The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that hospitals had only two days’ worth of fuel before they would have to limit services, after the UN warned of aid shipments to the war-torn region.
The alarm came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoavav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war between Israeli militants and Hamas.
The United Nations and others have repeatedly denounced the humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza where Israeli security services said on Friday they had killed two commanders involved in a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.
Medics in the Palestinian territories said Israeli attacks overnight in nearby Beit Lahia and Jabalia left dozens dead or missing.
“We are raising an urgent warning because all hospitals in the Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce services within 48 hours because the (Israeli) occupation is blocking the entry of fuel,” said Marwan al-Hams, director of the Gaza field hospital, in a press release. conference.
The World Health Organization has expressed deep concern on Tuesday for the remaining hospitals in Gaza.
“It’s getting harder and harder to get help,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva.
Late Thursday, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: “The delivery of critical aid to Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, has stopped.”
In a statement, they said that for more than six weeks Israeli authorities “have banned commercial imports” while a “surge of armed robberies” has targeted aid convoys.
‘Absurd and false’
Promised to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, Israel on October 6 began air and ground operations in Jabalia and then expanded to Beit Lahia.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency could not immediately give an exact number after the latest Israeli attack, but the health ministry said Israeli operations in the north had killed thousands.
The UN said more than 100,000 had been displaced from the area, and officials told the Security Council last week that people were “effectively starving”.
Issuing warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe they had “criminal responsibility” for the war crimes of starvation as a method of war, and crimes against humanity including “lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and special medical supplies”.
The unprecedented move prompted an angry reaction from Netanyahu, who said in a statement: “Israel rejects the absurd and false actions and accusations.”
Netanyahu also said the judge was “motivated by anti-Semitic hatred of Israel”.
On Friday, he thanked his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban for showing “moral clarity” by inviting him to visit in defiance of an ICC bailout that Orban called “political”.
Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s top military supplier, called the warrant against the Israeli leader “outrageous”, but other world leaders expressed support for the court.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said on Friday Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot in the country.
Warrants for Hamas leaders
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, saying there were grounds to suspect him of war crimes and crimes against humanity for attacks on Israel that sparked the war, and included “sexual and gender-based violence” against hostages. .
Israel said it killed Deif in July, but Hamas has not confirmed the death.
On the day the warrant was issued, the UN representative said the Israeli raid in Syria this week was “possibly the deadliest” by Israel in the country so far. On Friday, war monitors said an attack on Palmyra killed 92 pro-Iranian fighters.
Israel bombed Gaza again on Saturday.
In Gaza City, south of Jabalia, a man who said he was taking his brother to hospital after the attack called on “the world … to stop” the war.
“We’ve had enough,” said Belal, who gave only his first name and said 10 members of his family had died. “I’m the only one,” he said.
At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of fighting, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry deemed reliable by the United Nations.
Hamas sparked the war with the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally from Israeli officials.
The war extended to Lebanon at the end of September when Israel escalated air strikes against Iran supported by Hezbollah and later sent ground troops to southern Lebanon against the group, after nearly a year of tit-for-tat border clashes in which Hezbollah said they supported Hamas.
Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 3,580 people had died in Lebanon, most of them since the end of September.
Thousands of UN peacekeepers are based in southern Lebanon. They have reported multiple attacks, blaming Israel and “non-state” actors.
On Friday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Hezbollah was behind a rocket attack that hit his position and injured four Italian peacekeepers.
Israeli airstrikes again hit Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold on Friday, as well as southern Lebanon, the National News Agency said.
Published – November 22, 2024 22:07 IST
