Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have only three days of fuel left as border crossings are closed, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
Despite international opposition, Israel on Tuesday sent tanks into the crowded southern city of Rafah and seized the nearby crossing into Egypt, the main channel for delivering aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said fuel that the U.N. health agency had planned to allow in on Wednesday has been blocked.
Israeli authorities control humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Tedros said on assistance.”
“Hospitals in southern Gaza have only three days of fuel left, meaning services may soon cease.”
Rick Piepelkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, told a news conference that fuel was critical for aid operations.
It is mainly used to power generators, which provide the electricity needed to operate the hospital, but is also used to move humanitarian staff around, and to keep the bakery running.
“What we humanitarians need is fuel, fuel, fuel,” Pieperkorn said.
“Without fuel, all humanitarian operations, including hospital operations, will cease.”
Israel bombed Rafah on Wednesday as talks resumed in Cairo aimed at agreeing terms for a truce in the seven-month war.
The Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings, which were closed on Tuesday due to Hamas rocket attacks, are open, according to Israeli authorities, but it is not clear whether aid is entering Gaza.
“I can report that despite Hamas’ best efforts, the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings… remain open,” Israeli government spokesman Avi Heyman told a news conference. Trucks with humanitarian aid are already being processed.”
No fuel or aid entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
-“Total Blockade”-
Tedros said Najar Hospital, one of three hospitals in Rafah, was forced to close due to ongoing hostilities nearby and military operations in Rafah.
Patients have been moved elsewhere and hospital staff are moving supplies and equipment to protect them.
“At a time when fragile humanitarian operations urgently need to expand, Operation Rafah further limits our ability to assist thousands of people living in harsh conditions without adequate food, sanitation, medical services and security,” Tedros said. ability.”
“It has to stop now.”
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan insisted that Israel’s Rafah incursion cannot be characterized as a limited military operation if “the first act of this offensive is to cut off two lifelines for Gaza’s 2.5 million people,” he said. is the closed Gaza Strip. Southern border crossing.
“Stopping fuel at the source at the border, stopping food, stopping medicines… I don’t call it restrictions. I call it the reimposition of a total lockdown.”
Tedros said the WHO has stockpiled some supplies in warehouses and hospitals, but without more aid flowing into Gaza, the WHO will not be able to maintain life-saving support for hospitals.
Tedros also said the Al-Nasser Medical Center in Khan Younis had been cleared after an attack and siege earlier this year.
“They have recruited health workers and the hospital is ready to start receiving dialysis patients today,” he told a news conference.
Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, and began the bloodiest war in Gaza’s history, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli data.
Israel, vowing to destroy Hamas, launched a retaliatory offensive that killed more than 34,800 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled region.