Blockade-Induced Power Outages Force Gaza Hospital to Close

Power shortages in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, besieged by Israeli occupiers, have forced a hospital to shut down on Monday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

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The Beit Hanoun hospital serves an area of 60,000 people in Northern Gaza, holding 66 patients, and providing emergency services. An average of 12 surgeries are performed per day.

The ministry announced that the patients will be transferred to other government hospitals, however, continued electricity shortages still threaten other facilities.

Chronic power shortages in Gaza, which has been under blockade by Israel for over a decade, have forced authorities to resort to a rotation system, where each area of the city receives power for a few hours a day.

Hospitals and other key service centers have been forced to rely on diesel generators to maintain 24-hour operation, and require around 450,000 liters of fuel per day. The diesel fuel to sustain Gaza's hospitals for one hour costs upward of US$2,000.

The shutdown coincides with numerous schools, clinics, and food distribution centers closing down due to strikes and demonstrations by employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, that provides crucial services to Palestinian refugees. Protests have erupted against a U.S. decision to cut aid to the key U.N. agency, on which over half of Gaza's population depends.

Unrwa was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes in the massive event of colonization, remembered today as the Nakba.