Gaza's sick fear for their lives as blockade bites

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 paralyzed 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 recognize Israel seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June.

Since then, Israel has opened U.S.-backed peace talks with Abbas but has shunned Hamas and isolated the Gaza Strip.

Clinics and hospitals in Gaza halted all but the most urgent surgery on Sunday for lack of power, and thousands of factors have stopped work. Shoppers have been stockpiling food.

Khaled Radi, spokesman for the Hamas-run ministry of interior, said hundreds of sick patients were at risk because there was no fuel to power generators. He said vaccines for children may soon go off because they cannot be kept cold.

Assali's family say they try to keep someone at his bedside at all times in case the power cuts out. His eight brothers and sisters and even his cousins help out.

"I'm giving him some oxygen," said his 13-year-old brother Udai as he squeezed the rubber pump in his fist. "I don't want him to die."

(Editing by Charles Dick)