THE UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza have dwindled further, with the situation in the north of the territory described as ‘catastrophic’.
Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved, Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA emergencies officer, said ‘aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months.’
Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video link from Gaza, Wateridge said that ‘the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… that is for 2.2 million people.’
‘Children are dying. People are dying every day,’ she said, stressing that ‘people here need everything’.
The situation is at its worst in northern Gaza, where no food was permitted to enter the area for an entire month, Wateridge said, adding that UN requests to access the area have been repeatedly denied.
Wateridge said that testimonies from the north painted ‘an endlessly horrific’ picture that was becoming ‘more critical’ by the hour.
International humanitarian groups on Tuesday said that Israel had failed to meet a series of US demands for humanitarian assistance access aiming at improving aid flow into Gaza.
On October 13, the US secretaries of state and defence issued a letter demanding that Israel make concrete progress within 30 days on measures to reverse the spiralling humanitarian situation.
‘Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support for the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,’ the group of eight organisations, including OXFAM, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a 19-page report.
‘That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago,’ they lamented.
They said: ‘People are being starved in Gaza: Israeli military operations have denied them critical food aid and basic necessities, which has, in turn, caused conditions approaching famine for 800,000 Palestinian civilians across Gaza.’
They cited the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s recent assessment, which stated that: ‘the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence.
‘Israel should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure the adequate provision of food, medical, and other supplies to reach people in need,’ they urged.
Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer in Gaza, briefed reporters in Geneva from central Gaza, saying the volume of aid currently entering the besieged enclave is ‘the lowest in months’, while access to the north is becoming almost ‘impossible’, as no UNRWA personnel have been able to access it in over a month.
‘I felt hungry, so I got up and took a piece of plain bread, along with a cup of tea without sugar,’ said a young man, Yusuf Thabet, describing the miserable conditions in the southern regions of Gaza, where famine has become a harsh reality.
Thabet, a 30-year-old father of four, gestured toward his kitchen, confirming to a reporter that there is nothing to eat except for bread that has been infested with ‘worms’ and ‘weevils’. He stated: ‘Even the infested and spoiled flour is extremely expensive.’
For the past few weeks, famine has taken its toll on the bodies of Gazans in the south, just as it has in the north, becoming a focal point of the war. It has turned into a topic of media and political discussion, and the scene has grown darker and more despairing.
This starvation coincides with a decision made by the Israeli Foreign Minister to cancel the operational agreement with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has been in effect since 1967.
Workers in the UK must now intervene and insist that the TUC call an Emergency Congress to take action to support the Palestinian masses, and recognise the state of Palestine. The TUC must call a general strike in support of Palestine and demand that the world’s trade unions take action to arm the Palestinians and establish and recognise the state of Palestine without delay!
