HOSPITALS IN GAZA PRAY ISRAEL REOPENS CROSSING

▶ Fuel shortage putting lives of newborns and others at risk

Israel will reopen Gaza’s main commercial crossing tomorrow if a tense truce continues to hold, the government said yesterday.

The announcement came after the UN warned that at least one Gaza hospital had closed because of fuel shortages after Israel tightened imports into the enclave.

It closed the Kerem Shalom crossing on July 9. On July 17, it further tightened the restrictions to also prevent fuel deliveries while reducing the fishing zone Israel enforces off Gaza to three nautical miles from six.

But the UN warned yesterday that supplies of emergency fuel were fast running out and that donor funding could be used up by next month.

UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Palestine, Jamie McGoldrick, said at least one hospital had been forced to shut down since the border crossing closure.

“Services are being dramatically reduced at others,” Mr McGoldrick said.

“Given ongoing blackouts of about 20 hours a day, if fuel does not come in immediately people’s lives will be at stake with the most vulnerable patients – like cardiac patients, those on dialysis and newborns in intensive care – at highest risk.”

Tension has risen on the border in recent days after a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier, the first to die – compared to at least 149 Palestinians – since the recent unrest began on March 30, leading to an intense military barrage on the enclave. Israeli snipers have shot thousands of protesters, many of whom were not near the border.

The bombardment led to a truce between Gaza’s rulers Hamas and Israel on Saturday.

Palestinians have continued to fly kites and balloons with flaming rags attached across the border, starting fires. Israeli ministers have called for a harsh response to the devices.

But the young Palestinian men launching them said they were doing so to protest against Israel’s crippling siege of the enclave since 2007.

The closure of the border crossing has brought an enclave already reeling from the siege even closer to the brink of disaster.

“Al Quds hospital, which provides life-saving interventions for 150,000 people a year, will be forced to shut down in the coming days because of a lack of fuel,” Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN body that helps Palestinian refugees, told The National.

Mr Gunness said that another four hospitals might close down because they were likely to run out of fuel in the next few days.

“It looks unprecedentedly bad,” he said. “Over a million people are going to be directly affected by the closure of hospitals.

“Israel says there is an existential threat. Obviously the kites must stop but let’s be realistic about who faces an existential threat if you look at the figures.

“Israel needs to lift these restrictions on fuel and the long-term blockade needs to end. It’s collective punishment and a violation of international law.”

Israel said it would only open the crossing if calm was maintained along the border.

Its Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “if today and tomorrow the situation continues as it was yesterday, then on Tuesday we will allow Kerem Shalom to return to normal activity and the fishing zones will return to the same distances as before”.

Mr Lieberman, speaking at the crossing, stressed that calm also meant an end to months of kites and balloons carrying firebombs over the border fence from the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas to burn Israeli farmland.

Israeli authorities said hundreds of fires had been started since April.