A group of displaced Palestinian children sits near their tents in a makeshift camp at sunset in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Dec. 22, 2024. According to the UN, at least 1.9 million people across Gaza are internally displaced, including people who have been repeatedly displaced. Since October 2023, only about 11% of Gaza has not been placed under Israeli-issued evacuation orders. Photo by Haitham Imad/EPA-EFE
Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, has released a report condemning the "apocalyptic" conditions in Gaza caused by Israel's war on the Palestinian enclave.
In releasing its report, titled "Gaza: Life in a Death Trap," MSF joins human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in providing attestations of the devastation faced by Israel's alleged genocide of Palestinian civilians.
"MSF has witnessed 14 months of repeated attacks on civilians, the dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure including healthcare facilities, and a systematic denial of humanitarian assistance, seemingly underpinning Israel's campaign to unravel the very fabric of society in Gaza," the humanitarian aid group said in the report.
The humanitarian aid group said eight of its staffers have been killed as its teams have endured a documented 41 attacks and violent incidents on them, including air strikes and direct fire on health facilities in Gaza where they were working. Some have even been arrested by Israeli forces.
"Israeli forces have blocked essential items such as food, water and medical supplies from entering the Strip," MSF said in its report. "They have either denied, delayed or instrumentalized humanitarian assistance, allowing insignificant quantities of aid into Gaza with a complete disregard for the actual needs and the level of suffering."
MSF doctors have had to conduct surgery without sufficient anesthesia as civilians die from skin diseases, upper respiratory infections and diarrhea from the lack of hygiene conditions as well as the lack of vaccines, food and water.
"Even if the offensive ended today, its long-term impact would be unprecedented, given the scale of the destruction and the unique challenges of organizing healthcare in Gaza," MSF said. "A whole society needs rebuilding."
MSF said it could take years to treat and rehabilitate those left with amputations and permanent disabilities from the war, on top of the generations of future mental trauma caused by Israel's violence and the loss of their family members and homes.
The humanitarian aid group noted that Israel's long blockade of Gaza, even before Hamas attacked Israel, caused "chronic shortages" in medical supplies and equipment, a situation similarly faced by Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
MSF said Israel's attacks on their staff began as early as October 10, 2023, when Israel hit an MSF clinic in Gaza in an airstrike, followed by shots fired at an MSF shelter on November 14, 2023. An attack on an MSF staff evacuation convoy that month led to the death of two people before what was likely an Israeli tank caused damage and fire to the MSF clinic.
On November 20, 2023, five cars belonging to MSF were destroyed and, the next day, two MSF staff members were killed in a strike on Al-Awda Hospital. An MSF convoy was again targeted a few days later.
Then in December, an MSF surgeon was injured by an Israeli sniper outside of the Al-Awda Hospital, which Israeli forces ultimately took over on December 17, 2023. Hospital workers, including MSF staff members, were stripped and interrogated.
An MSF shelter housing 100 staff members and their families was then shelled in January 2024, causing the death of a member of one staffer's family and the injuries of three other people. In February, an MSF staff member was arrested followed by the shelling of an MSF shelter a few days later, causing the deaths of two family members, among other incidents.
"Every day in July has been one shock after another," Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim said. "[On July 24] I walked in behind a curtain, and there was a little girl alone, dying by herself. And that's the outcome of a collapsed health system: a little 8-year-old girl, dying alone on a trolley in the emergency room. In a functioning health system, she would have been saved."
MSF staffers recounted seeing the dead and wounded "lying everywhere" with the "unbearable" smell of blood filling the air as pregnant women deliver premature babies, some 50,000 of which have not received vaccinations.
Only 12 trucks delivered food, water in North Gaza Governorate since October: Oxfam
By AFP
December 22, 2024
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza - Copyright AFP/File Omar AL-QATTAA
Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday, raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.
“Of the meager 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday.
“For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours,” Oxfam added.
Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.
In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities “of a systematic nature” to deprive Gazans of water, which had “likely caused thousands of deaths… and will likely continue to cause deaths.”
They were the latest in a series of accusations leveled against Israel — and denied by the country — during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas militants.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
– ‘Access blocked’ –
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups have been “continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid” in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory.
“Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it’s impossible to know exact numbers,” Oxfam said.
“At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.”
Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Israeli authorities.
“A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians,” it said.
“After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to.”
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Israel’s obligations to assist Palestinians.
By AFP
December 22, 2024
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza - Copyright AFP/File Omar AL-QATTAA
Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday, raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.
“Of the meager 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday.
“For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours,” Oxfam added.
Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.
In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities “of a systematic nature” to deprive Gazans of water, which had “likely caused thousands of deaths… and will likely continue to cause deaths.”
They were the latest in a series of accusations leveled against Israel — and denied by the country — during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas militants.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
– ‘Access blocked’ –
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups have been “continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid” in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory.
“Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it’s impossible to know exact numbers,” Oxfam said.
“At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.”
Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Israeli authorities.
“A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians,” it said.
“After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to.”
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Israel’s obligations to assist Palestinians.
Palestinians struggle to protect themselves from cold as winter hits Gaza
Shortage of blankets, warm clothing, wood for fire and tents raises fears that people living in makeshift shelters might not survive the winter in Gaza amid Israel's carnage.
The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter. / Photo: AP
Many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by Israel are struggling to protect themselves from wind, cold and rain as winter hits besieged Gaza.
There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.
Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.
"We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we're inside," she said.
With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the mid-to-high single digits Celsius, Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.
When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.
The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter.
At least 945,000 people need winterisation supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday. The UN also fears infectious disease, which spiked last winter, will climb again amid rising malnutrition.
Winter aid blocked
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is "not even close to being enough for people," said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokesperson.
UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the enclave, including areas where there has been Israeli bombardment.
About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan, and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn't have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritise desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.
Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by the weather and rodents, she said.
The International Rescue Committee is struggling to bring in children's winter clothing because there "are a lot of approvals to get from relevant authorities," said Dionne Wong, the organisation's deputy director of programs for the occupied Palestinian territories.
"The ability of Palestinians to prepare for winter is essentially very limited," Wong said.
For now, the winter clothing for sale i
Shortage of blankets, warm clothing, wood for fire and tents raises fears that people living in makeshift shelters might not survive the winter in Gaza amid Israel's carnage.
The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter. / Photo: AP
Many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by Israel are struggling to protect themselves from wind, cold and rain as winter hits besieged Gaza.
There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.
Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.
"We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we're inside," she said.
With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the mid-to-high single digits Celsius, Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.
When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.
The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter.
At least 945,000 people need winterisation supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday. The UN also fears infectious disease, which spiked last winter, will climb again amid rising malnutrition.
Winter aid blocked
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is "not even close to being enough for people," said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokesperson.
UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the enclave, including areas where there has been Israeli bombardment.
About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan, and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn't have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritise desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.
Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by the weather and rodents, she said.
The International Rescue Committee is struggling to bring in children's winter clothing because there "are a lot of approvals to get from relevant authorities," said Dionne Wong, the organisation's deputy director of programs for the occupied Palestinian territories.
"The ability of Palestinians to prepare for winter is essentially very limited," Wong said.
For now, the winter clothing for sale i
n Gaza's markets is far too expensive for most people to afford, residents and aid workers said.
Deadly cold
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from northern Gaza with her family, said the adults sleep with the children in their arms to keep them warm inside their tent.
"Rats walk on us at night because we don't have doors and tents are torn. The blankets don't keep us warm. We feel frost coming out from the ground. We wake up freezing in the morning," she said. "I'm scared of waking up one day to find one of the children frozen to death."
On Thursday night, she fought through knee pain exacerbated by cold weather to fry zucchini over a fire made of paper and cardboard scraps outside their tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the children before bed.
Omar Shabet, who is displaced from Gaza City and staying with his three children, feared that lighting a fire outside his tent would make his family a target for Israeli warplanes.
"We go inside our tents after sunset and don't go out because it is very cold, and it gets colder by midnight," he said. "My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because of how cold she is."
Israel has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, so far in the blockaded enclave.
In its carnage, Tel Aviv has caused a massive shortage of basic necessities, including food, water, electricity and medicine, while displacing almost the entire population.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
Deadly cold
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from northern Gaza with her family, said the adults sleep with the children in their arms to keep them warm inside their tent.
"Rats walk on us at night because we don't have doors and tents are torn. The blankets don't keep us warm. We feel frost coming out from the ground. We wake up freezing in the morning," she said. "I'm scared of waking up one day to find one of the children frozen to death."
On Thursday night, she fought through knee pain exacerbated by cold weather to fry zucchini over a fire made of paper and cardboard scraps outside their tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the children before bed.
Omar Shabet, who is displaced from Gaza City and staying with his three children, feared that lighting a fire outside his tent would make his family a target for Israeli warplanes.
"We go inside our tents after sunset and don't go out because it is very cold, and it gets colder by midnight," he said. "My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because of how cold she is."
Israel has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, so far in the blockaded enclave.
In its carnage, Tel Aviv has caused a massive shortage of basic necessities, including food, water, electricity and medicine, while displacing almost the entire population.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
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