US-backed Israeli siege creates humanitarian disaster in Gaza

“We have had to close the power plant for want of fuel,” the plant’s director Rafik Mliha told reporters. “This closure is going to have very serious consequences for residents, but also for the operation of hospitals and treatment plants.”

Indeed, the Palestinian Committee on Human Rights quoted Dr. Hassan Khalaf, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, as warning that patients’ lives were being placed at severe risk, including 30 premature babies at the hospital who would die if power remained cut off. Meanwhile, the territory’s second-largest medical facility, the European Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, has been forced to suspend all major surgical operations.

The director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, warned Monday that the situation was grave. “Disruptions in the continuity of essential services take a heavy toll on people needing emergency care and those suffering from conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes,” she said.