Hospitals complain about shortages
Israel: Hamas has fuel – but won’t share it
October 24, 2023, 5:46 a.m
Although the United Nations is allowed to bring some urgently needed aid supplies into the Gaza Strip, fuel has not yet come across the border. That’s not necessary, argues Israel’s army. Hamas has plenty of fuel – it just doesn’t give it to civilians.
According to the Israeli military’s findings, the Islamist Hamas is denying hospitals in the Gaza Strip the fuel it has hoarded. Hamas has stored “more than” a million liters of fuel, “but is not giving it to hospitals in need,” said Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus on X. “Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza, not Israel,” the spokesman said. “Hamas has fuel. Hamas should not use this fuel to fight against Israel, but to take care of the civilians for which it is responsible,” Conricus told US broadcaster CNN.
United Nations aid organizations complain that the first aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip have not yet allowed fuel to reach the area. “The fuel we want to bring in is the fuel that (Palestinian relief agency) UNRWA needs. It will be for our operations. And of course there also needs to be fuel for the hospitals and so on,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. He did not answer the question as to whether it was Israel that had so far refused permission.
In the past few days, several dozen trucks had crossed the border from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations, deliveries – including medicines – only amounted to four percent of the normal volume at the Rafah border crossing. The number of deliveries must be increased. The responsible Cogat authority in Israel, on the other hand, accused Hamas of using the approximately one million liters of fuel it had stored to “light up its terror tunnels, fire rockets and use it for their own houses” instead of for the civilian population. There is no independent confirmation of this information.