SAVE GAZA'S BABIES NOW

Newborns in peril as supplies fail

- ANDY LINES

DOCTORS at Gaza's largest hospital say they are wrapping premature babies in foil in a desperate bid to keep them alive.

Staff at the al-Shifa hospital are struggling to save newborns' lives after oxygen and power ran out.

They had to move the babies from the neonatal unit's incubators to a different part of the building.

Director Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya said: "I was with them a while ago. They are now exposed, because we have taken them out of the incubators. We wrap them in foil and put hot water next to them so that we can warm them." Dr Mohamed Tabasha, head of the paediatric department, said: "Yesterday I had 39 babies and today they have become 36. I cannot say how long they can last.

"I can lose another two babies today, or in an hour.

"I never expected in my life that I would put 39 babies side by side on a bed, each with a different disease, and in this acute shortage of medical staff, of milk" The Gaza health ministry said six premature babies and nine patients have died since electrical shortages began last week.