Families in Gaza ‘scavenging for basics every single day’
Sam Rose, the acting director of UNRWA in Gaza, says Palestinians in the enclave are facing dire levels of hunger after more than a month of Israel’s total blockade. Rose, who returned to the UK about a week ago after spending 16 months in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that “nobody has enough food” there.
“There are massive increases in malnourishment amongst children. People are scavenging around for the basics every single day and are facing sustained periods without enough food,” he said. “Whether they are in a condition of famine or on the verge of famine, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. They are in absolutely desperate conditions and they can do nothing about it,” he said.
Infants are particularly vulnerable, Rose added, noting that they face lifelong consequences if deprived of adequate nutrition in their first two years. “Their organs will begin to fail, their skin will start to shrivel, and they will die. And this is what we have been seeing in Gaza over the past 16 months,” he said.
Israel controls 50 percent of Gaza as Palestinians forced into shrinking areas: Report
In the early days of the war, Israeli troops forced Palestinians from communities near the border and destroyed the land to create a buffer zone more than 1km (0.6 miles) deep, according to the Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence.
Its troops also seized land across Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor, that isolated the north, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow, coastal Strip, home to more than 2 million people.
When Israel resumed the war last month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it as far as 3km (1.8 miles) into Gaza in some places, according to a map Israel issued. The buffer zone and the Netzarim Corridor make up at least 50 percent of the Strip, the AP has reported citing Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades.
Last week, Netanyahu said Israel intends to create another corridor that slices across southern Gaza, cutting off the city of Rafah from the rest of the territory. Israel’s control of Gaza is greater, taking into account areas where it recently ordered civilians to evacuate before planned attacks.
Israeli attacks kill 37 people across Gaza since dawn
Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that at least 37 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since dawn. Twenty-two of those killed were in the central and southern regions of the Strip, the sources said.
Israeli soldiers describe clearance of ‘kill zone’ along Gaza boundary: Report
Israeli troops have flattened farmland and cleared entire residential districts in Gaza to open a “kill zone” around the enclave, according to a report by the Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence.
It quoted soldiers who served in Gaza during the creation of the buffer zone, which was extended to a depth of 800 to 1,500 metres (875 to 1,640 yards) inside the enclave by December and has since been expanded further by Israeli troops.
“The borderline is a kill zone, a lower area, a lowland,” the report quotes a captain in the Armored Corps as saying.
Soldiers said troops using bulldozers and excavators along with thousands of mines and explosives destroyed around 3,500 buildings as well as agricultural and industrial areas that could have been vital in post-war reconstruction.
“Essentially, everything gets mowed down, everything,” the report quoted one reserve soldier serving in the Armored Corps as saying. “Every building and every structure.”
Another soldier said the area looked “like Hiroshima”.
