“Famine” strikes northern Gaza again under war and siege

Gaza - Together - In light of the ongoing Israeli war, the tragedy of the people of Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip increases due to the lack of food, which indicates the return of famine that may claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Once Israel took control of the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, the entry of humanitarian aid stopped, which exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. Displacement and starvation: About two million residents of the Gaza Strip have been displaced from their homes since the outbreak of the Israeli war on the seventh of last October, leaving everything behind in search of safety. These displaced people, who are subjected to "genocide", live in difficult and tragic conditions, lacking food, shelter, health care, and water. The people of the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City depend on wild herbs to feed themselves and their children, as well as some canned food they had saved earlier. The northern regions lack vegetables, fruits and meat, which i ncreases the difficulties they face in securing their basic food needs. The lack of food in the Gaza Strip causes drought and a lack of livelihoods for residents, especially children and the elderly, which leads to malnutrition and increased deaths. In recent months, many deaths have been recorded in northern Gaza and Gaza City due to lack of food, including children. Children die as a result of malnutrition. Medical sources told Anadolu correspondent in the northern and central regions of the Gaza Strip that children died as a result of the lack of food and milk allocated to them, in addition to the lack of necessary treatments for their diseases. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, told Anadolu that more than 50 Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition were registered during the recent period. He added, "The specter of famine looms over Gaza in light of the lack of food, and we recorded signs of malnutrition in some children." With the Israeli army taking control of the Rafah land crossing with Egypt on May 7, despite international warnings of the repercussions of that, the humanitarian situation inside the Gaza Strip worsened in light of the scarcity of food and medical supplies, which led to the launching of several distress calls from inside the Gaza Strip, calling for the need to open... Crossings and bringing in aid. On Wednesday, Martin Griffiths, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, expected that half of the population of the Gaza Strip would face death and famine by mid-July. Griffiths said in a statement, "The conflicts in Sudan and Gaza are spiraling out of control, and the war is pushing millions of people to the brink of famine." Manifestations of famine In turn, the director of the government media office in Gaza, Ismail Al-Thawabta, said: 'Our Palestinian people are suffering from an escalation of the war of starvation, a rapid deterioration of the humanitarian catastrophe, and the emergence of signs of fami ne in the Strip, especially in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, as a result of the occupation's closure of the crossings.' He added to Anadolu that "the number of trucks entering the sector is limited in quantity and quality, and they enter at intervals and not continuously." He continued: "The Zionist occupation's use of starvation and preventing medical care as tools in this barbaric aggression is a proven and complex war crime." He stressed that Israel continues its "major crime" against the people of Gaza in front of the entire world, considering this a blatant violation of all international laws and a disregard for the calls, demands and decisions that stipulate the introduction of aid and the cessation of the war. Al-Thawabetah called on international and humanitarian organizations to "move urgently and provide the necessary food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and to exert pressure to force the occupation to open the crossings to bring in aid." He appealed to Arab and Islamic coun tries to "exert more efforts and pressure to break the siege and provide all the relief needs of the people of Gaza." On Friday, the World Food Program described civilian casualties as 'devastating' amid the escalation of fighting in the southern and central Gaza Strip. Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, warned in a post on his account on the On Monday , the head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Marouf, confirmed that the American floating dock on the coast of Gaza 'did not truly alleviate the disastrous humanitarian reality' in the Strip since its establishment, and that the number of aid trucks that passed through it did not exceed 120. On Friday, the leadership announced The American Central Bank, Centcom, said that it decided to temporarily move the floating dock from its location on the shore of the Gaza Strip to the Israeli port of Ashdod again due to expectations of high sea waves. On June 7, Centcom announced the re-establishment of the floating dock off the coast of Gaza designated for transporting limited amounts of aid to the besieged Strip. Centcom said in a statement at the time, 'We succeeded in reconstructing the temporary pier in Gaza, which collapsed amid rough waves late last month.' On May 17, Centcom announced the opening of the pier on the coast of Gaza, but it quickly collapsed after a week of operation due to the waves, and parts of it separated and reached the shore of the city of Ashdod. Palestinian circles say that the purpose of establishing the floating dock is to 'serve the hidden political interests' of Israel and the United States, contrary to what is portrayed by Washington and Tel Aviv as a 'humanitarian step.' Since the beginning of the war, Israel has closed the Gaza Strip crossings and prevented the entry of goods, while allowing very small and limited amounts of humanitarian aid to enter last November, through the Rafah land border crossing with Egypt, before it took control of the Palestinian side of it on May 7 last year . Since Israel has taken control of the Palestinian side of the crossing, Cairo has refused to coordinate with Tel Aviv regarding it, as it does not 'legitimize' its occupation. On May 24, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and American President Joe Biden agreed to 'send humanitarian aid and fuel temporarily from the Kerem Shalom crossing, until a mechanism is reached to reopen the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side,' according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency. Source: Maan News Agency