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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-hospitals-shut-down-deadly-siege-tightens">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-hospitals-shut-down-deadly-siege-tightens</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Gaza hospitals shut down as deadly siege
tightens</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-02-06T19:16:56+00:00">6 February 2018</span></span>
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<p>Emergency generators have run out of fuel in at least
19 health facilities in the Gaza Strip as Israel’s
deadly decade-old siege on the territory tightens.</p>
<p>The health ministry in Gaza <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/MOHGaza1994/posts/2006366212974563">announced
Tuesday</a> that the generators have shut down in 16
primary care clinics and three major hospitals, but
that medical staff have been ordered to stay at their
posts and do what they can to assist patients.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, the UN humanitarian coordination agency
OCHA <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/un-electricity-crisis-brings-gaza-verge-disaster">warned</a>
that “emergency fuel for critical facilities in Gaza
will become exhausted within the next 10 days,” unless
donors step in to prevent a “humanitarian
catastrophe.”</p>
<p>But for patients and medical personnel on the
frontlines, the catastrophe is already happening, and
it is only the latest chapter in the forced collapse
of Gaza’s healthcare system.</p>
<p>At the al-Nasr children’s hospital, head of intensive
care Dr. Raed Mahdi said that the lives of dozens of
children in his unit are at risk.</p>
<p>According to the health ministry, Mahdi <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/MOHGaza1994/posts/2006296176314900">said</a>
overcrowding and pressure on medical staff and
supplies had reached a crisis point at his hospital as
children were being transferred there from other
facilities that had lost all power.</p>
<p>At the Muhammad al-Durra hospital in eastern Gaza,
named for a Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces
in 2000 at the start of the second intifada, doctors <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/MOHGaza1994/posts/?ref=page_internal">said
at a press conference</a> Monday that entire
departments had already shut down and some patients
were being turned away.</p>
<p>Speaking at the press conference, Jamal al-Durra,
Muhammad’s father, <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/MOHGaza1994/posts/2005903876354130">appealed</a>
for urgent international intervention, saying that to
allow the crisis to continue would be to “kill my son
a second time.”</p>
<p>“The imposed fuel crisis threatens dialysis services
for 400 patients with kidney failure in the Gaza
Strip,” the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq also
<a
href="http://www.alhaq.org/documentation/weekly-focuses/1182-gaza-dialysis-patients-face-death-and-denial-of-medical-transfer-causes-death-violates-right-to-life-and-amounts-to-inhuman-cruel-degrading-treatment-">said
Monday</a>.</p>
<p>Due to the chronic power crisis, dialysis in Gaza is
already a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/power-cuts-put-lives-gaza-kidney-patients-danger">dangerous
business</a>.</p>
<p>Al-Haq added that Gaza hospitals are currently unable
to carry out 200 operations per day “due to the
corruption and subsequent waste of hundreds of units
of blood because of the lack of cooling required – a
consequence of the deliberately imposed electricity
shortage on Gaza.”</p>
<h2>Hospitals closing</h2>
<p>Due to Israel’s <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-using-electricity-blackmail-gaza">ongoing
restrictions</a> on Gaza’s electricity supply, the
population of two million people, half of them
children, currently receive electricity for no more
than eight hours each day. At times that supply has
plummeted to just three or four hours.</p>
<p>“Hospitals have already begun to close. Without
funding, more service providers will be forced to
suspend operations over the coming weeks, and the
situation will deteriorate dramatically, with
potential impacts on the entire population,” the UN’s
acting humanitarian coordinator Roberto Valent said.
“We cannot allow this to happen.”</p>
<p>“Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse as
hospitals in the besieged territory are expected to
face a total power blackout by the end of February,”
Ashraf al-Qidra, the Gaza health ministry spokesperson
<a
href="http://www.alhaq.org/documentation/weekly-focuses/1182-gaza-dialysis-patients-face-death-and-denial-of-medical-transfer-causes-death-violates-right-to-life-and-amounts-to-inhuman-cruel-degrading-treatment-">warned</a>.</p>
<p>On 23 January, the Palestinian Authority health
ministry in Ramallah allocated almost $300,000 to buy
emergency fuel, but that supply would only be enough
for 10 days and, according to Al-Haq, “will not
resolve the structural electricity crisis imposed by
Israel.”</p>
<h2>Deadly delays</h2>
<p>While collapsing the healthcare system inside Gaza,
Israel is also making it harder for Palestinians to
seek life-saving treatment outside the besieged
territory.</p>
<p>The number of Palestinians allowed in and out of
Gaza, both through the Erez crossing, controlled by
Israel, and the Rafah crossing with Egypt – which has
been closed for years except with rare exceptions –
fell sharply last year.</p>
<p>The exit of Palestinians from Gaza through Erez fell
by 50 percent in 2017, compared with 2016, <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/palestinian-access-gaza-strip-declined-sharply-2017">according
to OCHA</a>.</p>
<p>On average there were just 7,000 exits per month in
2017, compared with more than 500,000 per month prior
to the year 2000.</p>
<p>Israel’s approval rate for medical exits via Erez
fell to 54 percent, down from 62 percent in 2016 – the
lowest rate since 2006, according to OCHA.</p>
<p>“The decline is occurring alongside a gradual
increase in the absolute number of referrals and
related permit applications to West Bank hospitals in
the wake of stricter constraints via the Rafah
crossing,” the UN agency noted.</p>
<p>In November, Hamas authorities handed over control of
the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing to the
internationally backed Palestinian Authority, in the
wake of a reconciliation deal signed the previous
month.</p>
<p>“To date,” however, “this development has had no
apparent impact on the passage of Palestinians from
Gaza through the Israeli- and Egyptian-controlled
crossings,” OCHA said.</p>
<p>In most cases, unsuccessful applications were due to
lengthy delays or lack of response, rather than
outright denials.</p>
<p>“In situations such as cancer treatment, delays can
have life-threatening implications for patient
health,” OCHA stated.</p>
<p>Sometimes, delays have been caused by the Palestinian
Authority in Ramallah: over the summer its leader
Mahmoud Abbas imposed sanctions on Gaza, including
delaying approval of medical referrals to hospitals in
the West Bank, as part of his effort to bring Hamas to
its knees by exacerbating civilian suffering.</p>
<p>Some of these delays <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-mahmoud-abbas-letting-children-die-gaza">proved
deadly</a>.</p>
<p>Al-Haq this week called on the PA “to remove all
impediments to access to healthcare for children
traveling from Gaza, and to ensure urgent cases are
immediately prioritized, for all cases within its
competence.”</p>
<h2>Israeli denial</h2>
<p>But there is no doubt where the overall
responsibility lies.</p>
<p>As the belligerent occupier, “Israel has continued
obligations to ensure the maintenance of civil life in
the Gaza Strip, which includes the supply of basic
services and infrastructure to the civilian
population,” according to Al-Haq.</p>
<p>The group says that “that denial of travel permits
leading to delays in accessing treatments, not only
violates the rights to health and the right to life,
but may also constitute inhumane, degrading treatment”
that violates international law.</p>
<p>Yet on Monday, Israeli defense minister Avigdor
Lieberman <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/lieberman-contradicts-idf-there-s-no-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-1.5790605">declared</a>
that there is “no humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.</p>
<p>That contradicted the assessment even of Israeli army
chief Gadi Eisenkot who told Israel’s cabinet a day
earlier, as <em>Haaretz</em> reported, “that the Gaza
Strip is on the verge of collapse due to the worsening
humanitarian crisis.”</p>
<h2>“Feigned and simplistic”</h2>
<p>Last week, Israeli diplomats presented a
“humanitarian rehabilitation” plan for Gaza at a
meeting of donors in Brussels.</p>
<p>“Israel expects the international community to cover
the costs of the plan’s implementation, an estimated
$1 billion,” the Israeli human rights group Gisha <a
href="http://gisha.org/updates/8600">observed</a>.</p>
<p>The group dismissed Israel’s plan as “feigned and
simplistic,” noting that Israel’s crushing blockade on
Gaza is what has caused the “dire humanitarian
conditions.”</p>
<p>“The alarming state of Gaza’s infrastructure, its
chances for economic development and the living
conditions of its two million residents are largely
dependent on Israel,” Gisha stated.</p>
<p>But Lieberman, the defense minister, made clear
Israel will <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-using-electricity-blackmail-gaza">continue
its policy</a> of denying basic humanitarian
services to civilians in Gaza as a form of political
blackmail – a war crime.</p>
<p>Among other political goals, Israel is holding two
million people hostage in an effort to get information
on several Israelis held in Gaza, including the bodies
of two of its soldiers killed during its 2014
invasion.</p>
<p>“As long as there’s no progress regarding the
[Israeli] captives and missing persons, we can’t move
forward with all sorts of initiatives for [helping]
the Strip,” Lieberman said. “As far as its
rehabilitation, it can only be on one condition –
demilitarization [of Gaza].”</p>
<p>Gisha has also <a
href="http://gisha.org/updates/8545">documented</a>
how Israel tightened its closure of Gaza in 2017,
including a host of new restrictions “introduced with
little to no justification provided as to their
purpose and, it appears, no consideration of the
impact they would have on the lives of Gaza’s
residents.”</p>
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