With hunger raging in Gaza after five months of a devastating Israeli military campaign and with catastrophic levels of malnutrition expected to skyrocket in the coming months, Israel's limits on humanitarian aid access, crucial to containing the situation, return. to be under the spotlight. In recent weeks, despite a slight increase in the flow of supplies, the Strip continues to receive less than half the amount of food it needs for its minimum needs. Almost the entire population of Gaza faces a crisis of food insecurity, according to a report published on Monday by the reference entity on the matter, made up of UN agencies and humanitarian groups.
More than 870,000 people are in emergency status and more than 670,000 in a catastrophic situation, a threshold under which 1.1 million Gazans, nearly half, are at risk of falling until July, according to the most probable scenario foreseen by the report of the Integrated Classification of the Phases of Food Safety (known as IPC).
The crisis is especially severe among children, despite the fact that many adults are reducing their intake to give them food. There are cases like that of Fadi al Zant, a six-year-old boy who suffers from cystic fibrosis and, before the war, took medication that his family can no longer find and maintained a balanced diet that is impossible today, as he told the Reuters agency. his mother, Shimaa al Zant. “His condition worsens. He is getting weaker and weaker. He is losing the ability to do things,” she added. The minor, with his ribs visible, sunken eyes and weak legs, remains admitted to a bed in the Kamal Adwan hospital, in northern Gaza.
The level of acute malnutrition among the youngest children in February almost doubled compared to January, and 31% of children under two years of age in the north and 10% in Rafah, in the south and where most humanitarian aid arrives, already suffer from it. according to Unicef. Local health authorities, for their part, have reported in recent weeks the death of more than 20 children due to malnutrition and dehydration, the vast majority in hospitals in the north, from which more and more images of hungry minors are emerging.
The IPC and UNICEF point out that, in addition to hostilities, the rapid increase in food insecurity in Gaza is due to extremely limited access to humanitarian aid. Also that famine can only be contained with a ceasefire and the unhindered intervention of humanitarian agencies. Since the start of the Israeli military offensive last October, essential supplies have arrived in dribs and drabs. They have not been able to increase significantly because they continue to clash with a restricted, slow and confusing process imposed by Israel, which includes bureaucratic obstacles, inspections and limits on entry points.
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“We do not believe there is starvation in Gaza. “It's not that there aren't difficulties in some areas, but we are doing everything we can to provide large amounts of aid,” he told the newspaper on Tuesday. The Times of Israel a spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defense body in charge of coordinating civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, which assures that it does not limit the entry of aid.
Israeli Government spokesperson Eylon Levy pointed out on Monday on the social network However, the UN World Food Program estimates that at least 300 trucks of food are needed every day to meet the basic needs of the population. During the first half of March, an average of 159 trucks a day have entered, of which only 111 transport only food and just another 10 a mixed load. It is 40% of the minimum amount required, according to UN data. Before the Israeli offensive, an average of 500 trucks entered every working day, including fuel trucks.
Humanitarian supplies access the Strip almost exclusively through two border crossings located in the south, mainly Kerem Shalom, with Israel, and to a lesser extent, Rafah, with Egypt. For aid to reach northern Gaza, daily approvals are needed from Israeli authorities, which often translate into long waits at a checkpoint in the middle of the Strip, where convoys – which often do not receive the go-ahead – are exposed. to looting. The World Food Program has only managed to send nine convoys north so far this year.
Entry is not the only challenge. Also the distribution. COGAT spokesperson, Shimon Freedman, emphasizes to this newspaper that the protection of convoys with humanitarian aid is the responsibility of the agency that organizes it and the army does not guarantee it. The Hamas government police try to preserve control of the distribution, converted by the invasion into a chaotic exercise in which hungry crowds or mafias seeking to resell aid on the black market raid the trucks. But, in general, he avoids going out into the open to accompany the convoys because he exposes them to bombing by the Israeli army. “The Hamas police are Hamas,” summarizes Freedman. Precisely, this Tuesday, an Israeli aerial bombardment killed Abu al Nur al Bayumi, the police chief of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, along with four other people who were in the same vehicle.
In this context, Israel has put agencies in contact with “particular contractors” to protect the convoys, explains the COGAT spokesperson. Last week, a Hamas-linked website warned Gazans not to cooperate with Israel in protecting convoys, and Arabic-language media reported that the Islamist militia killed the leader of a powerful family clan with which it has clashed. in the past, the Dogmush. Israel's plan for the day after the war is to convince family clans to manage the day after the Strip. Foreign Minister Israel Katz assured this Tuesday in a television interview that the plan will move forward as the invasion progresses. “The more weakened Hamas is, the more alternatives will emerge,” he declared.
Other clans, civil society groups and Palestinian armed factions have begun to provide security for the convoys, according to official Palestinian and Hamas sources cited by the Reuters agency. “Israel's plan to find clans willing to collaborate with its pilot projects to create an alternative to Hamas has not been successful, but it has also shown that the Palestinian resistance factions are the only ones who can take the reins, from one or the other way,” said one of the official sources.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Tuesday that the extent of Israel's restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza and the conduct of hostilities may amount to the use of starvation as a weapon of war. . That would constitute a war crime. International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has previously warned that preventing their delivery could amount to a crime and has stressed that Israel must ensure that Gazans receive food, water and medical supplies. Likewise, the UN International Court of Justice, which is considering South Africa's lawsuit against Israel for alleged genocide, urged the country in January to allow an adequate flow of aid.
Given the alarm generated by the incipient famine in Gaza, the United States and the European Union, together with several countries in the region, have promoted in recent weeks alternatives to provide aid to the Strip by air and by sea. The measures have been criticized for their great limitations with respect to the magnitude of the crisis and for diverting the focus from Israel's responsibilities. Military planes carrying supplies can carry about 10 times less than a single truck, and the first shipment through the maritime corridor with Cyprus delivered 200 tons of food, equivalent to between 10 and 15 trucks, according to UN estimates. Delivering aid by air and sea also poses significant logistical and distribution challenges, and is much more expensive. At the end of February, the spokesman for the UN Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, noted that in Egypt there are 1,000 trucks with 15,000 tons of food that are still awaiting Israeli approval to enter Gaza.
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