Gaza's sick fear for their lives as blockade bites

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

JABALYA, Gaza (Reuters) - Ready to act fast to save his life, Maher Al-Assali's young siblings stand at his bedside, poised to pump air through a hole in the 12-year-old's neck when the ventilator that keeps him alive cuts out.

Since being paralysed in a car accident seven years ago, Assali has depended on a mechanical ventilator to supply his lungs with oxygen. During the electricity blackouts that have plagued the impoverished territory for months, his family used to hook the machine up to a generator at a nearby clinic.

But Israel has cut fuel supplies to Hamas-run Gaza as part of sanctions it says are meant to stop militants firing rockets across the border. The clinic generator has shut down. So now, when the power grid fails, Assali's family keep him alive with a rubber hand pump.

"I am afraid," said the boy in a voice that was barely audible. "I could suffocate while asleep if the electricity suddenly goes off, I am afraid to die."

Gaza City plunged into darkness on Sunday night when the enclave's only power station shut down after Israel closed the borders and cut fuel supplies. The Jewish state has vowed to keep up the restrictions until militants stop firing rockets.

The plant supplies about 30 percent of the Gaza Strip's electricity but almost all power to the main city, where about half the territory's 1.5 million people live. The European Union and United Nations have urged Israel to lift the blockade.

The residents of Jabalya in northern Gaza still have some electricity but Assali's father said power usually cuts out several times during the day and night.

Hamas Islamists who refuse to renounce violence and recognise Israel seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June.