational.
That hospital has been overwhelmed by victims of Israeli airstrikes while central Gaza has come under sustained shelling in recent days, killing dozens of civilians and wounding many more, according to the ministry and Palestinian media. .
On Saturday, a large number of injured people, including many children, were taken to Al-Aqsa hospital, which is not only powered by a single generator but is also facing a serious shortage of medicines and equipment, a ministry spokesperson said. of health.
Gaza hospitals have been repeatedly hit by Israeli attacks since the start of the war, now in its ninth month, leaving many of them non-functional. The World Health Organization said this week that since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, there have been 464 Israeli attacks on Gaza’s health care system, affecting 101 health facilities.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza for military purposes, but has struggled to prove its initial claim that the militant group maintained a command and control center beneath Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Evidence provided by the Israeli military and examined by The New York Times suggests that Hamas used the hospital as cover, stored weapons inside and maintained a tunnel beneath the complex that supplied water, power and air conditioning.
The Israeli military has not yet presented similar evidence about other health centers it has attacked.
Hamas and hospital administrators have denied the Israeli accusations.
With Israel also blocking most of Gaza’s electricity supply, hospitals have had to rely almost exclusively on generators to continue treating patients, many of them victims of Israel’s military attack on the territory.
Even before the war, Israel and Egypt, which also shares a border with Gaza, had imposed a devastating land, air and sea blockade on the territory for many years.
Once the war began, Israel said it was imposing a “complete siege” on Gaza, creating severe shortages of food, water and medicine. Israel has also blocked items such as sanitation equipment.
Israel’s civil administration, an arm of its military administration in Gaza and the West Bank, did not respond to questions about the hospital generators. He had previously said that the restriction on the entry of goods into Gaza was aimed at preventing the entry of items that could be used for military purposes.