Patients in Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital at ‘risk of death’ amid fuel shortages

Israel’s months-long siege of Gaza has either destroyed or left most hospitals in the besieged strip out of service.

Severe fuel shortages have caused power outages at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, with hospital officials warning that many sick and wounded patients face certain death if supplies needed to run medical equipment and generators are not replenished.

Early on Friday, the hospital in Deir el-Balah received 15,000 litres (4,000 gallons) of fuel but that will only last a few more days, Al Jazeera’s reporters in Gaza said. Overnight, the shortage forced medical workers to work in an almost pitch-dark environment, with doctors using the light from their mobile phones while tending to premature babies.

“We have hundreds of patients including the injured and those that are diagnosed with kidney failure and need electricity for their dialysis treatment,” Iyad al-Jabri, Al-Aqsa’s medical director, said in a statement on Friday.

“All the patients will be condemned to death. Especially those in the ICU, the incubators and those relying on dialysis treatment,” he added.

The hospital requires more than 4,000 litres (1,000 gallons) of fuel each day to continue operations and care for patients. Al-Jabri said any help they can offer patients “will stop completely” without any fuel.