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SvennoJ on 24 May 2024
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Doctors, patients struggle in darkness as Al-Aqsa Hospital power generators shut down

Power generators have been shut down because of the lack of fuel. The paediatric department for children at the Al-Aqsa Hospital is the first department that is experiencing power outages.

We are seeing children outside in the corridors of this department simply because the rooms inside are packed with patients and injuries from the bombing campaign that continues to pound across the central area of Gaza.

With the power outage at this particular department, the risk of losing lives, the risk of aggravating ongoing medical problems, is increasing by the hours.

The paediatric department is not the only one now experiencing power outages. The general surgery department on the upper floor is also experiencing power outages and putting lives inside the department at risk.


A patient surrounded by family members sits on a bed in a corridor lit by sunlight seeping through a window after a power cut at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, which has run out of fuel to power generators to keep the lights on in the packed medical facility on May 23


‘Patients condemned to death’ as power cut at packed Al-Aqsa Hospital

Iyad al-Jabri, the medical director at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, said more than 4,000 litres of fuel was required each day to continue operations and care for patients in the medical facility, which is now in darkness as power generators have shut down.

“We have hundreds of patients including the injured and those that are diagnosed with kidney failure and need electricity for their dialysis treatment,” al-Jabri said in a statement at the hospital.

“This will stop completely without any fuel,” he said.

“We are calling on international organisations to send 50,000 litres of fuel before there is an imminent crisis here. Otherwise, it is the injured that pay the price. All the patients will be condemned to death. Especially those in the ICU, the incubators and those relying on dialysis treatment,” he added.

Onslaught continues on northern Gaza hospitals

The situation is getting increasingly dire for hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, in particular Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was hit twice overnight by Israeli artillery, as well as the al-Awda Hospital.

We’ve been hearing from medics in al-Awda Hospital that Israeli soldiers have been destroying everything, including hospital doors, as they use loudspeakers to order patients and their families to flee.

Some of the medics refused to leave until the Israeli military brings ambulances that can help patients in critical condition get to the western side of Gaza City, or at least to a place where they can get proper medical treatment.


Twenty newborns at risk in Al-Aqsa Hospital: UNICEF

As Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah struggles to get fuel, its oxygen generators may run out of power, putting the lives of 20 newborns in peril, warns the UN’s children agency, UNICEF.

“Gaza needs more fuel now and safe corridors for humanitarian workers to operate,” UNICEF said in a post on X.

As we reported earlier, Al-Aqsa Hospital has been forced to abandon much of its equipment due to power outages, treating patients manually on the floor of the overcrowded facility.