A doctor at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital said that low fuel stocks have plunged wards into darkness and cut off major, basic functions like oxygen generation.
Only one operating theatre, the emergency department, and the intensive care unit (ICU) continue to function, Dr. Yousef Abu Al-Rish, director of the hospitals in Gaza, said in a video obtained by CNN.
In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel has prevented any fuel from entering Gaza. The Israeli government accuses Hamas of stockpiling fuel, to the detriment of civilian services.
Filming an almost pitch-black building, Abu Al-Rish points out the services that are affected.
“This is the maternity hospital, there, which is containing the neonatal ICU. And this is the rest of the hospital. And this is the surgical department building,” he says.
“We are just trying to keep the hospital working... Even the admin part now, as you see, it’s in complete darkness.”
He said that they were “trying our best” to extend the fuel as long as they can.
“All the other services directly related to the electricity will stop. For example, the oxygen generator, as there is no fuel, it stopped.”
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, also at Al-Shifa hospital, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the hospital is currently running on just one generator after the fuel shortage led to another generator being switched off.
“Unless there's electricity, this hospital will turn into a mass grave,” Abu-Sittah said. “It's as simple as that. If we cannot keep the ventilators running, if we can't take our critically wounded patients back to the operating room, then there's nothing for this place other than to come and die.”
Abu Al-Rish, in his video, said that pleas for help had gone unanswered.
“No one responds,” he said. “No one can imagine even how the nurses will complete their job to give the medication, to have follow up, without an electromechanical system. Without the light even. It’s very catastrophic.”
Read more on the increasingly precarious conditions doctors in Gaza are coping with.
