Devastating Report Details an Occupied Palestine on 'Edge of Erasure'

A new report by a leading Quaker social justice organization urges observers of Israel's bombardment and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and its accelerated annexation of the West Bank to see the "escalating violations" not as isolated pushes for control of the occupied territories but something much more sinister and profound.

According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), SC), the policies and violence Israel is perpetrating on people across the territories are "systematic and risk the erasure of Palestinians."

The group joined leading humanitarian organizations that have spent years providing aid and services to Palestinians in Gaza—only to have their work impeded and made deadly by the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) attacks—in releasing The Edge of Erasure, a comprehensive look at the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The AFSC surveyed 46 international and Palestinian organizations on their experiences trying to deliver aid and services across Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from March 26-May 28.

The groups were up against Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid in Gaza, which was imposed starting March 2, two weeks before the IDF broke a temporary ceasefire and began intensifying attacks in the enclave.

In late May Israel began allowing in a tiny fraction of the amount of 500 aid trucks that entered Gaza on a daily basis before the war; advocates have said the trickle of relief is far from enough.

During the AFSC's survey, 93% of the groups said they had exhausted or were close to exhausting their aid supply in Gaza, including food, flour, fuel, hygiene kits, medications, and other essentials.

"In the face of such systematic devastation, only a comprehensive, multi-sectoral response at scale can even start to address the overwhelming, man-made humanitarian crisis."

Seven of the groups said their dwindling supplies were partially the result of Israeli attacks, with groups forced to leave materials behind due to forced displacement orders. Others said their supplies are in trucks stuck in Jordan or Egypt without the ability to enter Gaza, and some said that once they've gotten aid deliveries to distribute, they've been unable to hand out medicines because they're already expired.

More than a third of the organizations said their facilities had been directly or indirectly struck by IDF attacks, despite acknowledgement from the Israeli military that humanitarian groups must be "deconflicted."

"In several instances, no prior notification was given before the strikes," the AFSC said.

At least 452 humanitarian workers are among the more than 54,000 people who have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and eight of the groups reported staff being injured, while five reported workers being killed in Israeli attacks during the reporting period.

While intensifying its bombing campaign and imposing a blockade that international experts said in May had pushed the entire population into a food insecurity emergency, with half a million people facing starvation, Israel has also turned at least 81% of Gaza into "no-go" militarized zones in recent months.

More than two-thirds of the groups said during the survey period that they were no longer able to access certain areas, particularly in northern Gaza as well as the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

"Recent Israeli forces' attacks have continued to dissect Gaza into increasingly isolated zones, cutting communities off from basic needs necessary for survival," reads the report. "In many cases, remaining residents have been literally unable to move, due to exhaustion, injury, illness, infirmity, disability, contamination with unexploded ordnance, or lack of alternatives. Some areas are formally cut off or declared inaccessible, while others have been subject to such intensive shelling and forces' attacks that they have been practically unreachable for aid delivery. These conditions effectively impose sieges within the siege, with parts of Gaza inaccessible for humanitarian operations."

Gaza's population is now confined to just 19% of the enclave due to "increasingly expansive forced displacement orders," and people are facing "simultaneous and intersecting crises" including displacement, destruction of housing, destruction of water and sanitation networks, starvation, the loss of 95% of school buildings which had been used as shelters after the war began, and a decimated healthcare system.

Palestinians have also been left without ways to maintain self-sufficiency, with less than 5% of Gaza's cropland now available for cultivation due to the Israeli military's access restrictions and damage.

"The world is witnessing Israel relentlessly starve and bomb Palestinians with total impunity," said Hanady Muhiar, Palestine/Israel country representative for the AFSC. "Israel is weaponizing hunger and destroying a principled humanitarian aid system that could be providing lifesaving goods at scale to the Palestinian people in Gaza. We all have an obligation to prevent genocidal crimes. It is urgent that states, organizations, and individuals take immediate action to stop it."

Meanwhile, the IDF has intensified attacks and demolitions of buildings in the West Bank, with 85% of structures in Masafer Yatta destroyed and over 100 homes in Nour Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps recently ordered demolished. Israeli settlers have also escalated attacks in the territory.

"The deliberate and excessive use of violence, demolitions, and displacement is not merely hindering aid delivery," reads the report, "it risks forcible transfer and entrenching annexation, and the erasure of Palestinians from their land."

Ninety-three percent of organizations in the West Bank reported "a sharp increase in movement restrictions throughout the reporting period."

The Israeli military has rejected the groups' attempts to coordinate humanitarian work, denying nearly 70% of aid movement requests between April 30-May 6.

A 51-year-old woman who spent three decades running a program for children with disabilities at Nour Shams refugee camp described being forced by Israeli soldiers to leave her home.

"The Israeli forces gave me only two hours to collect my things," said the woman. "I was afraid to find someone hiding there. They cut the electricity, so it was dark. Everything is lost. There was a picture of me, a painting made by some artist. They stomped on it and ruined it... Everything is lost now. The parents are desperate. They don't know what to do. I try to give them advice, but it’s not
the same."

The AFSC demanded a permanent cease-fire; an end to the humanitarian aid blockade—which "states with influence" must "use all possible measures" to achieve; an end to Israel's "unlawful presence" in the occupied territories; and boosted funding for the relief response.

"In the face of such systematic devastation," reads the report, "only a comprehensive, multi-sectoral response at scale can even start to address the overwhelming, man-made humanitarian crisis."