Gaza faces the threat of famine and disease after aid deliveries were disrupted due to a lack of fuel and a communications breakdown, aid agencies have warned.
Aid deliveries to the enclave have again been suspended as Israel continues to restrict fuel supplies. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday that civilians faced an “immediate possibility of starvation”. The World Health Organization has warned that the disease is spreading rapidly.
The halt in deliveries of humanitarian supplies is deepening the misery of hungry and homeless Palestinians as Israel’s war drags on.
While Israel has allowed some aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing linking the enclave to Egypt, it has allowed virtually no fuel to pass through.
Aid agencies say this sabotages the distribution of supplies. Palestinian telecommunications companies Jawwal and Paltel said Thursday their networks were out of service after a fuel shortage. There were several communications outages in Gaza during the Israeli assault.
Humanitarian agencies stress that the provision of all aid and medical care depends critically on fuel supplies.
Israel’s war cabinet agreed Friday afternoon to allow two trucks of fuel per day to enter Gaza “for UN purposes,” news agencies reported.
The fuel is intended to provide “minimal” support to water, sewer and sanitation systems to prevent pandemics, an official said.
Desperate need
The UN said there would be no cross-border aid operation on Friday due to fuel shortages and communications blackouts. On Thursday, for the second day in a row, no aid trucks arrived in Gaza due to a lack of fuel to distribute relief supplies.
WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said almost the entire population was in desperate need of food aid.
“Food and water supplies are virtually non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed arrives across the borders,” she said in a statement.
“With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters and a lack of clean water, civilians face the immediate risk of starvation,” McCain said.
“Food production has stopped almost completely, markets have collapsed, fishermen have no access to the sea, farmers cannot reach their farms,” said Abeer Etefa, WFP regional spokesperson for the Middle East. “People face the immediate possibility of starving to death. »
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has expressed serious concern about the spread of the disease in Gaza, citing more than 70,000 cases of acute respiratory infections and at least 44,000 cases of diarrhea, far more than expected.
No respite
As the war is about to enter its seventh week, there is no sign of slowing down Israel’s assault and blockade of Gaza, despite international calls for a ceasefire or less to humanitarian breaks.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported Friday that at least nine people were killed and others injured in an Israeli strike that hit a group of displaced people near Rafah – the only crossing point for aid.
The chief of staff of the Israeli army said that Israel was on the verge of destroying the Hamas military system in the northern Gaza Strip.
The conflict was sparked by a cross-border raid by Hamas fighters on October 7 that killed around 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.
More than 11,500 Palestinians, including at least 4,700 children, have been killed in Israeli military reprisals against Gaza, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
Israel has razed entire neighborhoods of Gaza in air and artillery attacks, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes and the humanitarian situation is catastrophic, according to aid agencies.
