UNICEF warns of low fuel supplies in Gaza risking lives of newborns

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: UNICEF Palestine
25 May 2024 06:46
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Low fuel supplies to hospitals in the Gaza Strip, due to the tightened Israeli blockade, have drawn the attention of UNICEF.

Babies are seen in an incubator at the preemie ward of the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine, on March 8, 2024. (AP)

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) pointed to the "very low" fuel supply to Gaza, specifically to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah.

In a post by the UNICEF Palestine account, the organization said that there is "no consistent fuel delivery to" al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital," which will cause oxygen generators to shit down, endangering the lives of more than 20 newborns.

"Gaza needs more fuel NOW & safe corridors for humanitarian workers to operate," the organization urged.

Earlier on Thursday, UNICEF's Executive Director, Catherine Russell, said that the children in Gaza continue to pay a catastrophic price "from blocked aid routes and intensified military operations and fighting Rafah and beyond," adding that this has paralyzed the only remaining pediatric hospital in north Gaza.

Russel stressed that "children who have survived over 7 months," of the war on Gaza "are at ever-growing risk of dying from malnutrition and dehydration."

She pointed to the fact that severe acute malnutrition, as a result of the Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip, can leave permanent cognitive and physical damage to children.

"No child should die from starvation," she concluded.

ICJ orders an end to the Israeli invasion of Rafah

In the meantime, judges at the United Nation's highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ordered "Israel" to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Nawaf Salam, president of the ICJ, read out the verdict, stating that the situation in Gaza has deteriorated since the court's last injunction to "Israel" to remedy it.

Salam stated that the occupation shall "immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

"Israel had not provided sufficient information about the safety of the population during the evacuation process, or the availability of food, water, sanitation, and medicine for the 800,000 Palestinians that had already fled Rafah so far," Salam said, adding, "Consequently, the court is of the view that Israel has not sufficiently addressed and dispelled the concerns raised by its military offensive in Rafah."

The ruling comes as the Israeli occupation cuts off all land routes into the Gaza Strip, depriving millions of urgently needed humanitarian aid, and the medical sector of essential supplies.

Despite international warnings and condemnations and the ruling of the ICJ, the Israeli regime has persisted in its attack on Rafah and other cities and towns in the Gaza Strip, once again blatantly defying international law and the international community.