• With fuel for generators drying up, aid workers warn of complete healthcare collapse
• Biden offers rare criticism of West Bank settlers who are ‘making things worse’
• Doctors in Gaza compelled to perform surgeries without anaesthetic

GAZA CITY: Facing growing international pressure to rethink plans of a massive ground assault, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel was preparing for a ground incursion into Gaza, even as Tel Aviv shelling killed more civilians amid growing pressure to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

At the United Nations, meanwhile, Russia and China vetoed a draft UN Security Council Resolution, whereas a rival Russian-drafted text failed to win the minimum number of votes.

Anger over civilian deaths has been inflamed further by a sense of betrayal, as many of those who heeded Israel’s call to move south are also being killed.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from north to south in tiny, crowded Gaza after Israel warned them it would mainly bombard the north in its quest to eliminate Hamas. However, the bombing has been indiscriminate, targeting civilian buildings, schools and hospitals.

Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank, where health officials said more than 100 Palestinians had been killed, mostly in raids by Israeli troops or in clashes with Israeli settlers.

In a rare rebuke to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, US President Joe Biden reiterated calls for a two-state solution for Palestinians and the Israelis once the current conflict subsides.

“I continue to be alarmed about extremist settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank,” Biden said, accusing them of pouring gasoline on a fire. “They’re attacking Palestinians in places that they’re entitled to be.”

Healthcare collapse

According to the health ministry, Israeli strikes have now killed more than 6,500 people in Gaza, including over 700 who died on Tuesday — the highest death toll for a single day so far.

Among Wednesday’s casualties, an internally displaced person was killed and 44 were injured in an air strike near a UNRWA school in the southern town of Rafah, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip said.

The school was sheltering 4,600 people and sustained severe collateral damage, an UNRWA statement said.

The United Nations said 12 of the territory’s 35 hospitals have closed due to damage or insufficient fuel.

“The hospitals are in a state of complete collapse,” said Mohammed Abu Selmeya, head of Shifa, the biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip.

He told AFP “more than 90 percent of medicines” had run out and “we urgently need fuel to run the generators and to operate hospital departments and operating theatres.”

On the 19th day of Israeli air and artillery strikes and a near-total land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned operations were at breaking point.

“If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip,” said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides aid to 600,000 displaced in Gaza.

UN vote

At the UN, Russia and China vetoed on Wednesday a US-drafted Security Council resolution to address a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, calling for pauses the violence to allow aid access. The United Arab Emirates also voted no, while 10 members voted in favor and two abstained.

The council then voted on a Russian-drafted resolution that called for a humanitarian ceasefire. Only Russia, China, the UAE and Gabon voted in favor of the draft, while nine members abstained and the United States and Britain voted no.

The Russian document, seen by AFP, calls for “an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire” and “condemns all violence and hostilities against civilians” and also says it “rejects and condemns the heinous attacks by Hamas” of October 7.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Israel’s campaign against Palestinians could spread well beyond the Middle East and that it was wrong that innocent women, children and old people in Gaza were being punished for other people’s crimes.

“Our task today, our main task, is to stop the bloodshed and violence,” said Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript of the meeting.

“Otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”

Also Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki met with senior officials from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the court said, without giving further details.

‘Severe pain but no anaesthetic’

Fuel is used to power vital services such as hospitals in Gaza which rely on generators, and aid agencies have warned that more people will die if medical equipment, water desalination plants and ambulances stop running.

Once the generators stop running, hospitals will “turn into morgues”, the Red Cross has warned.

Hospitals are also struggling with a dramatic shortage of medicines and equipment.

“There’s not enough anaesthetic,” said Ahmad Abdul Hadi, an orthopaedic surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis.

“The wounded are in severe pain but we can’t wait for the procedure so we’re forced to do the operation. We performed a number of surgeries without anaesthetic. It’s tough and painful, but with the lack of resources, what can we do?”

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2023