16 November 2023 , 19:06
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Doctors in Gaza have said premature babies are tragically dying due to a lack of basic equipment needed to save their lives.
Services including water desalination plants, sewage treatment facilities and hospitals are grinding to a halt in the Gaza Strip due to the chronic lack of fuel - and many have been forced to shut down already. In Rafah, a city in the south, close to the border with Egypt, three sewage pumps and 10 water pumps stopped working yesterday.
It resulted in sewage flowing through the streets, according to the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Due to the lack of fuel, 22 of the 35 hospitals in the territory are no longer functioning.
Medical staff have been treating patients including babies and children (Adel Al Hwajre/IMAGESLIVE via ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)On Wednesday, 23,000 litres of fuel was delivered to Gaza for the first time since October 7 - but UNRWA says the territory needs at least 160,000 litres daily to keep humanitarian operations running. Consultant Dr. Adnan, the head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Al-Awda Hospital - one of the biggest in Gaza - said many babies have lost their lives as medical staff does not have the equipment needed to save them.
He added women who suffer from postpartum bleeding and bleeding after operations are also suffering because doctors cannot perform blood transfusions. He said: "In the last [few] days, we have become the only hospital in the entire Gaza Strip and the north who receive obstetrics, cesarean sections and gynecology services. Because all hospitals in Gaza and the north, after the siege, lost any services for women and obstetrics.
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"Yesterday, we performed 16 caesarean sections under exceptional circumstances. There were cases of very severe bleeding and placental abruption as a result of difficulty in access, strikes.
"We worked under exceptional and very harsh conditions. We did not have blood transfusion services. Blood transfusion is very limited, the blood bank has been closed and is difficult to access.
Al-Awda hospital is one of the biggest in Gaza (ActionAid)"We ask God Almighty to end this issue and stop [the] shooting and make room for humanitarian services to be provided to the people because people are suffering, and our women are suffering. There are many children [who] have lost their lives.
"There are premature babies born at 30 or 31 weeks and we do not have anything to deal with [their cases]. There are no artificial respirators, there are none at all. We look at a child after birth, [their] weight is 1200g, 1300g, 1400g or one and a half kilograms. We do not have anything to deal with them. We look at babies losing their life because we have nothing.
"In addition, there are women who suffer from postpartum bleeding and bleeding after operations and there are no blood transfusions at all. Yesterday I had a placental abruption case, and it was opened two or three times. We were trying to find two units of blood to compensate for what was lost. With difficulty, her life was saved."
Hospitals in Gaza have been overwhelmed (Adel Al Hwajre/IMAGESLIVE via ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)Riham Jafari, Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication for ActionAid Palestine, said: "The lack of fuel is pushing services in Gaza to beyond breaking point. In some areas sewage is flowing down the streets, not a drop of clean water is available, and hospitals have closed their doors. The situation is disastrous, yet it is also completely preventable.
"Tragically, things are likely to get even worse if, as expected, communications collapse completely. Thousands of people are already being denied their fundamental right to clean water, food and healthcare. Soon, even the small comfort of being able to hear the voices or read the words of their loved ones, will be robbed from them."
Today, Israeli forces raided Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital for a second day, entering from the southern part of the facility. The medical complex houses thousands of patients, medical staff and displaced Palestinians who are not being allowed to leave, according to witnesses.
Premature babies under treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit at al-Shifa hospital were removed from the incubators and transferred to another department after Israeli forces attacked the facility (Anadolu via Getty Images)Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said the situation at the hospital is "very dire", adding that Israeli bulldozers and tanks reportedly advanced inside the hospital, damaging the wall. Israel claims al-Shifa is being used as a command centre of Hamas, but there has been no evidence to prove this. Hamas has rejected the claims.
Munir al-Boursh, a senior official with Gaza's Health Ministry inside the hospital, said troops ransacked the basement and other buildings and questioned and scanned the faces of patients, staff and people sheltering in the facility. Israeli forces battled militants outside the hospital for days, but there were no reports of militants firing from inside Shifa, or of any fighting within the hospital after Israeli troops entered.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa's emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. There was no word on the condition of another 36 babies, who the ministry said earlier were at risk of dying. The military said its soldiers were accompanied by medical teams bringing in incubators and other supplies, though staff said incubators were useless without fuel.
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Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip today (Israeli Army/AFP via Getty Image)Saudi Arabia condemned the raid on al-Shifa hospital, calling it a "blatant violation of international law". The Foreign Ministry also condemned what it said was shelling near another hospital and called on international bodies to hold Israel accountable.
Due to the lack of fuel, internet and telephone services also collapsed across the Gaza Strip today, the main Palestinian provider said. The communications breakdown threatens to worsen the severe humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza, where Israeli air strikes continue. Food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce, and the UN is struggling with fuel shortages of its own to deliver aid and help hospitals keep operating.
More than 11,200 Palestinians - two-thirds of them women and minors - have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. About 2,700 people are reported missing. Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas after the militant group launched its incursion on October 7. Some 1,200 people have died in Israel, mostly during the initial attack, and around 240 were taken captive by militants.