Medical, food and fuel supplies are running low in the city as Israel continues its attacks
Gaza’s sole power plant will be shut down completely in the next few hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday, leaving civilians “cut off from the world”.
The Israel-Gaza war entered its fifth day on Wednesday. It escalated after an attack by Hamas in which its fighters broke through the border fence and stormed the country’s south.
The plant “will shut down completely in a few hours due to the lack of required fuel to operate it,” Hisham Mhanna, the ICRC’s representative in Gaza.
“If there is not enough power to keep hospitals running, the network of telecommunications [and] internet across the city then people will be cut off from the world,” he said.
In response to the attack by Hamas, Israel cut off its electricity supply to Gaza on Monday as part of what it called a “total siege”.
“This will impact the supply of electricity to households in Gaza, which is now almost zero because of the lack of power sources and there are grave damages to the infrastructure,” Mr Mhanna said.
Some hospitals, not all, still have solar systems or generators but they need fuel to keep them running which is expected to run out at any moment, he said.
Border crossings into Gaza have been blocked off by Israel, meaning medical and food supplies are running low, as well as fuel.
The move will also have a devastating effect on the provision of water and health care in the Gaza strip.
“Many of the hospitals and medical care centres are out of service now, as some of them were damaged or partially damaged [in the fighting], and also because they ran out of the medical supplies,” Mr Mhanna said.
He was speaking as bombings targeted buildings close to where he was stationed.
The war, which has already claimed at least 2,100 lives on both sides, is expected to escalate.
So far, more than 263,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip.
Source: The National
