STORY: Inside Gaza City's Al-Helou hospital, the neonatal unit faces a crippling shortage of equipment and fuel.
That means four at-risk newborns are crammed into a single incubator.
Ziad al-Masry is a pediatrician here.
"There are three or four newborn babies in one incubator. It is designed to accommodate one child, one premature baby. Our situation is like a disaster, the cramming of children leads to the spread of illness and an inability to deal with them, and therefore leads to a direct danger to them. We are in need of more incubators, in order to deal with the number of newborn babies, and especially premature babies."
Israel's military operation has decimated health services in Gaza. And a blockade limiting food and medicine has led to a significant increase in malnutrition, threatening the health of pregnant mothers and newborns.
"The majority of these cases suffer from malnutrition during the period inside the womb, and therefore the babies are born underweight, and have underdeveloped lungs, and underdeveloped bodies in general. They are in need of care from us due to the incomplete development of their bodies."
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:: Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, Gaza
:: Released July 8, 2025
Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness, where health services have been pummelled during 21 months of war.
"We are dealing with critical cases of newborn babies, especially premature babies. The majority of them are deprived of oxygen during birth and they need ventilators to help stabilise them. We need continuous electricity 24 hours (a day). If it is cut off, the equipment that we are using will cease to work, and this directly impacts the lives of the children we have."
An Israeli military official said around 160,000 liters of fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities had entered Gaza since Wednesday (July 9), but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza's medical facilities and the risk to patients.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Gaza's health ministry says Israel's response has killed over 57,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, displaced almost all Gaza's population and prompted accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.
