In the Gaza Strip, medical workers warn electricity shortages imposed by Israel are threatening the lives of the sick and the elderly. This month, Gazans have received between two and four hours of power per day, after the Palestinian Authority cut payments to Israel for electricity in a bid to isolate and weaken its political rival, Hamas. That’s left hospitals scrambling to keep vulnerable patients alive. This is Ritta al-Jalees, whose children suffer from cystic fibrosis.

Ritta al-Jalees: “The electricity shortage affects their treatment very much, because they need a machine to help them breathe and they need a cool place. They can’t use the machine to breathe, because we are mostly without electricity. And when we have it, I can’t deal with the three of them, because it comes for a short time.”

In 2012, the World Health Organization warned that Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020, but now the U.N. says living conditions in Gaza have deteriorated faster than expected and the area has already become unlivable. We’ll have more on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza later in the broadcast.