Gaza children go without food for days and locals turn to animal feed as supplies dwindle
Gaza children are going without food for days in northern Gaza as aid convoys are increasingly restricted from entering, according to a report.
Some residents are making flour out of animal feed because they are starving, but even these supplies are running low, said some people living in the northern part of the enclave. BBC.
They also said that some people dig into the ground to access water pipes for washing and drinking.
The United Nations has said the number of young children with acute malnutrition in the north has grown dramatically and is past the 15 percent threshold.
Over half of aid missions to northern Gaza were denied access in January, and Israeli troops are intervening more frequently in the delivery location and method, according to the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency, Ocha.
A Palestinian mother feeds her child near a makeshift tent as Palestinian families seek refuge in El-Mavasi district as they struggle to find clean water, food and medicine as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza on February 9
Women and children queue for water in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 9
Palestinians gather to collect water from a house destroyed by an Israeli attack in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on February 7
The body says the 300,000 people estimated to be living in areas in the north are mostly unable to get aid and the risk of famine is rising.
A spokesman for Cogat, the Israeli military agency whose role is to coordinate access to aid in Gaza, said in January that there was no hunger in Gaza. Period’.
The agency has said on many occasions that it does not limit the amount of humanitarian aid sent to the enclave.
Mahmoud Shalabi, a local medical assistant in Beit Lahia, told the BBC that people are unable to find the animal feed they make into flour in the market.
He said that it cannot be found at the moment in Gaza City and the northern part of Gaza.
He added that canned food was also running low.
Shalabi said: ‘What we had was actually from the six or seven day ceasefire (in November) and the aid that was allowed into the north of Gaza has actually been used up now. What people eat right now is basically rice, and only rice.’
A photo taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 10
A view of northern Gaza from a position on the Israeli side of the border on February 9
Palestinians gather to collect water from a house destroyed by an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on February 7
Palestinians gather to collect water from a house destroyed by an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on February 7
A child drinks water from his father as Palestinian families take refuge in El-Mavasi district as they struggle to find clean water, food and medicine as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza on February 9
Palestinian children fill the water tank as Palestinians meet their water needs from mobile tanks belonging to the United Nations (UN) due to the heavy damage to the city’s infrastructure in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza on February 3
Ocha said the number of aid missions restricted from entering northern Gaza has increased, with 56 percent of supplies unable to reach the area in January, a 14 percent increase from October to December.
It added that Israel’s army “sometimes demanded justifications” for amounts of fuel to travel through to health facilities and “imposed reductions in the amount of aid, such as the amount of food”.
About 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, and the area has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food and medical services.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war will only end with “total victory” for Israel, including crushing Hamas, a goal even considered unattainable by some in Israel.
In the southern Gaza Strip, fears are mounting over the fate of more than a million displaced Palestinians who have sought shelter in the city, many of them in plastic tents pushed up against the border with Egypt and also surrounded by the sea.
“We are between life and death,” said one of them, Bassel Matar.
‘We don’t know if there will be hope tomorrow for a ceasefire or if there will be changes on the ground.’
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 44 Palestinians in Rafah early Saturday, hours after Netanyahu said he asked the military to plan the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the southern Gaza city ahead of a ground invasion.
He did not provide details or a timeline, but the announcement sparked widespread panic.
More than half of Gaza’s population is packed into Rafah, which is on the Egyptian border.
Many have been repeatedly uprooted by Israeli evacuation orders that now cover two-thirds of Gaza’s territory.
Rafah is the last major population center in the Gaza Strip that Israeli troops have not yet entered, and also the main gateway for desperately needed relief supplies.
Palestinian children who left their homes and sought refuge with their families in the city of Rafah to protect themselves from Israeli attacks and to ensure their safety, try to collect items including wood, paper and cardboard amid the rubble of residential buildings that were destroyed by Israeli strikes for use as fuel to warm up in winter conditions in Rafah, Gaza on February 9
A Palestinian girl walks near the makeshift tents as Palestinian families seek refuge in El-Mavasi district as they struggle to find clean water, food and medicine as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza on February 9
Palestinian children wait in line to receive food prepared by volunteers for Palestinian families displaced to southern Gaza due to Israeli attacks, among the ruins of destroyed buildings in Rafah, Gaza on February 9
The UN children’s fund, UNICEF, warned this week against a military escalation in Rafah, saying “thousands more could die in the violence or the lack of essential services”.
“An escalation of fighting in Rafah, already strained by the extraordinary number of people displaced from other parts of Gaza, would mark another devastating turn” in the four-month conflict, UNICEF added.
Israel’s orders to Palestinian residents to move further south towards the Egyptian border during the war against Hamas in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation have raised concerns among Arabs and the United Nations that Palestinians could eventually be driven across the border.
Egypt has sent about 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers to northeastern Sinai in the past two weeks as part of a series of measures to bolster security on the border with Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said.