A patient surrounded by family members sits on a bed in a corridor lit by sunlight seeping through a window after a power cut at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah,
which has run out of fuel to power generators to keep the lights on in the packed medical facility on May 23, 2024 [Bashar Taleb/AFP]

Rafah, May 24 (RHC)--Iyad al-Jabri, medical director at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, said more than 4,000 litres of fuel was required each day to continue operations and care for patients the medical facility which is now in darkness as power generators have shut down.

“We have hundreds of patients including the injured and those that are diagnosed with kidney failure and need electricity for their dialysis treatment,” al-Jabri said in a statement at the hospital.  “This will stop completely without any fuel,” he said.

“We are calling on international organisations to send 50,000 litres of fuel before there is an imminent crisis here.  Otherwise, it is the injured that pay the price.  All the patients will be condemned to death.  Especially those in the ICU, the incubators and those relying on dialysis treatment,” he added.

The paediatric department for children at the Al-Aqsa Hospital is the first department that is experiencing power outages.  "We are seeing children outside in the corridors of this department simply because the rooms inside are packed with patients and injuries from the bombing campaign that continues to pound across the central area of Gaza."

With the power outage at this particular department, the risk of losing lives, the risk of aggravating ongoing medical problems, is increasing by the hours.

The paediatric department is not the only one now experiencing power outages.   The general surgery department on the upper floor is also experiencing power outages and putting lives inside the department at risk.