News - Middle East: The dialysis ward at the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City has shut down as fuel needed to operate the generators has been consumed.

Some 350 patients who depend on the treatment are at risk of death.

Muhammad Abu Hassira, a specialist in internal medicine and nephrology at the medical complex, confirmed on Tuesday that the dialysis ward had completely shut down.

“Kidney failure patients came today, and we painfully had to ask them to go back home. This has very serious repercussions on their health.”

This, Abu Hassira said, was happening for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

“During the worst periods of the war, the dialysis unit was forced to suspend operations multiple times for several days due to Israeli raids on the hospital. Today, the hospital is still partially functioning, but we simply cannot run the dialysis machines because there is no fuel.”

Before the recent shutdown of the dialysis ward, patients had been facing several challenges that frequently disrupted or cancelled their sessions.

By July 2024, Gaza City had lost nearly all of its water production capacity.

This destruction of water infrastructure by Israeli forces has left medical staff struggling to secure the clean water required to operate dialysis machines.

The sources al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City also reported that ICU patients are facing the threat of immediate death, as vital medical devices can no longer function without fuel.

International organizations earlier informed the hospital administration that the Israeli occupation was preventing the entry of fuel into the Gaza Strip.

With no alternatives left, the hospital is heading toward a total collapse of medical services.

United Nations agencies also recently warned that vital services are “hours away” from shutting down.

“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,” Olga Cherevko from the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) said in a statement.

Since October 2023, more than 400 kidney patients in the Gaza Strip have died due to war-related conditions and ongoing restrictions.

The breakdown of the healthcare system has been driven by Israeli military assaults on hospitals, ongoing blockades on essential medicines, and the cutting off of electricity, food, and water.

Thousands of people with chronic and serious diseases, including kidney failure patients, face a slow death amid Israel’s genocide of Palestinian civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Press TV