Two days after the limited entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, Palestinian voices are rising to emphasise the ineffectiveness of the aid provided.
They assert that it does not meet the needs of the people who are living in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Instead, it represents a blatant attempt to deceive the world and humanise Israel’s image before the international community and global public opinion.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has warned that Israel’ is attempting to mislead the world by announcing the resumption of humanitarian aid entry into the Gaza Strip after two and a half months of complete closure of the crossings, which banned the entry of all forms of relief materials.
After global pressure, Israel allowed a few dozen trucks carrying food and medicine to enter Gaza through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.
These amounts fall far short of meeting even the minimal needs of a small part of the population as the besieged Strip needs at least 600 trucks of humanitarian aid and supplies daily to cover its basic needs, according to UN agencies.
Despite the Israeli claims of allowing aid trucks into the Strip, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Humanitarian organisations have managed to bring in only about 90 trucks into Gaza in recent days.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of tons of aid, including food, medicine, and medical supplies, remain stuck on the other side of the crossings as Israel obstructs the delivery of aid into Gaza warehouses.
Rami Abdu, head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, highlighted that the World Food Programme (WFP) has failed to distribute flour and bread in Gaza, which led to chaotic situations and theft of aid.
‘UNRWA (United Nations relief agency) has an established distribution network and accurate databases,’ Abdu pointed out, calling for immediate transfer of the distribution task to UNRWA to ensure dignity, efficiency, and an end to hunger and disorder.
Abdu warned that Israeli aircraft provide cover for thieves who intercept aid trucks, and that security teams are bombed whenever they try to protect the trucks.
Over the past couple of days, Israeli airstrikes killed six members of security and aid protection teams who were working to prevent thefts and maintain order in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza.
Economic researcher Ahmed Abu Qamar stated that what’s happening is a shift from mere starvation to the management of starvation in Gaza.
He stressed that everyone involved in the current bread distribution system is participating, whether intentionally or not, in engineering the starvation of citizens.
For his part, Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network, called on the WFP (World Food Programme) to directly distribute flour to families across Gaza, especially after the horrific scenes witnessed recently.
Al-Shawa stressed the importance of distributing shares of flour according to family size to avoid further incidents.
As part of the temporary distribution plan, limited quantities of flour were delivered to a small number of bakeries in central and southern Gaza – but excluding the northern areas from the distribution.
Abdul Nasser Al-Ajrami, head of the Bakers Association, announced the bakeries’ refusal to operate under the new imposed mechanism, as it does not meet the needs of the people.
He called on all international organisations and institutions to urgently intervene with the Israeli side to allow sufficient quantities of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and diesel to enter to provide bread for all citizens.
He expressed readiness to start working immediately once adequate supplies are provided, demanding the distribution of enough flour for the citizens until bakeries resume operations.
According to Israeli announcements, the small amount of aid that entered would be followed by the implementation of a new distribution mechanism starting this week. Under Israeli supervision, aid will be distributed through private companies in specific areas, primarily Rafah.
Meanwhile, the PCHR condemned this is as a deliberate attempt by Israel to manage starvation and use humanitarian aid as a tool to pressure Palestinians and push them toward these areas, thus turning northern and central Gaza into depopulated zones.
The centre warned that Israel is exploiting the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians to serve its military and political goals, mainly to cover up the genocide it is committing against more than two million Palestinians in Gaza.
It labelled the Israeli Prime Minister’s statement that ‘operational needs aim to expand fighting in Gaza’ as a clear admission of using food and medicine as weapons of war, adding that it constitutes part of the crime of systematic starvation against the Palestinian population.
Meanwhile, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has condemned Israel’s airstrike on the home of Palestinian doctors Alaa and Hamdi Al-Najjar last Friday, which killed nine of their ten children.
Alaa Al-Najjar, a paediatrician at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, was on duty treating young patients when she learned nine of her children – aged two to 16 – had been killed in an Israeli bombardment of their Khan Yunis home.
Rescue teams later retrieved the children’s bodies, eight of which were mutilated beyond recognition by the blast.
Commenting on a video published by Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician who volunteers in Palestine, Albanese said the attack represented a ‘distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide’.
The attack reduced the family’s residence to rubble and ignited fires across the surrounding area.
Alaa’s husband and one surviving child were injured in the attack.
Israeli military forces systematically target civilian families, medical facilities, and healthcare personnel as part of its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, says Israel has killed 12 health workers in the past week, many of them in targeted attacks on their homes.
He said Israel is ‘systematically’ targeting medical staff’and facilities, especially in the northern areas of Gaza, to destroy the health care system there and push people further south.
His remarks come days after Israel’s finance minister declared that the regime is now ‘finally’ targeting what he called the ‘civilian structure of Hamas’.
Israel launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza on October 7th, 2023. It has killed at least 53,800 Palestinians there so far, according to the health ministry of Gaza.
- Thousands of protesters marched throughout Europe over the weekend, demanding their governments break the silence on Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and urging immediate international intervention and sanctions against the regime.
In Berlin, thousands of people assembled at Oranienplatz on Saturday to protest Israel’s intensified airstrikes and ground invasion of Gaza.
The demonstrators chanted slogans like ‘Freedom for Palestine,’ ‘Germany finances, Israel bombs,’ ‘Israel is a terrorist state,’ and ‘Stop the genocide.’
German protesters asserted that no person or state has the right to deny an entire people their rights, displace them, or commit acts of violence against them. Some German protesters of Jewish descent also joined the rally.
In Paris, advocates of the Palestinian cause congregated at Bourse Square, demanding embargos on Israel and unhindered access for humanitarian aid convoys into Gaza.
Parisian protesters highlighted the devastating famine gripping Gaza due to the Israeli-imposed blockade by banging empty pots and pans while chanting slogans such as ‘Israel is a murderer, Macron is an accomplice’ and ‘There is genocide in Gaza; we will not remain silent.’
In Stockholm, thousands gathered at Odenplan Square in response to calls from various civil society organisations that urged the Swedish government to take action against Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza.
Protesters marched to Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and chanted ‘Freedom for Palestine’ and ‘No to Netanyahu’s Plan.’
Greeks marched to the Israeli Embassy in Athens to protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, urging an immediate ceasefire, amid growing calls for isolating Israel in Europe.
- According to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Gaza is suffering Phase 5 Famine, and nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition.
IPC defines Phase 5 Famine as when at least one in five households experience an extreme lack of food and faces starvation, resulting in destitution, extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition, and death.
