Gaza is “the most hungry place on earth” and its entire population is in danger of famine, warns the United Nations, because the desperate Palestinians are slaughtered, hungry and forced of their houses by Israeli forces.
Invoking Israel to stop its deliberate famine campaign and allow food in the besieged enclave, the UN said on Friday that its mission to help the Palestinians from Gaza is “the most obstructed in recent history”.
“The help of help we have ready to ride is in the process of operational that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in recent history,” said the spokesperson for the Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (OCHA), Jens Laerke.
He said that on 900 aid trucks that have been approved to enter the Israeli side of the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom in Israel, less than 600 were unloaded in Gaza, adding that a greater aid was recovered for the distribution.
“I have no flour, no oil, no sugar, no food. I collect moldy bread and I feed it for my children. I want to have a bag of flour for my children. I want to eat. I am hungry,” a Palestinian told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Reporting Gaza City, Hani Mahmoud, Tel Aviv Tribune, said that the northern part of the strip, which includes Gaza City, “had not seen a drop of aid arriving that has been authorized in recent days”.
“The people of the central region, in the city (south) of Khan Younis and Rafah, also have difficulties daily to find food supplies, in particular with regard to flour and other basic necessities to help them survive these difficult conditions,” he added.
The Palestinians leave the help points empty
After a blockade of almost three months, Israel, under pressure from Western governments and international humanitarian organizations, allowed limited aid to enter the enclave and the resumption of limited operations of the United Nations.
However, Israel also put pressure for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private aid distributor supported by the United States, to provide essential food aid to hungry Palestinians.
The UN and other aid groups have refused to work with GHF, saying that it lacks neutrality and its distribution model requires the displacement of the Palestinians.
However, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told journalists on Friday that if any help that happens to those who need it is “good”, help deliveries “very, very little impact”.
“The catastrophic situation in Gaza has been the worst since the start of the war,” he said.
With only three of the four distribution points set up to receive the help of GHF, people like Layla Al-Masri, a moved Palestinian, leave empty-handed.
“What they say about their desire to feed the inhabitants of Gaza is the lies. They nourish neither people nor give them nothing to drink,” she said.
‘Parents giving water to children’
Abdel Qader Rabie, another moved Palestinian, said that his family had nothing to eat. “No flour, no food, no bread, we have nothing at home,” he said.
“Each time I get help, I hold a box and hundreds of people crowd on me. Earlier, UNRWA (United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees) send me a message, (and) I would get help. Now there is nothing. If you are strong, you get help. If you are not, you leave your hands.
Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian affairs, also criticized the type of aid that United Nations agencies are authorized to bring to Gaza.
“The Israeli authorities did not allow us to bring a single meal ready to eat. The only authorized food was flour for bakeries. Even if it is authorized in unlimited quantities, which was not, that would constitute a complete diet for anyone,” said Kaneko.
The Palestinians who received aid from GHF said that their packages included rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, cookies and sugar.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, described the GHF as a “bait to the corral people” which “violates all the principles of international law”.
“It is an aid to be used … to push the people of the North to militarized areas … and it is a question of humiliation of people, and it is a question of controlling the population. It has nothing to do with the end of the famine,” he said.
The Khoudary Hind Khoudary of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Deir El-Balah to Gaza, said that little food enters the enclave because the number of trucks entering and the help they transport is very limited
“Despite the entry of the trucks in recent days, the Palestinians say they have not really received food because there have been no normal distribution points,” she said, adding that many come back with their empty pots.
“Some parents say they give their children water just to make them feel full. People say they are ready to do anything for a bag of flour or a plot of food. They are very desperate. ”