Doctors Without Borders Warns Newborn Babies at Dire Risk as Israel Assails Gaza Hospitals
"It's an impossible situation, because even if we prioritize the little fuel that is left to the most urgent departments, we know that they won't last more than 36 to 48 hours," said Julie Faucon, MSF medical team leader in Gaza.
The international humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders or MSF, warned in a Wednesday statement that newborn babies and other patients are at dire risk as southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital runs out of fuel.
The group warned that electricity for the MSF-supported Nasser Hospital, where MSF members are providing emergency, maternity, pediatric, burn, and trauma care, may be cut off for some hospital departments leaving patients without "lifesaving care." The hospital's neonatal intensive care unit is currently treating children and newborns who are reliant on mechanical ventilation and incubators. All of these young patients are dependent on electricity from fuel generators, MSF wrote.
Nasser Hospital, as well as two other facilities in the Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa Hospital and European Gaza Hospital, are nearing the need to close due to lack of fuel, the group reported Wednesday.
"It's an impossible situation, because even if we prioritize the little fuel that is left to the most urgent departments, we know that they won't last more than 36 to 48 hours," said Julie Faucon, MSF medical team leader in Gaza, according to the statement. "While some patients are hanging on by a thread, the lack of sustained electricity is impacting the level of care we can provide to those with burns and trauma."
Pascale Coissard, MSF emergency coordinator, said that the situation is "a consequence of Israel's ongoing blockade and continuous criminal looting of lifesaving supplies."
In mid-July, the United Nations reported that "Israeli authorities continue to tightly control allocations of incoming fuel, thereby limiting humanitarian operations, especially by local partners," and just last week the body noted that only 16 of the region's 36 hospitals remained partially in operation.
Pointing to lack of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel, Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization representative for the West Bank and Gaza, told a recent U.N. Security Council meeting that "the health sector is being systematically dismantled."
Attacks by the Israeli military have left northern Gaza's three hospitals—the Kamal Adwan Hospital, al-Awda Hospital, and the Indonesian Hospital—either entirely out of service or barely functioning.
Hussam Abu Safia, the head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, was detained by Israeli forces during their raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in late December.
Human rights defenders and the medical community have called for his release, it's believed that he is being held in an Israeli detention center, though the Israeli officials had given news media and human rights groups conflicting messages about his whereabouts.
