UN agencies warn: fuel shortage in Gaza reaches critical level
The shortage of fuels in the Gaza Strip has reached a “critical level”. Seven agencies of the United Nations warned in a statement on Saturday.
“After almost two years of war, the population of the Gaza Strip is in extremely difficult circumstances, including widespread food uncertainty,” it says. “When the fuel runs out, a new unbearable burden will be added that hardly presses a population on the edge of famine.”
The UN agencies emphasize that fuels are “the backbone of the survival” in the Gaza Strip, where Israel still carries out deadly attacks on the Palestinians every day. They provide energy for hospitals, ambulances, water distribution, sewers, bakeries and “all aspects of humanitarian operations”. Without fuel, the infrastructure that remains, according to the agencies according to the agencies.
On Wednesday, a United Nations team delivered a load of fuel to the Gaza Strip for the first time in 130 days. It concerned 75,000 liters and according to UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, that was “not enough to provide for a day in the energy needs”.
Israel started on March 2 with a total blockade of the Gaza Strip. That meant that food, medicines or fuel were no longer delivered. Since May, humanitarian aid came in again, but Israel only allowed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to hand out the help. That organization is controversial, partly because hundreds of deaths have already been made at the GHF distribution points under helping Palestinians. The UN demand that their own organizations can go back into the area.