Qatar announces it will send an additional fifteen million litres of fuel to Gaza

(Patria) - Qatar announced on Wednesday that it will send an additional fifteen million litres of fuel to the war-torn
Gaza Strip, where a fragile ceasefire has halted the Israel-Hamas war, AFP reported. The small, energy-rich Gulf state would "supply the Gaza Strip with fifteen million litres of fuel, bringing Qatar's total fuel support to thirty million litres," Qatar's official news agency reported.

The ceasefire agreement, brokered by Qatari, American and Egyptian negotiators, came into effect on 19 January, pausing the fighting in the fifteen-month war that has devastated the Palestinian territory. As the weapons fell silent, humanitarian aid began to flow into Gaza, home to more than two million people, the vast majority of whom have been displaced at least once due to the war.

On 20 January, Qatar said it would send 1.25 million litres of fuel daily to Gaza for ten days. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimated in November that it needed about 160,000 litres of fuel daily for basic humanitarian operations in Gaza.

The war, triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, has caused a terrible humanitarian crisis and the collapse of the already fragile healthcare system in the besieged Palestinian territory. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned at the end of December that rebuilding Gaza's healthcare system would be a "complex and difficult task." Hospitals are particularly short of fuel.

"Without fuel, there are no humanitarian operations," said Rick Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, at the end of November.

Israel controls everything that enters or leaves the Gaza Strip and has imposed restrictions on goods it deems could be used for military purposes, including fuel.