Gaza’s largest medical facility, Al-Shifa Hospital, is facing a catastrophic breakdown as a complete power outage caused by Israel’s ongoing fuel blockade has plunged the already overburdened hospital into darkness, placing the lives of hundreds of patients in immediate danger.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, issued an urgent warning on Wednesday, stating that without fuel or functional electricity generators, critical life-support systems in intensive care units, operating rooms, and dialysis centers are ceasing to function. “Hundreds of lives now hang in the balance,” he said, as doctors scramble to maintain care with almost no resources.

The crisis is not isolated to Al-Shifa alone. In Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital—the largest in the region—is also on the verge of a total shutdown. Medical teams told Al Jazeera that the last reserves of fuel will run out within 24 hours, potentially leading to mass deaths among the most vulnerable patients, including newborns in incubators and those reliant on ventilators.

This alarming situation is a direct result of the Israeli occupation’s continued blockade and refusal to allow fuel and essential supplies into the besieged Gaza Strip. Hospitals, already battered by months of genocidal bombardment, now face what medical staff are calling “a death sentence by starvation of electricity.”

Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned Israel’s weaponization of humanitarian aid, accusing the occupation of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and creating conditions incompatible with human survival. The collapse of Gaza’s health system is being described as a c0alculated assault on life itself, aimed at breaking the will of the Palestinian people through collective punishment

International humanitarian agencies are warning that unless immediate and unhindered access is granted to fuel and medical supplies, Gaza will witness mass casualties—not from bombs, but from the cold, calculated denial of life-saving necessities.

As Gaza’s hospitals go dark, the silence of world powers and complicity of those arming and supporting the Israeli occupation have become ever more glaring. Palestinians on the ground are calling for urgent international intervention—not in words, but in action—to stop the slow, systematic extermination being carried out under the guise of war. (ILKHA)

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