Gaza: Efforts to prevent famine – Children in Despair Ask for Food

A famine threatens the population in the middle of Ramadan while a ship loaded 200 tonnes of food continues slowly the route to the region, while efforts are being speeded up to reach more. Yesterday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced that its warehouse in Rafa, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, was hit in an Israeli air raid, resulting in at least one of its workers being killed and others injured. The Hamas Health Ministry, for its part, mentioned four dead. After more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas, the UN expresses concern about a widespread famine in the Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and Israeli bombings continue incessantly. The attack “against one of UNRWA’s few distribution centres still operational in the Gaza Strip is recorded at the time that malnutrition, as well as famine in some areas, is expanding,” stressed Philippe Lazarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Office for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. The images coming from Rafa are shocking. Children with despair engraved on their faces ask for food by holding pots and bowls in their hands and any other useful object could help them to get some food to live. For his part, the Israeli army announced the “elimination of Hamas stems in a “targeted” blow to Rafa. The man, Mohammad Abu Hasna, was among the four dead for whom the Palestinian Islamist movement spoke and was presented as the man responsible for the security of the warehouse. Late Wednesday the Hamas Health Ministry also mentioned four dead and many injured by Israeli fire at the roundabout “Kuveit”, a crossroads in the southern Gaza Strip where food is often distributed. Land and sea Aid through land roads arrives only with the dropper in the Gaza Strip. It is subject to Israel’s control, which imposes an absolute siege on the Palestinian enclave from the early days of the war, a trigger of which was unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7. A first ship, leased by the Spanish NGO Open Arms, loaded 200 tons of food, departed the day before yesterday from Larnaca. He continued his course towards the enclave. According to the specialized Vessel Finder website, the ship, moving at a very low speed, is still 90 nautical miles (1975 km) from the Gaza coast. Cyprus, the EU country closest to the Palestinian enclave than any other — some 370 km from the Palestinian enclave — has assured that it is ready to depart a second ship, with a ‘much larger’ cargo. Four U.S. Navy vessels departed yesterday Tuesday from the U.S., with about a hundred military men and the necessary equipment to set up a dock in the Gaza Strip so that humanitarian aid could be delivered. The trip will last about 30 days and the facility is expected to be ready “within 60 days”, according to Washington. These efforts, however, are only an embroidered solution, the UN stresses, for which neither the sea aid mission nor the air throws are sufficient to replace land routes, a finding that many share. “There is no substitute for land routes through Egypt and Jordan and the entry points from Israel to Gaza for large-scale relief deliveries,” stressed the US, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the EU and Qatar in a joint statement, released by the State Department. They also considered that opening the Israeli port of Ashdot to humanitarian aid would be a “welcome and important complement” to the efforts made. At present, ground-road assistance reaches Egypt or Jordan towards two Israeli checkpoints in the southern Gaza Strip where cargo is subjected to thorough controls. Last Tuesday, for the first time, Israel’s army approved the entry, “pilots”, of trucks of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the northern Gaza Strip, which created hopes that aid deliveries could be speeded up to meet the enormous needs of the 2,4 million inhabitants of the nest. Operation in Rafa? The Hamas military arm attack on southern Israel resulted in 1,160 people losing their lives, in the majority of civilians, according to a French Agency count based on official Israeli data. According to Israeli sources, 130 hostages are still in the Gaza Strip — but at least 32 are believed to be dead — of the more than 250 kidnapped on October 7th. In retaliation, Israel vowed to “exterminate” Hamas, which it characterizes, like the US and the EU, a “terrorist” organisation, and in operations conducted since the Israeli army have killed at least 31,272 people in the Gaza Strip, in the vast majority of women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that land operations will continue in Rafa, on the closed border with Egypt, where they have fled and are now trapped some 1.5 million violently displaced Palestinians. This prospect alarms the international community, including the US, Israel’s main ally. Israel should make the protection of civilians and the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip a priority of ‘number one’, US Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken said yesterday. According to Politico, the Biden government told Israel that it would support targeted blows against Hamas in Rafa, but not a large-scale land attack. Washington is still trying, along with Qatar and Egypt, to secure an agreement on a six-week truce between Israel and Hamas. During the night, Hamas leader, Ishmael Haniya, considered that the conclusion of an agreement remains possible, calling on Israel — which rejects the declaration of a permanent ceasefire and would accept only temporary cessation of fighting, while requiring a detailed list of the hostages in life — “to abandon its intransigence”. Photos Reuters