GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian Health Ministry has warned that hospitals in Gaza could close within days due to a shortage of fuel and subsequent power outages after the U.S. decided to cut aid to the besieged enclave and the West Bank.
Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said generators are about to shut in major hospitals in Gaza because fuel supplies have run out, complaining that the related parties have so far refused to address the problem.
Last Tuesday, the ministry warned of the collapse of medical services in Gaza hospitals due to the lack of fuel needed to run generators.
Home to nearly two million people, the Gaza Strip has a total of 13 hospitals and 54 primary health care centers that account for roughly 95 percent of all health services in the coastal enclave.
Gaza, which is grappling with a siege by the Zionist regime, has struggled with severe electricity shortages since 2006. 
The director of a hospital in the occupied East al-Quds on Sunday warned that the U.S. decision to cut $25 million in medical aid to Palestinians would have a "severe effect.”
Bassem Abu Libdeh, the director of the Makassed hospital, said the U.S. decision affects 40 percent of costs in the East al-Quds Hospital Network, which includes a group of six hospitals.
The United States on Saturday said it would put the money toward "high-priority projects elsewhere,” without specifying them.
According to the World Health Organization, the medical centers provide cancer treatment and other critical care for Palestinians to whom such medical assistance is unavailable in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
Abu Libdeh questioned the justification behind mixing political issues with medical and humanitarian issues.
According to the hospital’s statement, the U.S. aid cuts come as the "hospital is going through a suffocating crisis as a result of the lack of flow of financial aid, and the piling up of debts and funds held back by the Palestinian government.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the latest aid cut would threaten the lives of thousands of Palestinians and the livelihoods of thousands of hospital employees.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has warned that hospitals in Gaza could close within days due to a shortage of fuel and subsequent power outages after the U.S. decided to cut aid to the besieged enclave and the West Bank.