’’Israel’’ Cuts Power in Gaza, Threatens Hospitals, Water, Life Course

Local Editor

An energy crisis is currently hitting the Gaza Strip's public services hard and could lead to a severe humanitarian crisis if a sustainable solution is not found soon.

"If the power plant does not resume its work in the next days, some hospitals will be left without electricity," Mahmud Daher, officer-in-charge of the World Health Organization in Gaza, told IRIN.
Gaza's only power plant was forced to shut down last Tuesday due to a lack of fuel, which has previously been imported in amounts of up to one million liters a day from Egypt.

"The current crisis is a political problem that started six years ago. The "Israeli" occupation, the Palestinian Authority's refusal to provide the Gaza Strip with funds, and the policy of Egypt which is dealing with Gaza out of security calculations, have all contributed to the current situation," said Hamas government spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

Stressing that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's visit to Egypt aims at discussing the crisis and to find a quick solution, the Hamas official clarified that "so far no progress has been made. The whole of Gaza has been without electricity."
Since the power plant stopped working, public hospitals and clinics have been running on only 20 percent of the 440,000 liters of fuel usually needed per day to supply the health system with electricity, Daher said.
"Some hospitals might withstand the crisis for one more week, some others no more than one or two days," he added.

Some fuel entered the Gaza Strip over on Saturday and Sunday via a tunnel from Egypt, but the amount was not sufficient for resumption of operations at the power plant, which requires more than 400,000 liters of diesel a day, and produces 80-85 megawatts.

The Gaza Strip also receives around 120 MW of electricity from "Israel". With the power plant shut down, the overall electricity deficit has reached more than 60 percent of normal supply.

Hassan Khalaf, Gaza's deputy health minister, said Gaza had only had six hours of electricity a day for the past two weeks. "The nurseries, the ICUs (intensive care units), the operation rooms are all severely affected by that. The crisis is becoming a danger for the most vulnerable."

Among the hospitals most severely affected is Shifa, which is the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip. According to an as yet unpublished report by WHO, it had fuel for only 54 hours of full operation at the end of last week.
Equally, the al-Aqsa hospital and the Psychiatric hospital are at high risk, with less than 50 hours of fuel supply left as of Thursday.

"Theoretically, we could reach point zero at any time soon," Daher warned pointing out that "in the worst case, the crisis could lead to a stop in vital services for about 100 newborn children, could endanger about 60 people currently in intensive care and about 400 patients who are dependent on life-saving dialysis."
 
In addition, non-urgent operations will have to be canceled, and laboratory services, the kitchen and laundry services might be affected.
Critical elements such as intensive care units have a double back-up system of large Uninterruptible Power Supply generators.
 
But they can only function for short periods, while the main hospital generators are meant to supply electricity for long-term use. Many of the generators are not suitable for constant use and need frequent repair or replacement.

The situation in hospitals has also been worsened by an unusually cold winter, which has increased energy demand. Forced to reset priorities, many hospitals have refrained from heating.
 
Only the heating systems in stations with newborn children and immune-compromised and elderly patients, who are at risk of hypothermia, have remained intact.
The lack of electricity has also affected water supplies.

"Water pumps have lost 40 percent of their capacity to transport water into the wells,""Omar Shatat, technical manager at the Gaza Strip's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility confirmed.
Before the power plant closed down, pumps delivered about 220,000 liters of water a day. "Now there are hardly able to pump 150,000 per day," he said.

Source: Maan News Agency, Edited by moqawama.org