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mercy corps
Lifesaving Gaza Aid 'Has Fallen to an All-Time Low' Under Israeli Siege
"There is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis," a new analysis warns.
Nov 14, 2024
More than two dozen international relief groups operating in Gaza warned Thursday that humanitarian assistance entering the embattled Palestinian enclave "has fallen to an all-time low" as Israel continues to block lifesaving aid, fueling nascent famine in the north.
"An average of only 37 humanitarian trucks per day entered Gaza in October, and an average of 69 per day during the first week of November. This is still well below the average of 500 per day which entered Gaza... before October 7, 2023, and was insufficient to meet the needs of the population," the seventh Gaza Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes.
"For almost a month, Israel has blocked attempts by aid organizations to deliver aid in areas of northern Gaza, effectively severing the population from access to vital lifelines, including food, medical supplies, and all other humanitarian aid," the report continues, adding that "there is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis."
"Tragically, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 aid workers from both Palestinian and international organizations," the analysis laments. "Staff were killed in their homes, in displacement camps, and while delivering lifesaving aid. Many aid workers lost close family members and relatives."
One forcibly displaced resident of northern Gaza told the report's authors:
Everyone has received this call before: One of your friends or colleagues or relatives or cousins is under the siege or bombs. And they ask for help. And you can't do anything. You can't do anything for them. And they die. They die while they are asking us to help them. This is the worst thing.
The report also notes widespread looting by desperate Gaza residents—a consequence not only of the bombing, invasion, and siege but also of Israel's targeted killing of Palestinian police officers—and criminal gangs extorting aid groups for "protection" money.
The new analysis came on the same day that a United Nations committee published a report concluding that Israel's policies and practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide" and two days after the Biden administration—which backs Israel with arms and diplomatic support—sparked worldwide anger by asserting that Israel is not violating humanitarian law during the war.
A scorecard published earlier this week by some of the same groups that compiled the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot detailed how Israel has failed to fully comply with any of the Biden administration's 19 demands indicating compliance with humanitarian law.
As children in Gaza began starving to death earlier this year, the International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—ordered the Israeli government to stop blocking aid from entering the enclave. Israel has been accused of ignoring the order.
As the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes, Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 103,000 others as of November 12. Approximately 80% of Gazans are under forced displacement orders—a policy denounced by many as ethnic cleansing—and around 90% of Gaza residents have been forcibly displaced, most of them multiple times.
"The population in northern Gaza faces starvation, severe shortages of clean water, critical supply scarcity, and ever-increasing desperation," Mercy Corps, one of the groups that contributed to the analysis, said in a statement. "We call on all those with influence and power to take urgent action to de-escalate and halt the unrelenting violence in Gaza, to protect civilians and aid workers, and to do everything possible to achieve an immediate and lasting cease-fire."
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'Should Shame the World': Famine Takes Hold in Gaza as Israel Cuts Off Food Imports
"The disturbing worst-case scenario for an entire population is all but certain without an immediate cease-fire," said one aid group.
Oct 17, 2024
The Israeli government has reportedly cut off commercial food imports to the Gaza Strip, a move that was revealed Thursday as new data showed that the besieged enclave's entire population is facing emergency-level hunger as famine conditions take hold.
Reutersreported that the far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has "stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade, choking off a track that for the past six months supplied more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory's provisions."
"Since October 11, Gaza-based traders who were importing food from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have lost access to a system introduced in spring by COGAT, the Israeli government body that oversees aid and commercial shipments, and have received no reply to attempts to contact the agency," Reuters continued. "The shift has driven the flow of goods arriving in Gaza to its lowest level since the start of the war."
Israel's obstruction of humanitarian assistance and repeated attacks on aid convoys have sparked catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave. According to an updated analysis published Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), "the whole territory is classified in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency)" and "given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may materialize."
"September saw the lowest volume of commercial and humanitarian supplies entering Gaza since March 2024," said the IPC. "This sharp decline will profoundly limit food availability and the ability of families to feed themselves and access services in the next few months. The upcoming winter season is expected to bring colder temperatures along with rain and potential flooding. Seasonal diseases and increasingly limited access to water and health services are likely to worsen acute malnutrition, especially in densely populated areas, where the risk of epidemics is already high."
"Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk."
IPC projected that the number of people in Gaza classified in IPC Phase 5—defined as "extreme critical levels of acute malnutrition and mortality"—is set to "nearly triple" in the coming months.
Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, CEO of the aid group Mercy Corps, said in a statement that the new IPC findings "come as no surprise given the unrelenting bombardment, continued decimation of what little infrastructure remains, and the insufficient humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza."
"Whether officially declared or not, famine is an imminent, devastating reality that should shame the world," said McKenna. "The disturbing worst-case scenario for an entire population is all but certain without an immediate cease-fire, healthcare support for those already extremely malnourished, and the dramatic scale-up of aid."
The IPC figures were released days after the Biden administration belatedly threatened to suspend U.S. military aid to Israel if it continues to block humanitarian aid deliveries.
Days after the administration issued its warning—which took the form of a letter to Israel's defense minister and minister of strategic affairs—Israel allowed dozens of humanitarian aid trucks to enter northern Gaza for the first time in weeks.
Joyce Msuya, the United Nations' acting under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, described the fresh aid delivery as a mere "trickle" that did not change the fact that "all essential supplies for survival are running out."
"Throughout Gaza, less than a third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October were facilitated without major incidents or delays," Msuya told members of the U.N. Security Council earlier this week. "Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk."
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UN to Warn Half a Million Gazans Facing 'Catastrophic' Food Insecurity
"The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now," said one advocate.
Jun 24, 2024
More than 1 in 5 people in the Gaza Strip are "facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity" amid Israel's relentless assault and siege against the Palestinian territory, according to a draft report set to be published Tuesday by the United Nations' hunger monitoring system.
The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Special Snapshot—which was previewed by various news agencies—says that more than 495,000 Gazans—who already face "an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion"—are expected to suffer the highest level of starvation over the coming months.
The draft report states that while a sharp increase in food aid in northern Gaza in March and April can be credited with "likely averting a famine," the situation is "deteriorating again following renewed hostilities."
"A high risk of famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues and humanitarian access is restricted," IPC noted.
The IPC draft report also says more than half of all Gaza households had to sell or swap clothing in order to obtain food, and that the majority of Gazan families often "do not have any food to eat in the house, and over 20% go entire days and nights without eating."
"The population cannot endure these hardships any longer."
Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, an Oregon-based humanitarian NGO, toldThe Guardian that "people are enduring subhuman conditions resorting to desperate measures like boiling weeds, eating animal feed, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive."
"The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly, and the specter of famine continues to hang over Gaza," she added. "The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now. The population cannot endure these hardships any longer."
Although the IPC stopped short of the rare step of declaring a famine in Gaza, it warned that "the recent trajectory is negative and highly unstable."
"Should this continue, the improvements seen in April could be rapidly reversed," the agency added.
The IPC's famine review panel previously said there is not enough data to make a determination on whether there is a famine in Gaza since research was being blocked by "conflict and humanitarian access constraints."
The Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Monday that "the Famine Review Committee's inability to declare the current food situation in the Gaza Strip to be a famine does not negate the existence of famine in the strip, as pockets of famine are forming and spreading among different age groups, particularly children, and there is a noticeable increase in deaths from hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases."
"The committee's failure to declare the existence of a famine is solely related to its inability to provide certain technical information because of illegal Israeli restrictions and policies that aim to conceal evidence related to the crimes it commits and prevent criminal investigations into them by independent U.N. and international committees, particularly by preventing these committees from entering the strip," the group added.
U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said last month that "full-blown famine" had taken hold in Gaza and was spreading south. According to Gaza officials, at least 40 people—mostly children—have died from malnutrition and dehydration during the 262-day Israeli onslaught. Almost all of the victims are from northern Gaza.
Israel began bombing, and later invaded, Gaza after Hamas-led attacks left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead and over 240 others kidnapped on October 7. At least some of the victims were killed by Israeli forces in so-called "friendly fire" incidents, according to Israeli and international media reports.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 37,626 Palestinians—most of them women and children—in Gaza, while wounding over 86,000 others, according to Palestinian and international agencies. At least 11,000 people, including over 4,000 children, are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food and a law professor at the University of Oregon, said in late February that Israel is committing genocide by intentionally starving Gazans. Israel's siege—and Israeli attacks on humanitarian aid shipments, workers, and recipients—are being reviewed by the International Court of Justice as part of a South Africa-led genocide case backed by over 30 countries and regional blocs.
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