Correction: Though the initial sources all reported that the five month old infant died the day of the story (March 25), later stories revealed that he actually died earlier in the month. The cause of death and other details are the same.
A month of ongoing rolling blackouts in the Gaza Strip claimed their first victim today, when a five-month-old infant died in Gaza City after the backup generator running his respirator ran out of fuel.
The baby, born with a serious lymphatic disorder, required the respirator to remove fluid from his lungs. No one in the strip is getting more than 12 hours of electricity a day, so his family had to rely on backup generators to keep him alive.
Blackouts are nothing new for the tiny enclave, but unlike the many past blackouts, usually the result of some political decision (or some random mishap) in Israel, no one seems to be able to explain why the fuel isn’t flowing to Gaza’s only power plant. Egypt is supposed to supply them, but they aren’t.
The why behind this has no ready answer, but the fuel stopped flowing almost immediately following the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, and has fueled much speculation that Fatah is using their influence to try to weaken Hamas ahead of the promised elections.
In the meantime, the average Gazan is seeing 12-18 hour rolling blackouts, and an emergency shipment of diesel from Israel quickly burned through is no sort of permanent solution for keeping the lights on, and the infants breathing, in the densely populated strip.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
- Taliban Kills Dozens of Afghan Forces in Attacks on Checkpoints - October 14th, 2018
- Bombing Kills 22 at Afghanistan Election Rally - October 14th, 2018
- Israel to Expand Settlement in Hebron, First Time in 16 Years - October 14th, 2018
- Syria's Al-Qaeda Will Accept Idlib Deal - October 14th, 2018
- South Korea President: North Korea Leader Sincere, Should Be Rewarded - October 14th, 2018
Who is to blame here simply put it is the western powers and balfour that is responsible for all and future deaths and in the end the "state' of israel will be no more and vanish from the pages of history.
Notch another victory for Israel and the United States of America, the land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE.
" Egypt is supposed to supply them, but they aren’t."
But we'll blame Israel anyway.
Egypt is not occupying Palestine, Isreal is. But nice dishonest try anyway.
"the fuel stopped flowing almost immediately following the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah"
The fuel supply was stopped by whom? Who doesn't want a unified Palestinian political front? Who favors Divide and Rule?
During Iraq – Gulf war a young women in US senate hearing was saying that Iraqi solders were stealing or disconnecting these respirator deliberately killing babies, later it turned out that this young women is the daughter of Kuwaiti Shakh Ben Sallah and she was lying. When Madeline Albright was asked on a national news TV about one million Iraqi babies have died she answered something like, SO WHAT, so what is the reaction of EU and US present formation of government, no matter what kind of evidence or document presented to EU or US government. Here is yet another proof that Israel government is an inhuman system using whatever inhuman method and calling themselves “democracy”, we have said that from beginning, EU and US needs to change their political standing toward Israel and start implementing, on the bases of democracy and its principals, a total embargo against Israel until they obey the international law and respect it, that they respect the human rights laws not only for the Jewish people but for all. EU and US been creating enemies around the world not because of the word democracy, but rather for EU and US not respecting what they say that they are, a democratic system.
I guess the oil hand-out that Isreal was supposed to allow Gaza didn't happen after all. As always, every time the Zionists sneeze, Palestinians die.
This story has been revealed to be false. Read here: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Hamas-blame…
Now let's see if Antiwar.com has enough respect for its readers and for the truth to publish a retraction to this story and correct the record.
Mr. Holland,
I read the story you sent. Which points are you disputing specifically? Such as the date of death?