Ultra groups try to block the entry of aid into Gaza: “The enemy is killed, not fed”

Israel is the scene of demonstrations to demand that the sending of humanitarian aid to Gaza be blocked. They openly defend that leaving Gazans without food and water is a good measure of pressure to release the 136 hostages who remain in the Palestinian enclave, mainly in the hands of Hamas. Some relatives of those kidnapped have participated in the protest events. The last march took place this Thursday in the port of Ashdod, located about twenty kilometers north of the Strip. About 200 people cut off two access points to the port facilities and blocked the passage of trucks and cars for several hours. “You kill the enemy, you don't feed them,” exclaimed angrily Orit Rosenfelder, 22, who wore an Israeli flag as a cape and who did not doubt that in Gaza no one is innocent. “All the aid that comes through this port is intended to support our enemies so that they continue killing us,” he stressed.

The tone of other attendees was not far from Rosenfelder's. “We want our government to stop helping terrorists,” but “it does not have the courage necessary to stop the shipments,” argued Yeshava Kest, 23, while holding one of the banners and advancing with the group towards the arch that marks the main entrance to the port. Kest assured that Hamas controls all the aid that enters the Strip and defended the expulsion of the population so that they can be treated outside that territory.

Hundreds of thousands of people are trying to survive without the most basic things due to the war and the Israeli blockade in Gaza, where more than 27,000 Palestinians have already died since the war began on October 7. The international community is pressing to try to prevent Israel from continuing to use hunger as a weapon, but there are indicators that make it clear that this tactic of collective punishment is widely supported. When asked if we should stop sending aid until the hostages are released, 72% of those who responded affirmatively compared to 21% (7% did not know), according to a survey conducted this week by Israeli television channel 12.

“Helping terrorists. Give them fuel, water, food… so they continue killing our people, innocent civilians. So that they rape women. What is happening here is not happening anywhere in the world, not even in Afghanistan. “It's crazy,” says Yeshava Kest, who has traveled from Jerusalem to Ashdod to participate in the protest.

In a crisis of unprecedented dimensions, the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants live without food and water. They also do not have electricity or fuel for generators. Nearly two million have been displaced by the bombings, which have destroyed or damaged approximately 60% of buildings, and are left without a roof over their heads in the dead of winter beyond tents.

In recent days, demonstrations by Israeli far-right groups have taken place around the Kerem Shalom crossing, which marks the border between Israel and southern Gaza, and the Nitzana crossing, between Israel and Egypt. In some cases, the protests caused the trucks to have to reverse and return to Egyptian territory. But after some incidents and with the international community closely following the events, the army decided to declare the area a closed military zone, that is, access to civilians is prohibited. That is why this Thursday's demonstration took place in the port of Ashdod, where a discreet police presence did not prevent traffic cuts.

The young Orit Rosenfelder insisted again and again in her ultranationalist and hyperbolic speech: “There is no one innocent in Gaza. If you watch the news, you see that they have ammunition everywhere, in every school, in every house. Everything to kill us. If they want to kill us, the only thing left is to kill them. And, of course, bring back our hostages. The only way to achieve this is to keep them without food. Do you want food? Give us our hostages. They feed them a piece of pita bread a day while we are bringing them 7,500 tons of food every day.”

The Ashdod protesters held up banners and posters calling on Hamas to return the kidnapped people home. There are 136, including civilians and soldiers, according to the authorities, of which around thirty are dead. They also chanted slogans demanding that the Government not take its foot off the accelerator of the military operation in the face of the ceasefire that the three mediating countries (Qatar, Egypt and the United States) are trying to close with Israel and Hamas, which would allow freeing hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and a greater flow of humanitarian aid.

“We must not feed the enemy, especially if they kidnap our people,” defended Yosef Haim, 47 years old. “The first thing is that they free our people and abandon their weapons, then we can give them what they ask for,” commented this man, convinced that a ceasefire does not have to be agreed upon even to favor the release of the kidnapped people.

These marches defending the humanitarian suffocation of Gaza take place while the Government of Israel maintains a firm campaign of harassment and demolition against the United Nations agency in charge of caring for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The Government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu links this agency with Hamas, whose attack that left some 1,200 dead on October 7 was the trigger for the war. A dozen of UNRWA's 30,000 employees, the vast majority with refugee status, participated in these events, according to Israeli authorities. This UN organization is the main pillar of care for the 2 million inhabitants of the Strip. Several of the main donors have stopped providing funds and the agency, which serves people from Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, finds it difficult to survive beyond this month of February.

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