‘When a society is destroyed so systematically, simply distributing rations’ is not the answer
The Israeli government denies there is starvation in Gaza – but under international pressure, it announced new measures to allow aid into the Strip.
Israel’s notoriously random restrictions, bureaucratic delays, visa cancellations and targeting of aid convoys have caused tonnes of food aid to spoil at the border.
“When a society is destroyed so systematically over such a sustained period, it gets to a place where the harms are so deep, so complex and so intertwined that the death rate escalates and bringing it back is not simply a question of distributing rations,” Alex de Waal, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, told Al Jazeera.
Aid organisations need to bring in at least 500-600 aid trucks into Gaza every day – carrying food, medicine, hygiene products, fuel and other critically needed supplies.
The number allowed under the new measures is a fifth of that.
“They’re not enough,” Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA in Gaza, told Al Jazeera. “They need to be expanded and they need to be sustained and they need to be accompanied by a ceasefire, because that is the only thing that is going to stabilise conditions for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of desperate people in Gaza.”
Small amount of aid allowed into Gaza is purely for optics
This is the third day since Israel announced the opening of the “humanitarian corridor”, and what we’re seeing so far is it is designed largely to be theatrical.
It is not effective at all because we’re not seeing the direct impact on the ground.
It has marginalised more people, more of the hungry population, pushing them aside because the 22 months of constant bombardment created a power vacuum and conditions for looters and armed gang members to take over aid trucks coming from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Only 50 trucks have been allowed in over the past three days. This is not nearly enough to address the deepening humanitarian crisis. What has been let inside so far has either been looted or destroyed. What has made its way to the market is either expired or incredibly expensive.
Starvation is on the rise, and we’ve passed the tipping point.
Palestinians carrying pots and containers gather as a charity distributes food in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, where access to food remains difficult due to Israel’s ongoing blockade and attacks
Time running out for desperate Palestinians as limited trucks enter amid starvation crisis
Palestinians here still do not have any other options other than going to the GHF points in Netzarim. There’s a crowd of people here who have been injured and shot at as they were trying to get food from that area.
We do not see any aid trucks – whatever trucks are coming are not making it halfway to the Gaza Strip. There are a lot of desperate Palestinians who are jumping on these trucks, and they’re also taking whatever they can take.
When we ask Palestinians what is driving them to do that, they say they do not have time; their children are starving and they do not have time to wait for the process of distribution points and all of these processes.
But again, if a big number of trucks entered every single day, this would not be the case. At least 73 trucks entered yesterday, but these are definitely not enough – Palestinians need at least 600 trucks every single day.
