Gaza's only power plant has run out of fuel, forcing it to shut down after Israel cut off supplies, the Energy Ministry said Wednesday. That will leave only generators to power the territory. The blackouts come as Israel has blocked fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip as part of what the Israeli government has called a "complete siege" on the territory run by the Hamas militant group, per the AP. All of Gaza's crossings are closed, making it impossible to bring in fuel for the power plant or the generators on which residents and hospitals have long relied.
Israeli airstrikes left entire neighborhoods demolished Wednesday, and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are struggling to treat the injured with dwindling medical supplies. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday that fuel and medical supplies in the enclave are running dangerously low. "In the Al Awda Hospital, we consumed three weeks' worth of emergency stock in three days, partly due to 50 patients coming in at once from [the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza] after it was struck," said Matthias Kannes, MSF Head of Mission in Gaza, per the AP. Meanwhile, Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, only has enough fuel for three days, he said.
As airstrikes are reported nonstop in the Karama district north of Gaza city, many dead and injured are stuck under rubble that Gaza lacks the equipment to handle, officials said Wednesday. With streets badly damaged and the ongoing and intense nature of the airstrikes, ambulances and civil defense teams are unable to approach areas where people were reported trapped under crumbled infrastructure, according to an Interior Ministry spokesperson. The war has claimed more than 2,100 lives on both sides. The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have died in Israel since Saturday's incursion. In Gaza, the health ministry says some 950 have been killed and 5,000 injured.
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Yet the war is expected to escalate. The weekend attack that Hamas said was retribution for worsening conditions for Palestinians under Israeli occupation has inflamed Israel's determination to crush the group's hold in Gaza. Speaking Wednesday in Vatican City, Pope Francis called for the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas fighters in the most serious assault on Israel in half a century. He noted "whoever is attacked has the right to defend himself. But I am very worried about the total siege under which the Palestinians in Gaza are living, where there are also many innocent victims." (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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