Gaza infants’ lives at risk amid fuel shortages
A Palestinian infant is placed in an incubator in Al-Helou Hospital, Gaza City, 13 July 2025
Ahmed Dremly and Mera Aladam report in Middle East Eye on 15 July 2025:
Palestinian infants reliant on incubators in Gaza are fighting for their lives amid a critical fuel shortage, exacerbated by Israel’s increasingly stringent blockade on aid and essential supplies.
For several days, hospitals and humanitarian agencies in Gaza have issued urgent appeals for international intervention to secure fuel deliveries, as shortages continue to paralyse vital services for over two million Palestinians.
Multiple healthcare centres have warned that operations may grind to a halt, with Israel maintaining restrictions on fuel entering the besieged territory, further straining an already overwhelmed healthcare system.
Mohammed Tabaja, head of the paediatric ward at al-Helou Hospital in Gaza City, said the facility is “100 per cent dependent on the generator”.
His department is responsible for the intensive care of newborns weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, as well as infants suffering from oxygen deprivation and congenital abnormalities, all of whom require uninterrupted electricity. “We have a problem in the nursery ward: there is no uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The motor shuts down every two hours due to the fuel shortage. When that happens, the electricity cuts out,” he explained, noting that the hospital currently relies entirely on generators.
“This impacts the babies’ lives, as we must restart the ventilators and CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] machines, all of which require electricity. We’ve been requesting a UPS for three months, but there are no batteries available in Gaza,” he told MEE.