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Hospital generators to run out of fuel in 48 hrs

Warns Gaza health ministry as much of electricity infrastructure decimated by Israeli attacks
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Gaza’s few functional hospitals and health facilities could lose power in 48 hours if they don’t receive fuel, causing life-saving medical equipment to stop working.
“We appeal to all relevant, international and humanitarian institutions to intervene quickly to bring in the necessary fuel,” the Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement.
With much of Gaza’s electricity infrastructure decimated by Israeli attacks, hospitals are largely dependent on generators, powered by fuel, for life-saving operations.
Recurring fuel shortages have frequently caused hospitals to go dark, putting patients’ lives at serious risk.
Meanwhile, explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern and southern Gaza yesterday, the fourth day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Mohammed Harara, 30, said he and his family fled their home in Shujaiya with nothing, “due to the bombardment by Israeli planes, tanks and drones”, reports AFP.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “about 60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from the area this week.
At least 1,15,000 Palestinians from Gaza have fled to Egypt during the Israeli bombardment.
The number includes several thousand sick and wounded Palestinians who were medically evacuated, Al Jazeera reports according to The Washington Post, who cited the Palestinian embassy in Cairo.
The rest reached Egypt with assistance from foreign embassies or through a private Egyptian travel agency, which charges large sums to coordinate their exit, The Post added.
“Most remain in limbo, with no legal status and nowhere else to go,” it reports. “They are members of a new diaspora of Palestinians, a people already haunted by memories of displacement.”
In a separate development, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry has issued a statement expressing the kingdom’s condemnation and denunciation of the Israeli decision to “expand blatant settlement activity in the West Bank”, Al Jazeera reports.
The ministry said Saudi Arabia “firmly rejects the continuous Israeli violations of international law and resolutions of international legitimacy”.
The Israeli action poses “severe consequences”, given the “lack of international accountability mechanisms,” the statement said, adding that “these transgressions undercut the prospects for peace and exacerbate conflicts, destabilising regional and international security and stability”.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plans to recognise five illegal settler outposts in the occupied West Bank.
In addition to recognising the outposts, Smotrich’s plan removes civilian powers related to construction and zoning in one-fifth of the occupied West Bank, in what is known as “Area B”.