Ambulances in Gaza run out of fuel; Hamas in no hurry to procure more

From Ma'an:

The health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that 36 ambulances were offline due to the fuel crisis.

Spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said the ambulances were parked because the ministry has run out of fuel needed to power them.

The shortage comes despite a deal announced Tuesday by the Palestine Electricity Company Egypt to provide gas to Gaza.

Palestine Electricity Company director in Gaza Walid Saad Sayil signed the agreement with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation in Cairo on behalf of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

Sayil told reporters that Egyptian technicians have been instructed to conduct surveys to find the best route for a network of pipelines to transport gas from Sheikh Zweid to the Rafah crossing on Gaza's border.

First Hamas manufactures a fuel crisis in Gaza, and now it is deliberately keeping it going and causing Gazans to suffer. All because it has political and monetary goals it wants to achieve (getting a permanent supply of fuel from Egypt and being able to tax the fuel as it wants.)

And even if people die in the hospital, Hamas frames it as if it is someone else's fault.

And when push comes to shove, NGOs will bail Gaza out:

The Red Cross will provide the ministry of health in Gaza with 150,000 liters of fuel in the next few days to ease the crisis facings its hospitals, officials said Thursday.

Ayman al-Shehabi, spokesman of the [International committee of the Red Cross]. 
 in Gaza, told Ma’an that the humanitarian situation is difficult in Gaza because of the fuel crisis. Hospitals are particularly affected, he said.

Even though Gazans are grumbling and blame Hamas, it doesn't matter - Hamas is paying no real penalty domestically or internationally for treating its citizens with as much disregard for their lives as Bashir Assad has for his people. The press has been remarkably soft on Hamas' deliberate acts to endanger its citizens, and no Arab state will publicly castigate Hamas while they are hoping for a unity deal. Chances are, Hamas knew all along that it could skate through this and end up getting everything it wants because of the dynamic it created.

It's sort of brilliant in a completely sickening, immoral way.

(I have a feeling that Hamas will find enough gas to bus anti-Israel protesters to the border today, though.)