Middle East correspondent
BbcA hot meal is difficult to find in the Gaza Strip, but a lunch for families in the South of South is about to be delivered by the donkey and the cart.
Today’s dish is Koshari – made of lenses, rice and a spicy tomato sauce – in a set of huge cooking pots in one of the two community kitchens led by American Near East Refugee Aid (Arera), a humanitarian organization based in the United States.
“People are counting on our meals; they have no source of income to buy what remains on the local markets and many foods are not available,” explains Sami Matar, who heads the Area team.
“In the past, we used to cook rice with meat – with proteins. Now because of the closure, there is no type of meat, no fresh vegetables.”
Two months after Israel cut all the supplies of entry into Gaza, Mr. Matar warns that the remaining dozen food kitchens should close in a few days.
“The next few days will be essential. We expect us to have two weeks of supply, perhaps less.”
On March 2, Israel closed all level crossings in Gaza – preventing all goods, including food, fuel and medication to enter – and resumed its military offensive two weeks later, ending a two -month -old ceasefire with Hamas. He said these stages were to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages he still holds.
Recently, the United Nations World Food Program and UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, said they used all their food aid stocks.
There is increasing international pressure on Israel to raise its blockade, with warnings that mass famine could be imminent and that intentionally hungry civilians are a war crime.
“Help, and the civil lives he saves, should never be a bargaining currency,” warned UN humanitarian leader Tom Fletcher, warned Thursday.
“The locking of civilian aid of civilians. He leaves them without basic medical support. He strips them of dignity and hope. This inflicts cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid.”
Hundreds of thousands of gasians depend on a few tens of kitchens remaining for subsistence. The only one led by Aera to Khan Younis has some 6,000 people a day.
But if Israel does not raise his blockade, by far the longest he has ever imposed on Gaza, the kitchens – a last life buoy for so many people – will soon have nothing to distribute. Foods stored during the ceasefire at the start of this year, almost exhausted.
“We received more than 100 trucks each week – trucks of food plots and hygiene kits. Now we have nothing,” said Matar, showing a local BBC journalist around the vast empty Aera warehouse.
“We find it difficult to provide food such as rice, lentils, pasta, cooking oil and salt, for our community kitchens. It is very expensive to buy 1 kg of wood and we need more than 700 kg per day for cooking.”
Israel accused Hamas of having stolen and stored humanitarian aid to give its fighters or sell to collect funds. The UN and the other agencies deny help aid and say they have strict surveillance mechanisms.
“We are working hard to avoid any interference of all parties. We have a precise and solid distribution process,” said Matar, inspecting lists of recipients of help on his computer.
“We have a database of hundreds of thousands of people, including their names, identification numbers and addresses – camp contact details. This avoids duplication with the work of other non -governmental organizations and ensures transparency.”
This week, humanitarian workers said there were five cases of looting in warehouses and the main UNRWA complex in Gaza.
A UN official said it was a sign of growing despair of people and “systemic collapse”.
Back in the outdoor kitchen, Mr. Matar tests the food of the steam jars to check his quality. Packages are wrapped for distribution; Everyone can be used up to four people.
All workers receive food for their own hungry families.
The rest is quickly transferred to the donkey cart in the animated streets in Al-Mawasi, a crowded tent camp for people displaced on the coast, where dozens of field monitors supervise the regime.
An elderly man walking with crutches seems relieved as he tightens two parcels from Koshari to feed his family of seven years. “Thank goodness, it will be enough,” he said.
“Don’t even ask me for the situation,” he continues. “We are only alive because death has not yet taken us. I swear that I was looking for a miche of bread since morning, and I found none.”
“The situation is tragic, and she continues to worsen,” comments a heavy mother. “Life is humiliating here. We have men who are unable to work. There is no income, and all the products are so expensive. We cannot buy anything.”
“Right now, it’s excellent,” she said about the hot meal that has just been given. “Because there is no cooking gas, no food. When we want to take a cup of tea, I collect leaves to trigger a fire.”
It has now been over a year and a half since the start of the war in Gaza, launched by the attacks led by Hamas against southern Israel. This attack killed around 1,200 people and more than 250 people were taken hostage. Some 59 are always retained captive, with up to 24 of those who would be alive.
The military campaign of Israel killed more than 52,400 people in Gaza, mainly women, children and the elderly, according to the Ministry of Health managed by Hamas. More than 90% of the population of 2.1 million was moved – very much forced to flee several times.
The UN warned that the current situation “is probably the worst that it is” due to the blockade, renewed offensive and evacuation orders that have moved some 500,000 people since March 18.
There is increasing international pressure on Israel to raise its blockade, with warnings that intentionally hungry civilians are a potential war crime. The UN says that Israel has a clear obligation under international law as a power of occupation to allow and facilitate aid to the Gazans.
Last Friday, US President Donald Trump said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “we have to be good in Gaza” and pushed him to allow more food and drugs in the strip.
There was no official response to this, but earlier in the week, the Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected criticism from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, which described the blockade as “intolerable” in a joint declaration and insisting that “it must end”.
The ministry said that more than 25,000 trucks carrying nearly 450,000 tonnes of goods entered Gaza during the ceasefire. He added: “Israel monitors the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of help.”
Israeli officials said they were planning to revise the aid distribution system.
For the moment, supplies are accumulating at the borders of Gaza while waiting to be brought, while inside the territory, the workers of the His-Aidus carefully ration what remains of their stock.
In the Al-Mawasi camp, the children meet with mischievous around Sami Matar and Aera workers offering the last of the day’s food packages.
Many are painfully thin, with new acute malnutrition warnings in Gaza – especially in young people.
“I do not know what will happen if our supplies end,” explains Mr. Matar, weighed down by the responsibility of his work.
“The feeling of having to stop this vital help to people would be so stressful and depressing for me and my staff.”
“We have an urgent call,” he continues. “Look at us, see our despair, understand that time is exhausted. Please, we just have to open the level passages.”
