Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees. Photo / AP
More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving because “woefully insufficient” quantities of food are entering the territory since Israel’s military responded to Hamas’ October 7 attack, according to a report released Thursday by the UN and other agencies.
The report highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza after more than 10 weeks of relentless bombardment and fighting. The extent of the population’s hunger eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to figures in the report.
Today's IPC report on #Gaza confirms what @WFP has been warning: the situation is catastrophic.
— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) December 21, 2023
One in four families face extreme hunger.
There is a real risk of famine.
The world cannot stand by and watch people starve. We need urgent action now.
“It doesn’t get any worse,’’ said Arif Husain, chief economist for the UN’s World Food Programme. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed. How quickly it has happened, in just a matter of two months.”
Israel says it is in the final stages of clearing out Hamas militants from northern Gaza, but that months of fighting lie ahead in the south. The war sparked by Hamas’ deadly October 7 rampage and hostage-taking in Israel has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians. About 1.9 million Gaza residents — more than 80 per cent of the population — have been driven from their homes, with more than a million now cramming into UN shelters.
The war has also pushed Gaza’s health sector into collapse. Only nine of its 36 health facilities are still partially functioning — and all are in the south, the World Health Organization said. WHO relief workers on Thursday reported “unbearable” scenes in two hospitals they visited in northern Gaza: bedridden patients with untreated wounds cry out for water, the few remaining doctors and nurses have no supplies, and bodies are lined up in the courtyard.
Bombardment and fighting continued, but with Gaza’s internet and other communications cut off for a second straight day, details on the latest violence could largely not be confirmed.
UN Security Council members are negotiating an Arab-sponsored resolution to halt the fighting in some way to allow for an increase in desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.
A vote on the resolution, first scheduled for Monday, was pushed back again on Wednesday in the hopes of getting the US to support it or allow it to pass after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call.
Thursday’s report from the UN underscored the failure of weeks of US efforts to ensure greater aid reaches Palestinians. At the start of the war, Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory. After US pressure, it began allowing a trickle of aid in through Egypt, but UN agencies say it fell far short of enough.
This week, Israel began allowing aid to be delivered through its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza. But a blast on Thursday morning hit the Palestinian side of the crossing, forcing the UN to stop its pickups of aid there, according to Juliette Touma, spokesperson of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. At least four people were killed, the nearby hospital reported. Palestinian authorities blamed Israel for the blast, but its cause could not immediately be confirmed.
Delivery of aid to much of the Gaza Strip has become difficult or impossible due to continued fighting, UN officials have said.
The report released Thursday by 23 UN and nongovernmental agencies found that the entire population in Gaza is in a food crisis, with 576,600 at catastrophic — or starvation — levels. “It is a situation where pretty much everybody in Gaza is hungry,” Husain, the World Food Program economist, said.
The lack of food and water weakens immune systems, making the population more vulnerable to disease, Husain said. “People are very, very close to large outbreaks of disease because their immune systems have become so weak because they don’t have enough nourishment,” he said.
Husain said border crossings need to be operational to get in essential supplies, including food and water. And he said that humanitarian groups need safe access to the entire Gaza strip.
Israel has vowed to continue the offensive until it destroys Hamas’ military capabilities and returns scores of hostages captured by Palestinian militants during their October 7 rampage. Hamas and other militants killed about 1200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured around 240 others.
Hamas fired a large barrage of rockets at central Israel on Thursday, showing its military capabilities remain formidable. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, but the rocket attack set off air raid sirens in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
Hamas militants have put up stiff resistance lately against Israeli ground troops, and its forces appear to remain largely intact in southern Gaza, despite more than two and a half months of heavy aerial bombardment across the territory.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has continued to support Israel’s campaign while also urging greater efforts to protect civilians.
But in some of the toughest American language yet, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “it’s clear that the conflict will move and needs to move to a lower intensity phase”. The US wants Israel to shift to more targeted operations aimed at Hamas leaders and the tunnel network.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.
On Wednesday, the WHO delivered supplies a day earlier to Ahli and Shifa hospitals, which are in the heart of the north Gaza battle zone where Israeli troops have demolished vast swaths of the city while fighting Hamas militants.
In the north over recent weeks, Israeli forces have raided a series of health facilities, detaining men for interrogation and expelling others. In other facilities, patients who are unable to be moved remain along with skeleton staff who watch over them but can do little beyond first aid, according to UN and health officials.
Ahli Hospital is “a place where people are waiting to die”, said Sean Casey, a member of the WHO team that visited the two hospitals Wednesday. Five remaining doctors and five nurses along with around 80 patients remain in Ahli, he said.
All of the hospital buildings are damaged except two buildings where patients are now being kept: the orthopedics ward and a church on the grounds, he said. He described entering the compound, strewn with debris, and a crater from recent shelling in the courtyard. Bodies were lined up nearby, but doctors said it was too unsafe to move them with fighting still outside, he said.
Inside the church, it was “an unbearable scene”. he said. Patients with traumatic wounds were struggling with infections. Others had undergone amputations. “Many patients said they hadn’t changed their clothes in weeks,” he said. “Patients were crying out in pain but were also crying out for us to give them water.”
Israel’s military says 137 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. Israel says it has killed about 7000 militants, without providing evidence. It blames civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields when it fights in residential areas.
The conflict has entered its seventh day.