Aid agencies say mass starvation stalking Gaza, demand end to blockade

UPI

5 days ago

Palestinians wait their turn for a hot meal at a camp for displaced people in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 6 File Photo by Anas Deeb/UPI | License Photo
July 23 (UPI) -- Mass starvation is spreading across Gaza as a result of Israel's blockade on aid entering the Palestinian enclave, 111 international aid, human rights and religious groups said Wednesday in an appeal to the global community to act.
The agencies, including Save the Children, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Caritas and Amnesty International, said in a joint open letter that colleagues and those they served in Gaza were "wasting away" due to malnutrition.
"As the Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes," the letter reads.
The groups said doctors were reporting record rates of acute malnutrition, particularly in children and the elderly, and adults dropping in the streets from hunger and dehydration as the volume of aid distributions dwindled to just 28 trucks a day, on average, to feed 2 million people.
"Exactly two months since the Israeli government-controlled scheme, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, more than 100 organizations are sounding the alarm, urging governments to act: open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, U.N.-led mechanism; end the siege, and agree to a cease-fire now," they wrote.
Israel said there was plenty of food getting into Gaza and blamed the U.N. and other aid agencies for failing to get it to the people who needed it.
Sharing aerial footage on X that purported to show a staging post inside Gaza stocked with very significant volumes of aid, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the depot contained 950 trucks worth of aid "waiting for international organizations to pick up and distribute to Gazan civilians."
"This is after Israel facilitated the aid entry into Gaza," said Shoshani.
COGAT, the Israeli government agency tasked with implementing civilian policy in Gaza and the West Bank, boiled down the issue to what it called a "collection bottleneck."
"The collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, despite Israel's proactive efforts to expand the volume of aid trucks entering the area," it said in a social media post.
The aid agencies acknowledged the presence of many tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel, but said it was lying untouched because Israeli restrictions made it virtually impossible for them to access or deliver it.
They said the Israeli government's "restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death."
"The U.N.-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning," the aid groups said.
However, Israeli Army Radio quoted COGAT as saying Hamas was cynically exploiting a highly emotive issue to gain leverage in ongoing negotiations to end the conflict by "conducting a false campaign regarding the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip."
Israel upended the traditional U.N.-led system developed over decades that delivered aid to where people were in favour of a new mechanism run by a U.S. non-profit under which Palestinians must collect aid from a handful of distribution hubs in active military zones.
Jerusalem said the scheme is aimed at preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas and resold to fund its military operations against Israel.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said on its Facebook page that as of noon Tuesday, 1,026 people had been killed and 6,563 injured trying to access food at GHF sites in Gaza in the eight weeks since the scheme began operating May 27.