Gaza’s sick, newborns fall victim to power outages
Palestinians in Gaza are suffering, and some are dying, as the Palestinian reconciliation fails to produce the relief they were promised months ago.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinians are still waiting to realize benefits from the reconciliation between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led government in the West Bank. They've been waiting since October, and some Gaza residents are quickly running out of time.
Unemployment rates remain high in the Gaza Strip, sewer networks are deteriorating and power cuts have become crippling under a decadelong blockade by Israel. Deadly house fires have occurred repeatedly as citizens resort to using candles to light their homes. And that's not the only lethal consequence of the power cuts.
Fawzi Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shandaghli has been desperately trying to cope with the power crisis to save his life. Shandaghli is suffering from kidney failure and has to make daily visits to Shifa Hospital in Gaza for treatment with a dialysis machine, which requires electricity to run.
Patients without generators can't be treated at home during power outages, so they rush to hospitals to get in line, even in the middle of the night, each waiting for a turn to be treated before the electricity goes off.
