Surrounded by rubble and destruction, Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are on the verge of collapse amid a general power outage that adds to the shortage of medical supplies and personnelcompromising the care of the more than 5,000 wounded in the Palestinian enclave, which is experiencing the fifth day of war between Hamas and Israel.
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“Our capacity is at the limit and we can only try to maintain the lives of the wounded,” Dr. Medhat Abbas, spokesperson for the Al Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in Gaza City, told EFE.
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Since the Islamist movement Hamas – which de facto rules the Strip – surprised Israel last Saturday with an unprecedented attack by land, air and sea, the Israeli Army has counterattacked with incessant bombings on 2,687 targets, many of them militia structures. , but also homes, mosques and other civil facilities.
Our capacity is at the limit and we can only try to maintain the lives of the injured.
This same Wednesday, The Israeli Army ordered the immediate evacuation of the Elghafry tower, the tallest and one of the oldest in the Gaza Strip, due to its imminent bombing..
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In five days, the war has left more than 1,200 dead and 3,000 injured in Israel, while the Israeli bombings in Gaza have already left 1,055 dead and at least 5,184 injured.
Added to these figures are at least 1,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli territory in clashes with security forces after infiltrating from the Strip, according to the latest estimates by the Israeli Army.
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‘Total siege’
Israeli shells have seriously damaged devices that supplied electricity from Israel, affecting networks in numerous provinces. In addition, several ambulances have been rendered useless and medical personnel have died from the attacks.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered on Sunday a “total siege” – without supplies of fuel, food, electricity, medicine or humanitarian aid – to the Gaza Strip, which depends on Israel for suppliesas it is isolated and blocked by air, land and sea by the Jewish State and Egypt since 2007, when Hamas took power.
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“We are facing a serious shortage of energy, supplies and human resources,” emphasized Dr. Abás, assuring that the fuel left in the hospitals’ generators “will not last more than four days.”
In the dark
The enclave’s electric company cut off the electricity supply this Wednesday at 2 pm local time (6 am Colombia time), since the only plant in the Strip has run out of fuel.
The enclave only has 300,000 liters of fuel left, which covers just 10 hours of light, and which is currently reserved until Israel accepts that Egypt send fuel through the Rafah crossing, so the power outage could last several days.
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We are facing severe shortages of energy, supplies and human resources.
This rationing will affect critical areas of hospitals such as intensive care units, maternity wards and other departments.while the lighting will be reduced to a minimum.
The Palestinian Health Ministry called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to allow in essential fuel and medical supplies.
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In previous escalations, humanitarian aid could be supplied through the Rafah crossing, bordering Egypt, but Israel refuses that possibility for the moment and the crossing has been closed since yesterday, when the Israeli Army bombed the area, forcing it to retreat. to a vehicle transporting fuel nearby.
The injured have also not been able to be transported to Egyptian hospitals, while Numerous Gazans, many of them dual nationals, desperately seek to leave the Strip and face waiting lists of at least four weeks.
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Since the start of the war, the Strip has suffered 625 power outages lasting several hours, which in addition to affecting hospitals, also compromise sewage pumps and drinking water wells, water desalination plants and other essential services.
Meanwhile, there are some 260,000 displaced people in the enclave, most of them refugees in UN schools.
EFE
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