Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Gaza- Fears continue to haunt citizen Jalal Arafat and his family, as a result of the Israeli occupation forces preventing the entry of food aid into the northern Gaza Strip, especially after he lost his home and everything he owned due to the ongoing incursion into the Zaytoun neighborhood, and he no longer has any source of income other than aid.
Arafat says that he is afraid of what is coming, and of the consequences of the aggression, “a war of extermination, starvation, and ethnic cleansing, which has nothing to do with human value, respect, or humanity. The Israeli occupation has crossed all red lines, and we have not witnessed that any people have been starved except in the Gaza Strip.” Gaza.
With the intensification of the siege on Gaza City and its north, which has continued since the beginning of last May, Arafat confirms that meat, fruits and eggs have not entered the northern Gaza Strip, even though they are basic and indispensable components, indicating that the citizen has been financially exhausted in light of the lack of income, “The occupation is concerned with the policy of starvation in order to forcibly displace the land of its inhabitants.”
Arafat explained that the Israeli occupation forces’ continued prevention of the entry of aid and basic goods has caused a rise in alternative local goods, and their prices have become many times what they were before. He adds that it is difficult for a citizen in the Gaza Strip to find a safe haven, “and previous experiences were the greatest evidence, as the citizen is displaced to an area He thought it was safer, and he was bombed there, and this is a systematic policy of the occupation in order to empty the land of its inhabitants,” he said.
Collective suffering
For his part, citizen Ramzi Shabir says that the matter has gone beyond fear and terror of what is coming. “There is no longer any aid being distributed to citizens in Gaza City and its north, and those who have supplies for a week or 10 days have run out. We are now eating only dukkah and thyme.”
Shabir added, “I was due to receive the UNRWA coupon for September on October 6, but it was postponed indefinitely, due to the depletion of aid and the lack of an alternative.”
He confirms that the residents of the northern Gaza Strip are afraid of what is coming to be worse, especially since they had lived through a period of flour shortage before, and at that time the price of a bag reached about a thousand dollars, and they resorted to eating animal feed, and they even shared a loaf of bread at that time.
Shabir, a father of five children, added, “I have a baby boy who was born a month ago, and I provide him with milk with difficulty, as he has run out of the distribution points that used to provide it, and every day the price increases insanely in the markets.” He adds, “We all suffer from malnutrition, when I gave birth.” My wife had a caesarean section, and due to lack of eating, the wound site became infected and did not heal easily, in addition to the fact that she is breastfeeding, and all this affects her and my child.”
Below the minimum
An official source in one of the agencies supervising the distribution of aid revealed to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the occupation authorities have prevented the entry of aid into the North Gaza Governorate for 16 days, which portends a real famine.
The source – who preferred to remain anonymous – spoke about the nature of the movement of aid trucks to the northern Gaza Valley (Gaza Governorate and the northern Gaza Strip), and said, “On the 16th of this month, 14 aid trucks arrived through the Zikim crossing to Gaza City, including 46% of them.” Food parcels, 29% health parcels, 21% flour, and 4% yeast.
He added, “The next day, 28 trucks arrived, containing 30% flour, 29% food packages, 21% health packages, and 20% food supplements. The next day, 28 trucks arrived, containing 68% flour, and 32% health packages.”
The same source confirms that the aid arrived in Gaza City without the areas in the northern Gaza Strip, which are subject to a strict siege and a systematic starvation policy, “noting that the aid that entered Gaza City does not meet the minimum needs of the citizens,” as he described it.
Deprivation policy
Economic analyst Ahmed Abu Qamar confirms that aid enters the city of Gaza and not the northern areas. “Since the current invasion began, no trucks have entered northern Gaza for more than 3 weeks, and this demonstrates the malicious plan to besiege northern Gaza, within the generals’ planned plan, until… If it had not been announced.
He added that the trucks that entered Gaza City focused on one type, which is flour, with a few canned goods, without diversifying the items that citizens need for their daily use, such as food and health goods, blankets, and blankets.
Recalling that before the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip, 350 trucks were entering the average daily through the Kerem Shalom crossing, except for Friday and Saturday, but currently what is entering southern and northern Gaza does not exceed 30 trucks, i.e. 10% at best, and of different types. Certain needs do not meet.
Abu Qamar points out that the Israeli occupation forces, “as a matter of propaganda,” according to him, resorted to the policy of dumping in bringing one type of flour into northern Gaza, and prevented the entry of the rest of the types, explaining that the policy of deprivation is systematically led by the occupation, to disturb the lives of citizens and increase suffering, which is Another war besides the war of genocide, forced displacement, murder and destruction.