Gaza's doctors sound the alarm with hospitals on the brink as Israel's killing continues
Gaza City, Gaza - Doctors in Gaza say hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services as the UN warned Israel is further crippling aid delivery to the territory it is destroying.
The alarm came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, more than a year into a murderous assault on Gaza that is increasingly being described as genocidal.
The UN and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel has imposed a brutal siege that directly threatens the lives of tens of thousands.
Medics said an overnight Israeli raid on Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing, including many children.
"We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's obstruction of fuel entry," Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, said during a press conference.
The World Health Organization had already expressed grave concern Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in Gaza.
"It's getting harder and harder to get the aid in," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva.
Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."
In a statement, he said that for more than six weeks Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has targeted aid convoys.
Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people, Israel – backed and armed by the US – has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, all while using starvation as a weapon of war and violently displacing most of its population.
Cover photo: AFP