Daily Times

As fuel for the hospitals may run out in the next 48 hours due to Israel’s continued bombardment of the besieged territory, doctors in the Gaza Strip have warned of the “catastrophic consequences” in the event that the electricity supply is interrupted.

Infants on ventilators would not live, and doctors would be powerless to save them. In a video released by the Gaza Ministry of Health, Dr. Fu’ad al-Bulbul, head of the neonatal department unit at Al-Shifa Hospital, discussed the dire situation.

“Most of [the] babies depend[ing] on ventilators will die because we can save only one [or] two babies but, we cannot save all babies,” he said.

In order to keep the hospital generators running and the electricity on, he expressed concern over the low fuel supplies.

The UN organization that aids Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) also issued a warning, noting that its fuel supplies will run out in three days and endanger humanitarian efforts in Gaza.

This circumstance emphasizes the pressing need for a solution to the ongoing Gaza crisis.

According to al-Bulbul, preterm infants born from high-risk pregnancies are primarily cared for in the nursery at Al-Shifa Hospital, which has 45 incubators.

“Unfortunately, at the moment we do have not any medical supply — the essential drugs which are essential drugs as lifesaving for baby in the first two hours of life,” he said.

The doctor explained that there was a severe lack of vital medications, such as caffeine citrate and surfactant because the unit was overburdened with caseloads, the majority of the infants were critically ill, and the medical staff had worked for 18 straight days, exhausting them.