Cnn
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A month after Israel cut humanitarian aid from the Gaza Strip, assistance agencies say that the humanitarian situation has deteriorated dangerously there, with the fate of two million civilians aggravated by intensive Israeli military operations.
The United Nations and several NGOs, as well as the civilians of Gaza who spoke with CNN, say that hunger spreads, there is less access to clean water and the chips infest makeshift travel camps.
The problems that have tormented the population of the territory in the last 18 months have been accentuated by the renewed assault launched by the Israeli army in March, which included several evacuation orders.
The Israeli government has closed the supply of food and other humanitarian aids to Gaza before the offensive, in order to put Hamas to release more hostages and impose new conditions on the expansion of the ceasefire. Israel also said that Hamas intercepts and diverts humanitarian aid expeditions to Gaza, a charge that the United States confirmed last May.
More than 280,000 people have been moved in the past two weeks, and two -thirds of the Gaza territory are now zones without Go, according to the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Assembly al-Nabeeh, spokesperson for the municipality of Gaza City, told CNN that after several recent evacuation orders, “people are literally moved everywhere, on the main roads, in public parks, near the collapse, in squares, and even in buildings that are about to collapse.”
“Even before the last evacuation orders, only 40% of the city had access to water,” said Al-Nabeeh. He estimated that 175,000 tonnes of waste had accumulated throughout the city.
The senior OCHA official for the Palestinian territories, Jonathan Whittall, said earlier this week that a “limitless war” was underway in Gaza. In a report published on Friday, OCHA said: “Gaza faces a renewed risk of hunger and malnutrition as a complete blockade of freight, now entering the second month, stops almost any distribution of flour and firm all subsidized bakeries.”
The World Food Program (WFP) said Thursday that the 25 Gaza subsidized bakeries had closed its doors due to a lack of cooking and flour. He added that more than a million people found themselves without food plots in March, and while the hot meal supply continued, the “current supplies will last two weeks maximum”.
The Israeli agency responsible for coordinating Aid Deliveries to Gaza says there must be “a monitoring and structured aid mechanism” to prevent Hamas from grasping humanitarian supplies and ensuring that organizations remain “neutral and impartial”.
The agency – COGAT – said that a new mechanism that he prepares “would support assistance organizations, would improve surveillance and responsibility and guarantee that assistance reaches the civilian population in need, rather than being diverted and stolen by Hamas”.
The mechanism was presented to international aid organizations, according to a COGAT official, but its use depends on a cease-fire agreement or a change in the government directive.
In the meantime, huge amounts of aid are outside Gaza.
PAM says that some 89,000 tonnes of food wait outside Gaza, while the food shortage inside increases prices considerably. A bag of wheat flour costs 450% more than a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the OCHA says that access to water remains “seriously constrained” – with two thirds of Gazan households unable to access six liters (around 200 liquid ounces) of drinking water per day. After improving production and supply of water during the recent ceasefire, agencies are now struggling to repair and maintain infrastructure.
This also affects sanitation in increasingly congested areas of displaced people. “The sanitation conditions through the Gaza Strip remain alarming,” said OCHA, with fortune travel sites on the infested coast of flea and mites.
The Biden Administration has repeatedly pressure the Israeli government to allow more humanitarian aid in Gaza, in particular on break an expedition of bombs concerning the concern of the civilian population in the coastal enclave. But this pressure almost disappeared under the Trump administration.
Gavin Kelleher, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said at the end of March that “more than a million people remained in the need for tents in Gaza”, but his organization had “almost nothing to distribute despite the fact that these massive forced transfers occur every day”.
“Many people, without an alternative refuge, remain in structurally unhealthy and damaged buildings, where building incidents collapse on men, women and children continue to be recorded,” added Kelleher.
In recent weeks, an average of 100 children have been killed or mutilated daily in Gaza, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF. The agency’s executive director Catherine Russell said that the children of the strip were “again immersed in a cycle of fatal violence and deprivation”.
UNICEF says that and other agencies “have not been able to provide clothes and other essential items even to the most vulnerable children who only have the clothes they wear.”
While the victims have increased since the end of the ceasefire, the World Health Organization reports that Gaza hospitals are overwhelmed by patients. He said that the Al-Shifa Hospital in the north of the territory treated 400 people a day, almost triple of his average of 140 before hostilities resumed on March 18.
Dr. Fadel Naeem, director of the Arabic Baptist Hospital Al-Ahli in Gaza City, told CNN that his establishment had been overwhelmed by the number of bodies and people injured. Just April 3, he said, 128 people injured had arrived “and the hospital simply did not have the capacity to manage this volume due to the current blocking in the health sector”.
Naeem said that the hospital had been forced to “prioritize”, for example, by performing surgeries only for those who were more likely to survive. “Tragically, while waiting for care, some of the injured died due to a lack of resources, operating rooms and medical staff,” added Naeem.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Rescue and Work Agency, who is leading UN efforts in the Palestinian territories, said: “People are hungry, chaos and looting have returned … People are exhausted while they continue to be locked up in a small field.”
