Gaza: As last fuel supplies run out, aid teams warn of catastrophe

This article is published in association with United Nations.

More than 100 days into Israel’s complete fuel blockade in Gaza, UN agencies still in the shattered enclave warned on Thursday that vital services are only “hours away” from shutting down.

Speaking from Gaza City in the north of occupied territory, Olga Cherevko from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that water pumps had stopped at one site for displaced people there on Wednesday “because there’s no fuel”.

“We are really – unless the situation changes – hours away from a catastrophic decline and a shutdown of more facilities if no fuel enters or more fuel isn’t retrieved immediately,” she told UN News.

In its latest update on the emergency, OCHA said that without the immediate entry of fuel or access to reserves, 80 per cent of Gaza’s critical care units essential for births and medical emergencies will shut down.

More killed seeking aid

The development comes as Gaza’s authorities reported that 15 people had been killed near an aid distribution hub in the centre of the Strip on Thursday.

On Tuesday, unverified videos of another incident circulating on social media showed dead bodies lying in the street near a relief facility in the southern city of Khan Younis, reportedly following artillery fire.

Finding food is a daily challenge for increasingly desperate Gazans who are “simply waiting for food and hoping to find something in order not to watch their children starve in front of their eyes”, Ms. Cherevko explained.

She added: “I spoke with a woman a couple of days ago where she told me that she went with a friend of hers who is nine months pregnant in hopes of finding some food.

Of course, they didn’t manage because they were too afraid to enter areas where there could be incidents like the ones that have been reported over the past few days.”

Search for shelter

Back in Gaza City, OCHA’s Ms. Cherenko said that conditions in shelters in Gaza are now “absolutely horrific” and increasingly crowded – “there are people coming from the north constantly,” the veteran aid worker added, while others are also moving back northwards, likely to be closer to the entry points for aid convoys.

The amount of aid entering Gaza today remains extremely limited and far below the 600 trucks a day that used to reach the enclave before the war began in October 2023. In its latest update, OCHA reported that “starvation and a growing likelihood of famine” are ever-present in the enclave. An estimated 55,000 pregnant women now face miscarriage, stillbirth and undernourished newborns as a result of the food shortages.

© UNOCHA/Olga Cherevko

Smoke from explosions rises from the Shujaia neighborhood of Gaza City.

Starvation diet

“With the very limited volume of aid that is entering, everyone continues to face starvation and people are constantly risking their lives to try to find something,” Ms. Cherevko continued.

“You eat or [you’re] left with the choice of starving to death.”

After more than 20 months of war, sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel, 82 per cent of Gaza’s territory is either an Israeli militarized zone or affected by evacuation orders.

Three months since hostilities re-escalated on 18 March, more than 680,000 people have been newly displaced. “With no safe place to go, many people have sought refuge in every available space, including overcrowded displacement sites, makeshift shelters, damaged buildings, streets and open areas,” OCHA said.