Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned on Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“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 (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.
“We call on international institutions to exploit the decision of the International Criminal Court to stop the genocidal war in Gaza Strip,” he added.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed between October 8, 2023, and May 20 this year.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, whom Israel says it killed in a July air strike, but whose death Hamas has not confirmed.
Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis since the outbreak of war in the Palestinian territory following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
In late October, the health ministry reported that all hospitals but one in northern Gaza were out of service.
The only medical facility still only partly functioning in the area affected by the Israeli assault had “no medicine or medical supplies,” Kamal Adwan hospital director Hossam Abu Safia said at the time.
The ministry’s latest warning comes three days after the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed grave concern for hospitals still partly operating in northern Gaza.
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said on Tuesday that the organization was “particularly concerned about Kamal Adwan Hospital” in Beit Lahia, where Israeli forces launched an offensive against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups last month.