KUWAIT: Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Salem Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah announced on Sunday the launch of relief operations through an air bridge to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Speaking to KUNA, Sheikh Salem said this initiative is in response to call of the Palestinian people and as per directions of HH the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Nawaf Al-Sabah.
This is an extension of Kuwait’s unwavering position on the Palestinian cause, and an attempt to alleviate suffering brought about by the Zionist occupation. The Kuwaiti air bridge will launch on Monday and continue on a daily basis this week, consisting of humanitarian relief planeloads carrying urgent supplies and medical necessities to the Gaza Strip through Al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Overseeing the initiative are ministries of foreign affairs and defense, the air force and the health ministry, and contributing to it are Kuwait Red Crescent Society, Kuwait Relief Society and other humanitarian establishments.
The lives of at least 120 newborn babies on incubators in war-torn Gaza’s hospitals are at risk as fuel runs out in the besieged enclave, the UN children’s agency warned Sunday. More than 1,750 children have already been killed by Zionist strikes launched against the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Oct 7 Hamas attacks, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry. Hospitals face a dire lack of medicines, fuel and water not only for the thousands wounded in more than two weeks of the war between Gaza militants and the Zionist entity but also for routine patients.
"We have currently 120 neonates who are in incubators, out of which we have 70 neonates with mechanical ventilation, and of course this is where we are extremely concerned,” said UNICEF spokesman Jonathan Crickx. Power is one of the main worries for the seven specialist wards across Gaza treating premature babies to help with breathing and provide critical support, for example when their organs are not developed enough. The Zionist entity ordered a complete blockade of the territory after the Hamas attacks.
Amid widespread electricity cuts, the World Health Organization warned on Thursday that hospitals had already run out of fuel for generators. The WHO said that about 1,000 people needing dialysis will also be at risk if the generators stop. The Zionist entity fears that fuel could help Hamas, although the limited supplies still in Gaza were being diverted to keep the generators for medical equipment running. "If they (babies) are put in mechanical ventilation incubators, by definition, if you cut the electricity, we are worried about their lives,” the UNICEF spokesman told AFP.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday that 130 premature babies were in danger of dying due to the lack of fuel. Around 160 women give birth each day in Gaza, according to the UN Population Fund, which estimates there are 50,000 pregnant women across the territory of 2.4 million people. While the Zionist entity says its strikes are aimed at Hamas, children make up a huge proportion of the 4,385 dead reported by the Hamas-run health ministry.
Whole families, including pregnant women, have been killed in strikes and each day parents can be seen in devastated streets carrying the bodies of infants in white shrouds. Doctors at Najjar hospital in Rafah spoke on Thursday of how they had tried in vain to save an unborn infant from a woman killed in an air strike on her family’s home. Hours earlier, eight children were killed as they slept in a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. – Agencies