Ravaged by more than two years of war, the Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza's Nuseirat district cares for around 60 in-patients and receives nearly 1,000 people seeking medical treatment each day.

"Most services have been temporarily stopped due to a shortage of the fuel needed for the generators," said Ahmed Mehanna, a senior official involved in managing the hospital. "Only essential departments remain operational: the emergency unit, maternity ward and paediatrics."

To keep these services running, the hospital has been forced to rent a small generator, he added.

Under normal conditions, Al-Awda Hospital consumes between 1,000 and 1,200 litres of diesel per day. At present, however, it has only 800 litres available.

"We stress that this shutdown is temporary and linked to the availability of fuel," Mehanna said, warning that a prolonged fuel shortage "would pose a direct threat to the hospital's ability to deliver basic services".

Khitam Ayada, 30, who has taken refuge in Nuseirat, said she had gone to the facility after days of kidney pain.

But "they told me they didn't have electricity to perform an X-ray [...] and that they couldn't treat me," the displaced woman told AFP.

"They gave me a painkiller and told me that if my condition didn't improve I should go" to another hospital, she said. "We lack everything in our lives, even the most basic medical services."

Hospital official Mehanna urged local and international organisations to intervene swiftly to ensure a steady fuel supply.

Despite a fragile truce observed since Oct. 10, the Gaza Strip remains engulfed in a severe humanitarian crisis.

While the ceasefire agreement stipulated the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, only 100 to 300 carrying humanitarian assistance can currently enter, according to the United Nations and non-governmental organisations.

The remaining convoys largely transport commercial goods that remain inaccessible to most of Gaza's 2.2 million people.

Health hard hit

The vast majority of Gaza's residents rely on aid from UN agencies and international NGOs for daily survival.

Gaza's health sector has been among the hardest hit by the war. During the fighting, the Israeli miliary repeatedly struck hospitals and medical centres across Gaza, accusing Hamas of operating command centers there, an allegation the group denied.

International medical charity Doctors Without Borders now manages roughly one-third of Gaza's 2,300 hospital beds, while all five stabilization centres for children suffering from severe malnutrition are supported by international NGOs.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In Israel's ensuing military campaign in Gaza, at least 70,942 people, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. These figures are considered reliable by the UN.

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