Fears for Gaza hospitals as fuel, other aid run low

Alarm comes day after ICC issues arrest warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu, former defence minister Gallant

GAZA:

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The alarm came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza where Israeli security services said Friday they had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Medics in the Palestinian territory said an overnight Israeli raid on Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

"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.

The World Health Organization had already expressed grave concern Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in Gaza.

"It's getting harder and harder to get the aid in," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva.

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

In a statement, he said that for more than six weeks Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has targeted aid convoys.

Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, Israel on October 6 began its air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.

Gaza's civil defence rescue agency could not immediately give an exact toll after the latest Israeli raid, but the health ministry says Israel's operation in the north has killed thousands.

The UN says more than 100,000 have been displaced from the area, and an official told the Security Council last week that people "are effectively starving".

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".