Image Source: The New York Times
Occupied Gaza – Hospitals in Gaza are on the verge of collapse as Israel’s ongoing fuel restrictions cut power to essential infrastructure. Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals, among the territory’s main medical centres, have reported blackouts during surgery.
With no fuel to run generators, equipment is failing, and critical services such as water filtration and lighting have ceased.
Children are being hit hardest. More than half of Gaza’s population is under 18, and the breakdown of health services has left young patients exposed to hunger, disease, and untreated injuries.
Doctors report severe malnutrition, with many children surviving on fewer than 400 calories a day. Even those who reach hospitals often can’t recover because they return to the same contaminated conditions that made them ill.
“The conditions that have been deliberately manufactured… are going to affect children first,” said Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency physician who served at Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals in 2024. “Almost 80% of the patients that I saw were young children… less than 12 years old.”
On visits in August and December, Dr. Syed described how power failures disrupted every aspect of care. Surgeons were forced to work by the light of mobile phones. Fuel shortages had rendered backup generators useless, leaving staff to treat critically injured patients in the dark.
“There is a power outage… some surgeons doing surgery by cell phone light… for several hours,” she said. “That’s unheard of.”
Water systems also failed. Cases of diarrhoea and dehydration increased, especially among babies. One infant died after repeated hospital visits because she returned each time to an environment without clean water, Dr. Syed said.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Under Fire
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been accused of organising aid collection points that have turned deadly. Palestinians walking long distances in search of food have been shot by the Israeli military. Doctors at Nasser Hospital treated dozens of people who were wounded while attempting to collect aid.
“Parents walk miles to get drops of aid, only to be shot at… dozens were shot by snipers while trying to receive food. It’s a sick and twisted way to dehumanise Palestinians,” said Dr. Syed.
Israel has argued that limiting aid is necessary to stop Hamas from seizing and reselling supplies. But doctors say this claim doesn’t reflect reality.
Markets are empty, and most families have nothing to eat. Allowing unrestricted aid, they argue, would remove scarcity and reduce the risk of exploitation.
“This guise of saying that Hamas is going to take the aid if we give more aid and we have to control it… these are all just lies,” she said.
“If you were really worried about Hamas taking the aid and selling it… what you would do is just flood the markets with aid so that… there’s no value to it and everybody has food and it’s a win-win situation.”
“These are not logistical failures,” she added. “This is just another way to… make excuses to continue to kill Palestinians. And that’s what’s happening right now. That’s what we’re seeing.”
