After a month of no humanitarian supplies entering Gaza, ActionAid Ireland is calling on states around the world to take immediate action to pressure the Israeli authorities to lift the appalling ban on aid and avert impending starvation.
No food, water, medicines, shelter items or other essentials have been allowed into Gaza since the total blockade was announced on Sunday, March 2nd, in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law. Prices immediately soared, leaving people unable to afford food to eat, and now – one month later – food supplies are running out altogether.
Karol Balfe, ActionAid Ireland CEO, said:
“It is totally inconceivable that, for an entire month now, not a single truck of desperately needed aid has been allowed into Gaza. We are on the brink of a complete catastrophe: as of today, bakeries across Gaza are unable to make bread – the staple of Palestinian families’ diets – due to a lack of flour. All the progress made during the first eight weeks of ceasefire when food was able to enter Gaza is being rapidly undone and now people are again at risk of starvation.”
Today, the Bakery Owners Association said all bakeries in Gaza had closed because they had no flour left, as well as shortages of diesel, depriving people of even the basic staple of bread.
Without deliveries of medicines and other medical equipment, hospitals are struggling to treat patients injured in Israeli military airstrikes, which have already killed more than a thousand people since they resumed two weeks ago, adding to the total death toll of more than 50,000.
Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), an umbrella group of 30 Palestinian NGOs and ActionAid’s partner in Gaza, said:
“[The] Gaza strip is passing through the worst humanitarian conditions that [were] ever witnessed, due to the intensive Israeli airstrikes all over [the] Gaza Strip, its forceful displacement of more than 200,000 people in such very difficult conditions, and the Israeli blockade and denial of the entry of the basic supplies [such] as food, medicine [and] shelter items. “Every day we have tens of people who were killed, and hundreds injured. Hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of injured people who badly need medical treatment.
“The people of Gaza are totally dependent on humanitarian aid…We are warning that [in] the coming days, the bakeries which produce bread [and] community kitchens which produce meals will stop. [This] means Gaza will [go into] a new cycle of famine, starvation and thirst, which will be the worst that Gaza witnessed.
“This is the real time for the international community to intervene, to pressure Israel to respect international law, to reopen the crossings, to stop its attacks on Palestinian civilians. [To get] justice for the victims, protection for children, women and elders.”
Thousands of people are currently fleeing Rafah after a new forced displacement order was issued for almost the entire city, adding to the tens of thousands that have been displaced yet again in the last two weeks.
Leaving on foot with only what they can carry, they are being forced into ever more crowded areas where they have no hope of accessing the shelter or other essentials they need.
Humanitarian workers in Gaza are doing everything they can to respond to the crisis yet they continue to face unacceptable danger while doing their jobs. ActionAid is utterly appalled by the egregious killing of 15 humanitarian workers in southern Gaza, including eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, whose bodies were found in a mass grave: we demand justice and full accountability for those responsible.
Ms Balfe said:
“It is horrifying that the Israeli authorities are continuing to flout their obligations under international humanitarian law with impunity, while atrocities take place in Gaza daily. The international community cannot allow this to go on any longer: all states must step up and do everything in their power to pressure the Israeli authorities to restart aid deliveries, and resume the ceasefire, now.”
