GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The World Health Organization (WHO) has pleaded for fuel supplies to be allowed into the Gaza Strip to keep its remaining hospitals running, warning the Palestinian territory’s health system reached a “breaking point.”
“For over 100 days, no fuel has entered Gaza and attempts to retrieve stocks from evacuation zones have been denied [by Israel],” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday.
“Combined with critical supply shortages, this is pushing the health system closer to the brink of collapse,” Peeperkorn added.
Peeperkorn said only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were currently minimally to partially functional. They have a total of around 1,500 beds — around 45 percent fewer than before the conflict began.
He said all hospitals and primary health centers in north Gaza were currently out of service.
In Rafah in southern Gaza, health services are provided through the Red Cross field hospital and two partially-functioning medical points.
Speaking from Occupied Jerusalem, he said the 17 partially functioning hospitals and seven field hospitals were barely running on a minimum amount of daily fuel and “will soon have none left.”
“Without fuel, all levels of care will cease, leading to more preventable deaths and suffering,” Peeperkorn warned.
Hospitals were already switching between generators and batteries to power ventilators, dialysis machines and incubators, he said, and without fuel, ambulances cannot run and supplies cannot be delivered to hospitals.
