Gaza health facilities face closure due to fuel shortage
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GAZA, Feb 6 - Fuel for emergency generators that keep Gaza's hospitals and sanitation services operating will run out within 10 days, the United Nations said on Tuesday in an appeal for immediate donor support.
The shortage stems from a dispute between Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamist group and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA). Both signed a unity deal in October but have failed to finalise the details of political power-sharing.
So far generators have stopped at three of Gaza's 13 hospitals and 14 of its 54 medical centres, said Ashraf Al-Qidra, the Hamas-appointed spokesman for the impoverished territory's Health Ministry. Officials at the affected facilities said they were directing seriously ill patients to other health facilities and operating at limited capacity.
With Gaza's electrical grid supplying only about four to six hours of power a day to Gaza's two million people - a complicated crisis also largely rooted in the Hamas-PA rivalry - back-up generators are a lifeline for health care and sanitation facilities.
