Gaza City’s only oxygen plant faces imminent shutdown due to fuel shortage

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Gaza City’s only oxygen production plant is at risk of shutting down within hours amid a severe fuel shortage, the Health Ministry warned on Monday.

“The oxygen plant in Gaza City is about to shut down within hours, putting the lives of patients and injured people at risk of certain death,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry warned that medicine stored in refrigerators would likely spoil due to the lack of diesel needed to operate generators.

Last month, the Israeli army captured the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, a vital route for humanitarian aid into Gaza, worsening the already difficult humanitarian conditions in the enclave.

Relentless Israeli attacks have also rendered most hospitals across the territory non-operational.

The Palestinian health authorities have issued several urgent appeals to save the health system, which is now unable to cope with the overwhelming number of casualties from the intensive Israeli bombardment.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,120 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 84,700 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio