UN experts condemn ‘massacre’ of Gaza aid seekers
UN special rapporteurs and working groups have condemned an attack by Israel against Palestinians awaiting bags of flour near Gaza City, calling it a “massacre”.
The group said in a statement that Israeli troops fired on the crowd that had gathered to collect flour on February 29, killing more than 100 people. “The attack came after Israel has denied humanitarian aid into Gaza City and northern Gaza for more than a month,” the experts said. “Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October. Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys,” the UN experts, including Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, said in a statement.
They noted that 14 incidents have been recorded involving the shooting, shelling and targeting of groups of people gathered to receive urgently needed supplies from trucks or airdrops between mid-January and the end of February 2024. “Israel must end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians,” the statement said.
UNRWA: 17,000 children orphaned in Gaza
One in six children under two years is “acutely malnourished” in north Gaza, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees added in a post on X. “These horrific deaths are entirely preventable,” the post went on to say.
Yesterday, we reported on comments from the UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini as he briefed the UN General Assembly and painted a grim picture of the conditions in the besieged Palestinian enclave, as well as the pressures on his agency.
UNRWA, widely accepted to be the only group equipped to organise aid delivery on a scale necessary to prevent mass death in Gaza, is facing a “deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations and ultimately, end them”, he said.
Around 17,000 children in #Gaza are orphaned.
1 in 6 children under 2 yrs is acutely malnourished in the north.
Babies slowly perishing under the world’s gaze
Children dying from bombs, even more now dying from consequences of siege. These horrific deaths entirely preventable. pic.twitter.com/NG6z1CziG3
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) March 5, 2024
Canadian doctor recounts effects of food crisis in Gaza
A Canadian physician has warned that every single person in Gaza is being touched by “the overlapping crises of food, water and housing insecurity”.
Dr Yipeng Ge, who spent a week treating patients in Gaza in February, added that a lack of water and food as well as unsanitary conditions in the besieged enclave had resulted in outbreaks of respiratory infections, gastrointestinal diseases and a major outbreak of Hepatitis A.
“One of the children I saw was the sickest child I had ever seen in my medical career,” he told Al Jazeera.
OCHA says starvation in Gaza ‘warning like no other’
The UN humanitarian agency says the death of children in Gaza due to starvation should be “a warning like no other” and called on the international community to “flood” the strip with aid. “If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood Gaza with the aid that it needs?” Jens Laerke, spokesman for OCHA, asked reporters in Geneva.
The agency had previously said that famine is “almost inevitable” in the territory. The Health Ministry in Gaza has reported that 15 children have starved to death at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the only paediatric hospital in northern Gaza, and one more child died of malnutrition at Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
“When children are starting to die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other.
If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood #Gaza with the aid that it needs?"
- @JensLaerke of @UNOCHA pic.twitter.com/JXL6EVDyLP
— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva) March 5, 2024
More ‘misery’ as Israeli attacks continue in Gaza City, Jabalia, Khan Younis
The latest attack on aid seekers near Gaza City is furthering people’s misery. Not only are people in northern Gaza dying from dehydration and starvation, but their relatives are being killed just trying to get food for their families. Early this morning, a home was destroyed in an attack near Khan Younis. So far, 17 victims of the strike have arrived at the European Gaza Hospital, mostly women and children.
In a separate attack in Jabalia refugee camp in the north, a densely populated residential block came under heavy artillery shelling and air strikes. So far, eight people have been reported killed there and more are still under the rubble. There are efforts to find people who might still be alive, but as time goes by, those hopes become more and more slim.
In central Gaza, all the refugee camps — Nuseirat, Maghazi, and Bureij — have come under constant heavy artillery shelling since the early hours of this morning.
