‘Nightmare with no end’: Impunity and inaction allow Israel to starve Gaza people
Gaza is at the “peak level of starvation“, where people are starting to “drop dead”, Mara Bernasconi, the regional communications and advocacy manager for Humanity & Inclusion UK, an NGO with teams working in Gaza, has told Al Jazeera.
She said humanitarian workers living in Gaza are not excluded from this suffering and have experienced “death, hunger, displacement, danger” for 21 months of war.
“They’re incredibly brave and strong, and in the past months, they served people in need while trying to survive, but they are collapsing as well,” she said.
Humanity & Inclusion UK works with explosive ordinance risk education and physical rehabilitation, she explained, adding that the work requires a lot of “strength, concentration – and our colleagues are physically and mentally depleted”.
“They are struggling to concentrate and function because they face directly the effect of dehydration and malnutrition, and we are watching them starve to death, and it’s insane, because this is a man-made humanitarian crisis and is deteriorating daily because it’s allowed by impunity and inaction,” Bernasconi said.
“One colleague told me two days ago, there are no more tools to use. It’s a nightmare with no end.”
Sanctions needed to stop Israeli policy of starvation in Gaza
Condemnation is not enough to stop the Israeli government from committing “genocide and starvation” in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli analyst Menachem Klein.
“What is needed is taking action, sanctions against this Israeli policy,” Klein, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University, told Al Jazeera from West Jerusalem.
“Domestic civil society pressure is in place but it is done by very few civil society organisations,” he added.
“Generally speaking, Israeli society is a genocidal society. It is the end result of ongoing, almost two years of dehumanisation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
The dehumanization has been going on for 75 years.
