THE al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s biggest hospital, will run out of fuel today, or tomorrow at the latest, with 35,000 men, women and children crammed into its corridors and grounds.
Over 130 premature babies in incubators and 120 patients in intensive care units, will lose their lives within five minutes of the hospital running out of power.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported yesterday afternoon that 704 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli air raids during the past 24 hours.
Al-Shifa hospital, along with all of Gaza’s remaining hospitals, is in an overwhelming situation, receiving scores of patients with terrible injuries every hour and providing refuge for thousands of people, predominantly women and children, made homeless by 17 days of relentless Israeli bombardment.
Al-Shifa said yesterday that it has completely run out of everything, including fuel, medicines and medical supplies.
‘We have 130 premature (babies) on incubators. If we lose electricity, all will die,’ Dr Medhat Abbas, director of Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
‘The fuel for the generator is enough for one or two days. What will happen then? What will happen to the wounded?’
Israel has cut off water, electricity, food and fuel to the entire Gaza Strip.
‘The world cannot simply look on as these babies are killed by the siege on Gaza,’ said Medical Aid for Palestine chief executive Melanie Ward.
‘We call on world leaders to demand that Israel urgently allows fuel in to Gaza’s hospitals. A failure to act is to sentence these babies to death.’
Palestinian doctors are forced to operate on patients without anaesthetic and tend to them in hospital corridors and on floors as the casualties rise.
In a call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the ‘savagery’ against the Palestinian people and said that Turkey will hold a ‘Great Palestine Rally’ on Saturday.
The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, said Israel should not be given ‘free licence to kill’ in Gaza and called for an end to the war that ‘has transcended all limits’ and threatens regional stability.
He called on the international community to restrain Israel in its fight against Hamas, saying Israeli forces should not be given a green light for unconditional killing in the besieged Gaza Strip, warning that the continuing war is a dangerous escalation that threatens the whole region.
In an interview on Sky TV yesterday, Senior Hamas Leader Khalid Meshaal said: ‘The civilians who are in Gaza are our guests. We are eager to release them.
‘All that is required is the right conditions to remove them from where they are so that they are not killed by Israeli bombardments.
‘What Israel has thrown by way of bombs on Gaza in 17 days is the equivalent of what was dropped on Afghanistan in ten years.
‘Stop the destruction, and the families in America, Thailand and other nationalities will receive their loved-ones, as you saw with the two American ladies.’
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