100 days of Gaza hell as power cuts threaten lives and Israeli troops advance

13 January 2024 , 21:24

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A premature baby born in Gaza at severe risk of death (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)

Clinging to life yet surrounded by death, a premature baby in an incubator in Gaza is close to becoming one of the tiniest victims in 100 days of war.

At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza – one of the strip’s last working medical facilities – power cuts yesterday put its most vulnerable at risk. As lives hang in the balance, Israeli tanks were reported to be moving in closer on an area now said to be “considered a battle zone” by the nation’s military.

And as those who could do so made their desperate escape, Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said a number of residential buildings around the hospital had been destroyed already.

He explained: “The hospital exists in an area that is considered to be a battle zone. With the expansion of Israeli operations it may be exposed to new threats.”

While dozens fled, newborn babies and intensive care patients – who could not safely be moved – remained. Desperate fuel shortages mean there is no power to heat the incubators, and no light to treat them by.

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100 days of Gaza hell as power cuts threaten lives and Israeli troops advance

Smoke billows over Khan Yunis (AFP via Getty Images)

In the nursery unit, Dr Warda al-Awawdeh said: “The devices work on secondary power. If they stop, the children lose their lives. We have three babies in incubators and 10 others in the other room.We work on the light of mobile phones. We don’t have electricity – how can we treat patients?” He said many of the babies are desperately underweight, suffering malnutrition.

Around 180 women give birth each day in Gaza. Some 15% are likely to experience complications and be unable to obtain obstetric and paediatric emergency services, Save the Children said.

All the while, the risk of injury or death from military action looms. If these mothers and babies manage to survive the war, they will grapple with its effects for the rest of their lives. Today marks 100 days that Israel and Hamas have been at war – the longest and deadliest conflict between the two since Israel was established in 1948.

At least 30 more Palestinians, including children – one aged just two – were killed in two air strikes overnight. Video provided by Gaza’s civil defence showed rescue workers carrying a young girl wrapped in blankets from the rubble, with facial injuries, and at least two more children who appeared dead.

Damage from Israeli bombardment in Rafah (AFP via Getty Images)

Staff from Humanity First UK, one of the first British charities to respond to the conflict, spent three days assessing the situation this week in Rafah City, in the south of Gaza.

Boss Aziz Hafiz said: “As a GP, it’s incredibly upsetting to see so many people with infections, skin conditions and injuries, without access to basic painkillers, antibiotics and dressings. Food is extremely limited, famine looms – as the winter draws in, the internally displaced people face starvation and disease.”

Dr Suhaib Alhamss works at one of two hospitals in Rafah. It used to have four intensive care beds, but now receives 1,500 wounded patients daily – and at least 50 dead. He said: “You see the exhaustion, the nervousness, the hunger on everyone’s faces. Each day people die before my eyes because I don’t have supplies.”

He sees his own three children once a week, when they visit the hospital to give him a hug. “I’m terrified for them,” he said. “We all will die in the end.”