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‘People are being starved’: Oxfam
Bushra Khalidi, policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory for Oxfam, says the global aid organisation’s staff are “risking being shot” by standing in food lines in Gaza.
“My colleague, she told me on Saturday that she went to work without even water, she ate a single falafel just to keep going, and she still showed up to work,” says Khalidi.
Khalidi added that one of her other colleagues says she no longer believes that interviews or pleas for help are having any effect.
“This is why she’s not here today with us and speaking to you, and that’s why I’m here instead.
“We’ve heard from parents boiling tree leaves to feed their children, from aid workers who burned their own clothes to cook the last scraps of lentils that they have, from mothers that we’ve met saying my son died from hunger, literally in front of my eyes because his body couldn’t take it any more,” she said.
“This is not a humanitarian failure,” Khalidi added. “This is a deliberate policy, and aid is being blocked. People are being starved.”
Injured Palestinians are transported to hospitals after Israeli forces open fire on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the Zikim area, on Sunday.
Church leaders slam ‘morally unacceptable’ situation in Gaza after visit
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, have described the situation in Gaza as “morally unacceptable” after returning from a visit to the Palestinian enclave.
Pizzaballa, who is the most senior Catholic authority in the region, and Theophilos III visited Gaza on Friday after an Israeli attack on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City killed at least three people.
“Humanitarian aid is not only necessary; it is a matter of life and death,” Pizzaballa told reporters in Jerusalem.
“Refusing it is not a delay, but a sentence. Every hour without food, water, medicine and shelter causes deep harm. We have seen it – men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal. This is humiliation that is hard to bear when you see it with your own eyes. It is morally unacceptable and unjustifiable.”
The cardinal said “it is time to end this nonsense and the war,” urging all the international leaders, particularly the US president, “to be proactive and to take an important role in order to stop this devastation”.
Time in Gaza is made of ‘blood, tears and hunger’
“There is no voice louder than hunger,” the Arabic proverb goes.
Now, it has become a painful truth surrounding us, drawing closer with each passing day.
I never imagined that hunger could be more terrifying than the bombs and killing. This weapon caught us off-guard, something we never thought would be more brutal than anything else we’ve faced in this endless war.
It’s been four months without a single full meal for my family, nothing that meets even the basic needs on Maslow’s hierarchy.
