Fresh fighting and worsening insecurity in northern Gaza have derailed a major humanitarian effort to avert starvation in parts of the devastated region, with aid officials worried about food supplies running dry. He said he was experiencing an “unbelievable level of hopelessness” during the crisis.
A United Nations attempt to deliver 10 food aid convoys to northern Gaza over seven days was called off earlier this week after crowds ransacked trucks, beat drivers and reported gunfire amid chaotic scenes. It was done.
Relief efforts have been further complicated by reports of new clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in northern Gaza, raising concerns that fighting could continue for months across Gaza without a ceasefire. There is.
The looting was the latest in a series of such attacks that began about a month ago. Although some cases involve organized armed gangs, most appear to be spontaneous.
Jonathan Fowler, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Palestine, said: “In most cases, when food is taken directly from convoys, it is out of sheer desperation and people may even eat it on the spot.” he said. Refugees (UNRWA).
Aid agencies announced last month that “pockets of hunger” were likely to develop in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza live in the ruins of their former homes with little functioning infrastructure.
“We have been forced to make the impossible choice of suspending aid distribution in northern Gaza. There are incredible levels of desperation against a backdrop of immense humanitarian needs. Hunger needs to happen. No. But even if things don’t change, it will.” Cindy McCain said, About X, Executive Director of WFP.
Heavy fighting continued in Gaza on Wednesday, a day after a U.S. veto blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The US government argued that the resolution would jeopardize hostage release efforts.
Many people in this region have very limited supplies of salt, fresh vegetables, oil, and fruit, and subsist on flatbreads cooked over fire.
“We can’t take this anymore,” said Gaza City resident Ahmad. Entire blocks in Gaza City have been reduced to rubble, with craters forming in the streets. “We have no flour and we don’t even know where to go in this cold weather. We demand a ceasefire. We want to live.”
More Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, killing 103 people, bringing the overall death toll to 29,313, according to the Hamas-controlled area’s Health Ministry.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah said it had received 44 bodies after the attack in central Gaza. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies arriving in ambulances and private cars.
Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said two people were killed when a shelter housing its staff was attacked during an Israeli operation in an area where Palestinians had been told to evacuate.
Israel says it is taking precautions to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hamas of using civilians as “human shields.” The Islamic extremist group denies the charges.
The war, now in its fifth month, began on October 7 last year when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
As Israeli forces have steadily expanded their ground operations south over the past four months, the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt and home to some 280,000 people before the conflict, has become the last refuge for more than half of its people. It became a place. Of the population of the strip.
Aid groups say a ground attack could turn Rafah, filled with crowded evacuation centers and makeshift tents, into a graveyard, and the U.S. must first put vast numbers of displaced people at risk. They argue that it is necessary to stay away from it.
Abdel Rahman Mohamed Jumaa said he lost his family in the airstrike in the city.
“I found my wife collapsed on the street,” he told AFP. “Then I saw a man holding a girl and she ran towards him. I picked her up and realized she was really my daughter.
The World Health Organization said earlier this week that seven patients at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis had died after several days of power outages caused by Israeli military raids on the premises.
A Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson on Wednesday described “intolerable” conditions at Nasser Hospital, saying they posed “a serious risk to the lives of medical staff and patients.” He described a lack of oxygen and basic supplies, piles of medical waste and flooding caused by sewage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war will continue until Israeli forces destroy Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a military drone expert on Tuesday and said that while Israel wants to free the remaining hostages, estimated at 130, “we are not prepared to pay any price, certainly not the delusions that Hamas is demanding of us.” “It’s not a real price. What does that mean?” Defeat of the State of Israel. Approximately 30 of the hostages are believed to have died.
The Israel Defense Forces announced another soldier death overnight, bringing the number of soldiers officially recorded to have died in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive to 237.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the crisis have made limited progress.
Qatar and Egypt have proposed a plan to release the hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting and the release of Palestinian prisoners, but Israel and Hamas have so far failed to reach an agreement.
A ceasefire would also allow for more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The United Nations called on the IDF, which is responsible for ensuring the safe passage of aid convoys through its territory, to support efforts to distribute aid.
“The piling up of aid at the crossroads is proof that this enabling environment does not exist amidst enormous need,” said Eri Kaneko, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
“The United Nations and humanitarian partners are unable to regularly receive supplies from crossing points due to security concerns and the breakdown of law and order,” she said.
Aid officials said 77 missions were planned to deliver aid to the northern Gaza Strip between January 1 and February 15. Of these, the UN said, “12 were facilitated by Israeli authorities, three were partially facilitated, 14 were obstructed, 39 were denied access and nine were postponed.”
Israel, which inspects all trucks entering Gaza from both crossings, blames the U.N. for the drop in deliveries and says it is ready to accelerate aid shipments.
“The bottleneck is not on the Israeli side,” Col. Moshe Tetro, Israel’s head of coordination and communications in Gaza, told a news conference.
Recent United Nations statistics show that aid supplies reaching Gaza have plummeted. Before the conflict, 500 trucks were bringing supplies into Gaza every day, and during the heavy fighting in January, about 200 aid trucks passed through most days. Since February 9, the average number of trucks per day has dropped to just 57. Seven of the 12 days he had less than 20 trucks passing by, and on February 17th he had just 4 trucks passing by.
The war has sparked clashes in other parts of the Middle East, involving Iranian-backed militant groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Israel exchanges cross-border fire almost daily with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and U.S. and British forces are attacking Yemen’s Houthi rebels to prevent them from attacking ships in the Red Sea.
In Syria, state television reported that an Israeli missile strike had killed at least two people in Damascus. Israel declined to comment.
Violence has also escalated in the occupied West Bank, with Israeli troops saying they killed three Palestinian militants in an overnight raid in the northern city of Jenin.
