Friday’s veto by the United States in the UN Security Council of a possible ceasefire in Gaza constitutes the latest blow to an extreme situation that is deteriorating by the minute. The humanitarian crisis that NGOs, almost without capacity due to the Israeli blockade, are trying to confront, is deepening. The landscape is hellish: hundreds of Gazans queuing at a latrine, aid trucks and warehouses robbed, children amputated without anesthesia, tens of thousands of people abandoned. This is the scenario for 1.8 million displaced people to the south, converted into an immense mousetrap of war. Local authorities, in the hands of the Palestinian Hamas militia, now put the death toll at 17,500.
In the southern area, the population lives increasingly imprisoned in fewer square kilometers, while the Israeli army intensifies its attacks and continues to close the door to the entry of aid. “Those who survive the bombings face the imminent risk of dying from hunger or disease,” warns Alexandra Saieh, from the NGO Save The Children. Despite everything, the Israeli army continues its policy of forcibly displacing civilians and this Saturday ordered them to leave six areas of the city of Khan Younis, the southern stronghold of Hamas and the scene of intense fighting. The health authorities showed images that they claim belong to the Nasser hospital in which numerous victims of all ages are seen receiving assistance among pools of blood on the floor.
Washington has stopped with its veto at the UN the claims and aspirations of countries like Spain, in favor of a ceasefire and respect for international humanitarian law. The United States aligns itself with the harshest path defended by Israel, which confronts Hamas with its military steamroller without taking into account the hundreds of thousands of civilians outside the conflict. Of the current 15 members of the Security Council, 13 supported the resolution seeking a ceasefire. The United Kingdom abstained. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed the US veto “for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and the elderly.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed what he considers the “correct stance” because “it is impossible, on the one hand, to support the elimination of Hamas and, on the other, to call for an end to the war.” That is why “Israel will continue its just war,” he continued. Criticism of the blocking of the ceasefire at the UN is multiplying throughout the world.
In addition, important human rights organizations harshly criticized Washington’s decision. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) affirmed that President Joe Biden’s Administration provides “diplomatic cover for the atrocities in Gaza.” “The United States has shown callous disregard for the suffering of the civilian population in the face of the incredible death toll, widespread destruction and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, reacted in a statement. “The United States runs the risk of being complicit in war crimes” with its arms and diplomatic coverage of Israel’s “atrocities,” commented Louis Charbonneau, head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) at the UN.
There is a very low level of ambition from the UN to national governments. And, meanwhile, people continue to suffer, says Jesús Núñez Villaverde, co-director of the Institute for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action (IECAH), to reflect the failure of the international community. He believes that Israel seeks a “rapid and brutal” operation, although its army “certainly does not lack the technology and means to be able to discriminate if they wanted” between civilians and combatants.
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There are relevant NGOs in the humanitarian field with decades of experience in conflicts and with teams deployed in the Strip. On Thursday, in a telematic appearance, they denounced the use of hunger, access to healthcare and forced displacement as “weapons of war” by the of the occupation troops in Gaza. They demand not only a ceasefire, but that an “independent” international organization like the United Nations take the reins of the entry of aid to the Palestinian enclave, where only a meager percentage of what is necessary reaches due to the Israeli blockade.
In some areas, 9 out of 10 people have spent an entire day and night without anything to eat, according to data from the World Food Program (WFP). The situation has not stopped worsening since, after the one-week truce ended on December 1, the military ground operation has spread throughout the center and south of the Strip, the scene these days of intense fighting with militiamen from the armed factions. Palestinians. This does not prevent the violence between both parties from continuing to be intense in areas of the north, such as the Jabalia refugee camp or the Shujayia neighborhood, in Gaza City, from where the vast majority of the population has escaped.
The reality is that civilians cannot flee much further south, because they encounter the border with Egypt. In Rafah, the southernmost town, more and more people are improvising huts and tents with plastic, tarps or blankets to live. The result is that hundreds of thousands of inhabitants are increasingly concentrating in the south of the territory in an “alarming” manner, when before the conflict the enclave was one of the most densely populated places on the planet, according to Shaina Low, from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
The lack of help leads to desperate situations such as the mass assault of trucks or warehouses in search of food. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) experienced a case on Tuesday, but “unfortunately, it was not food. They were just medicines,” says the president of that organization, Isabelle Defourni, to illustrate the level of need. Also this week, the NRC lost contact with the office team that they had to improvise in Rafah “because the internet cable had been cut to be used for a tent,” explains Low.
The plotted map that Israel presented last week to supposedly warn residents of where it was going to attack has turned out to be a fiasco, despite the order to evacuate those six areas of Khan Younis this Saturday. Humanitarian organizations affirm that it has not prevented deaths and has only multiplied the number of internally displaced people in a territory in which 60% of the buildings are destroyed or damaged.
“It is a cruel system,” highlights Defourni, from MSF, who regrets that they do not even allow the wounded to be taken to Egypt. Faced with this, the supposed safe zones to which the army refers are a “smokescreen,” understands Saieh, from Save The Children. For Bushra Khalidi, from the NGO Oxfam, it is nothing more than a “mirage” because these are places that, in reality, “do not offer protection, are not supplied and are inaccessible.”
They refer to tracts of land such as Al Mawasi, a desert area in southwestern Gaza, where tens of thousands of people are being forcibly sent. “There are no services there. There are no schools. There are no health centers. There is nothing,” confirms Danila Zizi, from Handicap International. These representatives spoke at an NGO meeting last Thursday, open to journalists, in which MSF, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Refugees International, Save The Children, Doctors of the World, Action Against Hunger (ACH) and Handicap International participated.
“People break into houses looking for bathrooms. The population is very angry, depressed and desperate about what they are experiencing. “He is afraid,” summarizes Chiara Saccardi (ACH), who warns of the lack of such basic products as diapers, wipes and detergent. “Water is sold in the market at a high price. “That represents an expense of about 20 dollars (18.5 euros) a day for a family,” she adds. The lack of hygiene and the consumption of poor water have caused some 80,000 patients with diarrhea, an especially dangerous disease at an early age due to the ease of children becoming dehydrated. Minors represent approximately half of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
There are Israeli officials who refer to the Gazans as “human animals” and “from then on, there is no reason to give them food, drink, or anything like that,” denounces Núñez Villaverde. For this security analyst, “we are facing a theatrical farce in which the United States pretends to be putting pressure on, but in reality it is providing diplomatic and military cover so that Israel can achieve its objectives at the pace and in the manner it deems appropriate.” But he sees a problem that will come to light in the coming weeks or months and that is that Israel “will never eliminate Hamas because it is militarily impossible.”
Retired Israeli general Giora Eiland defends his country’s use of blocking humanitarian aid to achieve its objectives. He believes that it is necessary to prevent the arrival of “any supplies to Gaza, especially fuel” because that ends up benefiting Hamas. He does not understand that Israel continues to allow the entry of some trucks with humanitarian aid without obtaining the release of more hostages in exchange. This Friday the death of one of them was announced after a failed rescue attempt by troops deployed in the Strip. There are still 138 kidnapped since October 7, of whom 16 have died. That day Hamas opened the war, murdering some 1,200 people, according to Israel, in the largest attack recorded in the country’s 75-year history.
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