Gaza hospitals running out of fuel, supplies amid crippling Israeli siege

Medics in Gaza warned that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people ran desperately low on fuel and basic supplies.

Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave struggled to find food, water and safety ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive in the war sparked by Hamas' attack.

Hospitals in besieged Gaza are expected to run out of generator fuel in the next few hours, endangering the lives of thousands of patients, according to the UN.

Gaza’s sole power plant shut down for lack of fuel after Israel completely sealed off the 40-kilometre (25-mile) long territory following the Hamas attack.

Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the group.

A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished entire neighbourhoods but failed to stem rocket fire into Israel.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded since the fighting erupted, more than in the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted over six weeks. That makes this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.

More than 1,400 Israelis were killed, the vast majority of them civilians, in Hamas' October 7 assault. At least 155 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel. It's also the deadliest war for Israel since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.

No fuel in hospitals

Hospitals in Gaza are expected to run out of generator fuel within hours, endangering the lives of thousands of patients, according to the UN.

In Nasser Hospital, in the southern town of Khan Younis, intensive care rooms were packed with wounded patients, most of them children under the age of 3. Hundreds of people with severe blast injuries have come to the hospital, where fuel is expected to run out by Monday, said Dr Mohammed Qandeel, a consultant at the critical care complex.

35 patients in the ICU require ventilators and another 60 are on dialysis.

If fuel runs out, “it means the whole health system will be shut down,” he said, as children moaned in pain in the background. “All these patients are in danger of death if the electricity is cut off."

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of paediatrics at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said the facility did not evacuate despite Israeli orders. There were seven newborns in the ICU hooked up to ventilators, he said. Evacuating “would mean death for them and other patients under our care.”

Ahmed al Mandhari, the regional director of the World Health Organization, said hospitals were able to move some mobile patients out of the north, but most patients can’t be evacuated, he said.

Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory's largest, said it would bury 100 bodies in a mass grave as an emergency measure after its morgue overflowed. Tens of thousands of people seeking safety have gathered in the hospital compound.

No basic needs for 50,000 pregnant women

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said Sunday that 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza cannot obtain basic health services.

The UN agency said pregnant women struggle to secure basic maternal healthcare and 5,500 of them will give birth this month.

The UNFPA’s representative for Palestine, Dominic Allen, told CNN that the healthcare system itself in Gaza is under attack and is on the verge of collapse.

“Imagine going through that process in those final stages and your last trimester before giving birth, with possible complications, without clothing, without hygiene, support and not sure about what the next day, next hour, next minute will bring for themselves and for their unborn child,” Allen told CNN.