6/15/2024–|Last updated: 6/15/202406:15 PM (Mecca time)
In light of the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the tragedy for the people of the besieged Strip is getting darker as they suffer from a shortage of food supplies. Since Israel took control of the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, humanitarian aid has stopped entering it, threatening the return of the specter of famine and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis experienced by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on October 7, the majority of Gaza residents have been displaced from their destroyed or threatened homes, leaving everything behind, and are now living in tragic, unstable conditions that make food, water, shelter, and health care daily concerns difficult to meet.
Many of the people of the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City depend to feed themselves and their children on wild herbs and some canned food that escaped the enemy’s eyes and were spared the machine of destruction, but they lack vegetables, fruits, and meat. Indeed, securing a meal that includes the components of proper nutrition has become a burden they cannot bear, which has led to the spread of poor health. Nutrition, especially among children and the elderly, and an increase in deaths due to lack of food.
Hungry children
Medical sources told Anadolu correspondent in the northern and central regions of the Gaza Strip that children had died as a result of the lack of food and milk allocated to them, in addition to the lack of necessary treatments for their diseases.
Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, told Anatolia that more than 50 Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition were recorded in the recent period, adding that the specter of famine looms over Gaza in light of the lack of food.
With the Israeli army taking control of the Rafah land crossing on May 7, despite international warnings of its repercussions, the humanitarian conditions inside the Strip worsened in light of the scarcity of food and medical supplies, which led to the launching of several distress calls calling for the need to open the crossings and bring in aid.
On Wednesday, Martin Griffiths, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, expected that half of the population of the Gaza Strip would face death and famine by mid-July. He said – in a statement – that the conflicts in Sudan and Gaza are spiraling out of control, pushing millions of people to the brink of famine.
Signs of tragedy
In turn, the director of the government media office in Gaza, Ismail Al-Thawabta, said, “Our Palestinian people are suffering from the escalation of the starvation war, the rapid worsening of the humanitarian catastrophe, and the emergence of signs of famine in the Strip, especially in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, as a result of the occupation’s closure of the crossings.”
He added to Anadolu that the number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip is limited in quantity and quality, and they enter at separate intervals and not continuously, stressing that “the Zionist occupation’s use of starvation and preventing medical care as tools in this barbaric aggression is a proven and complex war crime.”
Al-Thawabta pointed out that Israel’s continuation of its major crime against the people of Gaza in front of the entire world is a blatant violation of all international laws, and a disregard for the calls, demands and decisions that stipulate the introduction of aid and the cessation of the war.
He called on international and humanitarian organizations to take urgent action and provide the necessary food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and to exert pressure to force the occupation to open the crossings to bring in aid. He called on the Arab and Islamic countries to exert more efforts and pressure to break the siege and provide all the relief needs of the people of Gaza.
Yesterday, Friday, the World Food Program described civilian losses as devastating, amid the escalation of fighting in the southern and central Gaza Strip.
Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, warned – in a post on his account on X – that the continuation of Israeli hostile operations makes it almost impossible to deliver much-needed food aid to the Gaza Strip.
Floating dock transportation
The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Marouf, confirmed – last Monday – that the American floating dock on the coast of Gaza has not truly alleviated the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip since its establishment, and that the number of aid trucks that have passed through it does not exceed 120.
Despite this, the US Central Command (Centcom) announced on Friday that it had decided to temporarily move the floating pier from its location on the shore of the Gaza Strip to the Israeli port of Ashdod again, due to expectations of high sea waves, even though it had announced its re-establishment on June 7 of this year after… It collapsed in rough waves late last month.
The relief impact of the floating dock is barely noticeable in light of the great humanitarian tragedy that the Strip is experiencing. However, Palestinian circles say that the purpose of its establishment is to serve the hidden political interests of Israel and the United States, contrary to what is portrayed by Washington and Tel Aviv as a humanitarian step.
Since the beginning of the war, Israel has closed the Gaza Strip crossings and prevented the entry of goods into it before allowing very small and limited quantities to enter, while its war on Gaza continues despite two resolutions from the UN Security Council to stop it immediately, and orders from the International Court of Justice to end the invasion of Rafah, and take measures to prevent acts of violence. Genocide, and improving the dire humanitarian situation in the Strip.
