An aid group warned on Monday, 23 December 2023, that only 12 aid trucks had distributed food and water to Palestinians in northern Gaza in almost three months.
Oxfam said although a “meager” 34 aid trucks entered the devastated region, a combination of deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just 12 were able to provide food to Palestinians.
Oxfam added that they had been unable to provide aid in northern Gaza since 6 October, saying that since the beginning of December, they had been receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.
Oxfam said that in one week last month, three trucks were allowed to distribute aid to Gaza, carrying ready-to-eat rations, wheat flour, and water to Mahdia al-Shawa school in Beit Hanoun, which was sheltering displaced families.
“While the aid was distributed, within hours soldiers and quadcopters fired on the school and people were ordered to leave,” Oxfam said.
“The next day the Israeli military returned and shelled the school, burning down the buildings.”
More than 45,000 people have been killed since Israel began its assault on Gaza in October 2023. The vast majority of the population has been forcibly displaced while the north has been depopulated.
Oxfam staff said this week that humanitarian access across the entire enclave was at “an all-time low”.
They said winter weather conditions were expected to affect more than 1.6 million people living in makeshift shelters, including more than 500,000 in “flood-prone areas”.
Meanwhile, starvation is becoming a reality for millions in Gaza.
Oxfam cited one man evacuated from the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the center of Gaza with little notice last week as saying “Adults tell the kids not to play so they don’t get dizzy” from hunger, adding that one pack of biscuits was all they had for 15 grandchildren.
Sally Abi-Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director, described the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic”.
“The absolute desperation of having no food or shelter for your family in the biting cold of winter. It is abhorrent that despite international law being so publicly violated by Israel and starvation being used relentlessly as a weapon of war, world leaders continue to do nothing,” she said.
“Gaza has been widely destroyed and the entire population is suffering. The public sector has collapsed and the humanitarian system is on its knees.
“We plead with the entire international community – stop this, now. You have the diplomatic and economic levers to make Israel stop.
“Every day that passes without a ceasefire is a death sentence for hundreds more civilians.”
A new report this month by Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said there was evidence of ethnic cleansing and destruction in Gaza, including mass killings, siege, and forced displacement.
In its latest findings, MSF detailed Israel’s ongoing devastation in the enclave, dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure, and systemic denial of humanitarian assistance.
It follows other reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that have characterized Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a genocide.
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