Gaza: Israeli restrictions on engine oil are crippling the humanitarian response Gaza, October 2026 — Israeli authorities’ restrictions on engine oil are severely constraining the humanitarian response, increasing operational pressures and threatening the continuity and reach of life-saving services, warns the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) and the Palestinian Non-Governmental Network (PNGO). Residual stocks of engine oil are nearly depleted after three years of severe restrictions on humanitarian aid imposed by Israeli authorities. As a result, the price of engine oil inside Gaza has skyrocketed to $900 for a single litre while a few hundred meters away the price inside Israel is only $10 per litre. NGOs are being priced out of the little oil that remains, at a time when funding shortfalls are already forcing humanitarian actors to scale back despite immense and growing needs
“Repeated engagements with Israeli authorities have yielded nothing, this blockage is a political decision with profoundly human consequences. Palestinians in Gaza pay the price of global inaction,” says Athena Rayburn, AIDA executive director. “Israeli authorities must immediately permit the entry of engine oil at the scale needed to sustain humanitarian operations. Entry though commercial channels must also be restored to lower and stabilise the cost and ease the burden on aid budgets.” Israeli authorities cut off Gaza’s electricity supply in October 2023, leaving generators and solar panels as the main sources of power. X-ray machines, intensive care units, sewage treatment and desalination plants, ambulances, blood banks, incubators and dialysis units require uninterrupted electricity from generators. Solar energy cannot support these essential services, and its functionality also drops significantly in winter, when shorter daylight hours further limit power generation. Generators are failing from the shortage of engine oil, and this, combined with a fuel shortage is forcing aid agencies to choose which lifesaving services to prioritise. AIDA conducted a survey of 20 INGOs in July and found that organisations had decreased the average generator run-time by half to preserve the small amounts of engine oil available to them. Healthcare providers have cut lighting and heating to protect the cold chain for insulin and vaccines. One medical INGO has resorted to packing medicines in ice-filled cooler boxes to stop them from expiring overnight when power from solar panels drops. One INGO reported that their water pumping and distribution had fallen from 10,000 to 5,000 households, while another will need to suspend their nutrition monitoring activities because too many of their vehicles have become inoperable. By September, about 70% of hospital generators were out of service because of the scarcity of engine oil, and WHO diesel supplies to more than 20 health facilities stopped due to a lack of funding according to medical INGOs in Gaza. As the occupying power, Israel is obligated to ensure the population has the essentials of daily life, including functioning hospitals. Denying the means to power hospitals and keep medicines viable is a violation of Israel's obligations as the occupying power under international humanitarian law. This is a policy choice, not a logistical failure. Israel must let engine oil in. Keep the generators running and restore access to electricity.
