GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Qatar announces it will double the amount of fuel it is transferring to Gaza as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in tents in harsh weather.
The Gulf country is “supplying the Gaza Strip with 15 million liters of fuel, bringing total Qatari fuel support to 30 million liters,” the official Qatar News Agency reported.
A truce brokered by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators came into force on January 19, pausing fighting in the 15-month war that devastated the Palestinian enclave.
On January 20, Qatar said it would send 1.25 million liters of fuel per day to Gaza for 10 days.
Israel controls everything that enters or leaves the Gaza Strip, and it has imposed severe restrictions on goods that it considers could be used for military purposes, including fuel. Hospitals, in particular, are short of fuel.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimated in November that it needed some 160,000 liters of fuel per day for its basic humanitarian operations in Gaza.
The Israeli war on Gaza has caused a dire humanitarian crisis and the collapse of the already fragile health system in the besieged Palestinian territory.
