The Crunch: how desperate Palestinians are struggling to find food and aid in Gaza
More Palestinians died of starvation in the past week than in the preceding 21 months, prompting widespread condemnation of Israel's actions.
As a result, much of the media's focus has been on the desperate suffering of the Palestinians. So we are doing something slightly different in this newsletter: a spotlight on data-visualisation about how people in Gaza are being killed and injured while seeking aid.
There's also a collection of other things that caught our eye this fortnight towards the end of the newsletter.
The four aid distribution sites across Gaza run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are only open for a few minutes a day – the Saudi site was open for an average of 11 minutes in June. Our colleagues in the UK put together this visual explainer on 'how aid points in Gaza became death traps'.
This chart shows the time between aid sites opening and closing through June and July:
Palestinians in Gaza have to queue and walk kilometres – through evacuation zones that civilians have been told to leave – to reach aid sites. The piece also includes maps if, like us, you are having trouble getting your head around this geography.
2. Average daily calories in Gaza
Our colleague Mona Chalabi also posted this devastating graphic on Instagram comparing the average calories consumed by someone in Gaza in May, to the daily recommended amount:
We've often featured Mona's spectacular work, including this one on Gaza's population as 100 people, and the population density of bombed cities.
3. Aid sites and access routes
The Economist also covered the GHF aid sites ($), with a series of excellent maps and satellite images showing the long walks and the huge crowds forming at checkpoints.
Among other things, this really drives home the distances that families are forced to travel to get aid.
4. Huge crowds for aid convoy
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To give more context around the scale of the desperation for aid, the New York Times reports on a satellite image of huge crowds gathering around aid trucks taken in Gaza last week:
Not a lot is known about where these trucks were going or what they were carrying. The NYT has also published a map showing which countries have already recognised a Palestinian state.
5. Environmental devastation in Gaza
Environmental devastation is an under-reported aspect of the destruction in Gaza. Bloomberg analysis of satellite data has found nearly 350 sites where waste has been piling up since the conflict began.
This map shows Souk Feras, which was a market before the conflict began but now holds an estimated 200,000 metric tons of rubbish:
The Bloomberg team estimates that new garbage sites cover more than 1 sq kilometre, about 60% of the areas are close to tents, and 15% are near water, sanitation or other 'hygiene sites'. Read (and see) more here.
We published this One Big Chart on increasing student debt held by younger Australians
The Pudding launched an amazing project to make signs and other text in New York City streets searchable
The Australian Bureau of Statistics made a bar chart about all the other charts they've made this year
We couldn't stop playing with the Mac emulators in this story about Mac settings (we're counting this as data-vis as you can actually manipulate spreadsheets in some of the emulated computers)
Reuters have an illustrated explainer of the crash of Air India flight 171
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Reuters
15 hours ago
- Reuters
Terrible thirst hits Gaza with polluted aquifers and broken pipelines
GAZA/CAIRO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Weakened by hunger, many Gazans trek across a ruined landscape each day to haul all their drinking and washing water - a painful load that is still far below the levels needed to keep people healthy. Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups. Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhoea and hepatitis. Israeli pipelines that once supplied Gaza with much of its clean water are now dry. Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war. Although it resumed some supply later, pipelines were damaged and Gaza water officials say none has entered recently. COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not respond to a request for comment on whether Israel is supplying water. Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators - for which fuel is rarely available. Moaz Mukhaimar, aged 23 and a university student before the war, said he has to walk about a kilometre, queuing for two hours, to fetch water. He often goes three times a day, dragging it back to the family tent over bumpy ground on a small metal handcart. "How long will we have to stay like this?" he asked, pulling two larger canisters of very brackish water to use for cleaning and two smaller ones of cleaner water to drink. His mother, Umm Moaz, 53, said the water he collects is needed for the extended family of 20 people living in their small group of tents in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. "The children keep coming and going and it is hot. They keep wanting to drink. Who knows if tomorrow we will be able to fill up again," she said. Their struggle for water is replicated across the tiny, crowded territory where nearly everybody is living in temporary shelters or tents without sewage or hygiene facilities and not enough water to drink, cook and wash as disease spreads. The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 litres a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily consumption in Israel is around 247 litres a day according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Bushra Khalidi, humanitarian policy lead for aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 litres a day. Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were "ripping through Gaza", with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it provides adequate aid for the territory's 2.3 million inhabitants. "Water scarcity is definitely increasing very much each day and people are basically rationing between either they want to use water for drinking or they want to use a lot for hygiene," said Danish Malik, a global water and sanitation official for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Merely queuing for water and carrying it now accounts for hours each day for many Gazans, often involving jostling with others for a place in the queue. Scuffles have sometimes broken out, Gazans say. Collecting water is often the job of children as their parents seek out food or other necessities. "The children have lost their childhood and become carriers of plastic containers, running behind water vehicles or going far into remote areas to fill them for their families," said Munther Salem, water resources head at the Gaza Water and Environment Quality Authority. With water so hard to get, many people living near the beach wash in the sea. A new water pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates is planned, to serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza from a desalination plant in Egypt. But it could take several more weeks to be connected. Much more is needed, aid agencies say. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said the long-term deprivations were becoming deadly. "Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects." Oxfam's Khalidi said a ceasefire and unfettered access for aid agencies was needed to resolve the crisis. "Otherwise we will see people dying from the most preventable diseases in Gaza - which is already happening before our eyes."
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Retired Hampshire and Isle of Wight fire engines sent to Ukraine
Two retired fire engines have been sent to tackle blazes in and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) retired the vehicles from frontline service and replaced them with newer sold them back to manufacturer Angloco who gave them to Action Beyond Words, a humanitarian organisation, which delivered them to of the appliances has now been delivered to Mizhhiria in the west of the country and the other was sent to the city of Zmiiv in the north-east to tackle fires in the Kharkiv region, close to the country's border with Russia. HIWFRS fleet operations manager, Colin Carter said: "We are delighted to see our old vehicles recycled to help our firefighting colleagues out in Ukraine."These fire engines had served their purpose here in Hampshire and Isle of Wight, and had been replaced by more modern vehicles, so it is great to see that they are still of use and continue to help to save lives, thanks to the work of Angloco and Actions Beyond Words."He added that they sell all of their appliances when they reach the "end-of-life", which allows them to reinvest the funds back into the fire service. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Reuters
Israel says it will allow controlled entry of goods into Gaza via merchants
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Israel says it will allow gradual and controlled entry of goods to Gaza through local merchants, an Israeli military agency that coordinates aid said on Tuesday, as global monitors say famine is unfolding in the enclave, impacting the hostages Hamas holds. Israel's COGAT said a mechanism has been approved by the cabinet to expand the scope of humanitarian aid, allowing the entry of supplies to Gaza through the private sector. The agency said the approved goods include basic food products, baby food, fruits and vegetables, and hygiene supplies. "This aims to increase the volume of aid entering the Gaza Strip, while reducing reliance on aid collection by the U.N. and international organisations," it added. It was unclear how this aid operation would work given the widespread destruction in Gaza. Palestinian and U.N. officials say Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war. Images of starving Palestinians including children have alarmed the world in recent weeks, while a video released by Hamas on Sunday showing an emaciated captive drew sharp criticism from Western powers. Israel in response to a rising international uproar, announced last week steps to let more aid reach Gaza, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, approving air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. Hamas said it was prepared to coordinate with the Red Cross to deliver aid to hostages it holds in Gaza, if Israel permanently opens humanitarian corridors and halts airstrikes during the distribution of aid. Israel and the United States urged the U.N. in May to work through an organisation they back, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs a U.S. logistics firm run by a former CIA officer and armed U.S. veterans. The U.N. refused as it questioned GHF neutrality and accused the distribution model of militarising aid and forcing displacement. Palestinians were killed near GHF sites where limited aid was distributed, with the U.N. estimating that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food since May, most near the organisation's distribution sites. GHF denies that there have been deadly incidents at its sites, and says the deadliest have been near other aid convoys. The war in Gaza began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Hamas, thus far, has barred humanitarian organisations from having any kind of access to the hostages and families have little or no details of their conditions.
