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Omar Abu Atwa, a ۳۰-year-old driver, was walking home from work one day in central Gaza last month when an explosion shook the street around him.
Bloodied and confused, he was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, where doctors examined injuries to his hand.
As he waited for an X-ray, the lights cut out, rendering much of the hospital’s medical equipment inoperable, including the machine doctors needed to inspect his wound.
After a six-hour wait in the ward, Omar left tired and frustrated, without an X-ray or proper treatment for his injured hand. This is a repeated experience for patients in Gaza, including those rushed to hospital to receive potentially lifesaving surgery.
“I waited for many hours inside the hospital hoping for electricity to return and the medical devices to start working again. During that time, I was in pain and anxious because I did not know the nature of my injury or whether my condition required urgent medical intervention,” he told Al Jazeera.
“I saw children, elderly people and injured individuals waiting just as I was. Some needed medical tests, while others kept asking about when electricity would return so they could continue their treatment. The crisis affected everyone.”
Israel’s genocide has already caused immense damage to Gaza’s healthcare sector, with Israeli bombing since October ۷, ۲۰۲۳ destroying ۳۸ hospitals and ۹۶ primary healthcare centres or rendering them inoperable.
Bombing has almost completely decimated Gaza’s national grid, with about ۹۰ percent of power lines destroyed, forcing hospitals to rely on generators for power.
But an ongoing blockade on Gaza has resulted in severe shortages of fuel needed for generators, which power essential life-saving medical equipment at hospitals such as ventilators, incubators and monitoring devices. The use of non-original engine oils due to the blockade has resulted in generators malfunctioning or affected their performance.
It comes as Israel continues its near-daily air raids on Gaza with at least ۱,۰۹۲ people killed and ۳,۵۰۷ injured since a so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in October ۲۰۲۵.
The consequential routine power cuts have rendered hospitals semi-dysfunctional and affected thousands of patients and medical staff in Gaza, where the flow of patients caused by new waves of bombings and disease continues.
Most of Al-Aqsa’s main generators went out of service in early May ۲۰۲۶, when doctors and nurses were already struggling to cope, leaving the hospital to use secondary generators and solar energy or simply cut back on operations.
Surgeon Omar al-Ashtal said medical teams at the hospital are struggling to provide proper and essential services to patients due to erratic power supplies, especially in operating rooms, where electricity is essential. Surgeons and doctors are having to shorten or delay important operations until stable energy supplies are available, leading to serious consequences for patients.
“What we are witnessing today is not only a shortage of electricity, but a cumulative crisis that includes worn-out generators, fuel shortages and a lack of spare parts needed for maintenance,” al-Ashtal told Al Jazeera. “The continuation of this situation threatens the hospital’s ability to respond to emergencies and increases the suffering of patients waiting for treatment and medical care.”
Intensive care units, operating rooms, anaesthesia departments and neonatal care are the most affected by the latest power crisis. Any interruptions to these departments can lead to serious life-threatening complications for patients, including babies in incubators.
Outages of internet and electronic systems also prevent administrative teams and nurses from fulfilling the essential tasks of accessing or recording patient data, tracking cases and communicating between different departments.
Nurse Hamza Nawas said that medical teams were coping as well as they could under the circumstances.
“We are living under daily pressure because of the electricity crisis. At night, the difficulties increase, especially with rising temperatures and the disruption of some services related to power,” he told Al Jazeera. “We try as much as possible to continue providing care, but the current conditions make work more difficult and complex.”
Engineer Omar al-Ghariz, a specialist in energy systems at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said that generators have been overloaded, exceeding their capacity for months.
“The electric generators at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital have been operating continuously for many months under loads that exceed their normal capacity, due to full reliance on them amid ongoing electricity outages,” he told Al Jazeera. “[This has] led to significant wear on many generator components and a noticeable increase in technical malfunctions.”
Shortages of fuel and spare parts have forced the hospital’s maintenance staff to rely on temporary solutions to keep generators running, but these can only delay the inevitable, with the machines struggling under ۲۴/۷ operations.
“The greatest risk lies in the fact that the hospital depends on a limited number of generators to operate its vital departments. Any sudden failure or fuel shortage could lead to the suspension of essential services,” he said.
“Therefore, we urgently need new generators, spare parts and immediate technical support to ensure the continuity of hospital operations.”
