The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen after more than two months of Israeli bombardment and forced displacement of people to the south of the enclave.
On Sunday, hungry and desperate Palestinians were seen jumping onto aid trucks to get food and other supplies in the Rafah area of Gaza, near the border with Egypt.
Dozens of Palestinians surrounded aid trucks after they passed through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing some to stop before boarding, taking down crates of food and water and taking them away or pass them to the crowd below.
Some trucks appeared to be guarded by masked people carrying sticks.
“The humanitarian situation has become very desperate, not only for the residents of the city of Rafah but also for the million displaced Palestinians here who are hungry, thirsty and traumatized as the war continues,” said Hani Mahmoud of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Rafah. .
Mahmoud said the amount of aid allowed inside the strip is not enough and has forced Palestinians into a “survival mode.”
“People are without anything – without homes, without access to food, without water and without medical supplies,” he said.
“So the scenes at the Rafah crossing are a natural reaction: when people are starving, when they are hungry, that’s what we will see happening. »
“Desperate for food”
The United Nations warned this week that Gaza residents are so “desperate to eat” that they are stopping aid trucks and immediately eating whatever they find.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA who recently visited the Gaza Strip, said the residents, despite their long and difficult history of suffering under Israeli siege, have “never, ever experienced” a hunger like this.
“I saw with my own eyes that the people of Rafah began to decide to help themselves directly from the truck out of total desperation and to eat on the spot what they took out of the truck,” Lazzarini said Thursday.
The same day, Carl Skau, deputy director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), confirmed that almost half of Gaza’s residents are starving, with no idea where their next meal will come from.
The WFP said half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are starving as the Israeli army’s assault on the southern part of the enclave expands and people are cut off from supplies.
Drone footage taken Sunday in southern Gaza showed Gaza emergency relief volunteers preparing a giant stew.
Aid deliveries entering Gaza via Rafah, the only entry point on the Egyptian border, are only a fraction of pre-conflict levels, despite increasing needs.
Aid passing through the border crossing has been slow to meet the needs of the Gaza Strip population due to delays in truck inspections.
Rafah is home to more than 12,000 people per square kilometer, housing around 85 percent of those displaced across Gaza since the attacks began on October 7.
That day, Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory, killing some 1,140 people and taking another 240 prisoners.
Israeli bombardments have since killed 18,787 people and injured 50,897 others, while thousands are believed to be buried under rubble.
Although thousands of people have taken refuge at the crossing, Rafah continues to be the target of Israeli airstrikes.
A massive explosion took place overnight in the Geneina neighborhood of Rafah, leaving two people dead and residential houses targeted and destroyed, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Mahmoud said.
“A large number of injured people were transported here to the Kuwaiti hospital,” he said. “We are talking about more than 50 people injured.”
