Gaza: What is happening with the starvation?

Tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel on trucks are waiting to be distributed to the 2.1 million Palestinians that live in Gaza. These trucks are located both outside and inside the Strip, and the aid items are provided by the UN but also directly by Israel. However, the humanitarian organisations say they are blocked from accessing or delivering the aid trucks because of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and not providing military escorts into the Strip. The aid is blocked both on the Israeli border as on Gaza's border with Egypt, as Israel controls the Egyptian access from within Gaza.

In March of this year, the Israeli military blockaded all entry of trucks carrying aid into Gaza for 11 weeks, to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages. Then, Israel created in May the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with unclear sources of financiation, to finish with the previous system containing around 400 aid distribution points operated by the UN across the Strip, and that have now been replaced by just four military-controlled distribution sites controlled by the Israeli army and private contractors. The UN has refused to deliver aid through the GHF because it accuses it of not being “impartial” and because only the strongest can manage to reach the aid in these few distribution centers. The UN says that more than 1,000 people have been killed at aid GHF distribution centers since May. Israel says those figures are inflated, and that the firing has happened when “a big crowd threatens the security of the area”.

Israel defends the new system with the argument that Hamas steals the food aid, resales it in the black market with huge profits, and then uses this money to wage war. However, the UN and the US have not found evidence of a systematic plundering by Hamas of international aid. Actually, Israeli media and the ex-defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have presented wide evidence that the gangs that steal the aid are financed by Israel. This because Netanyahu decided to arm criminals gangs in Gaza that oppose Hamas, led by Bedouin tribesman Yasser Abu Shabab, to create internal division within the Palestinian rulers. When asked about this information, Netanyahu replied: ”What did Lieberman leak? ... That on the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What is bad about that?”

Currently, Hamas is extremely debilitated. Since Israel took over the food distribution in the Strip two months ago, Hamas has been unable to steal the humanitarian aid and resale it to Palestinians at exorbitant prices, losing with this an important source of income. Members of Hamas have acknowledged that recently the leaders of the organisation have not being able to pay their salaries and to bureaucrats, enabling Israel to control 87% of the territory in Gaza.

Moreover, the other Palestinian government body, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was created during the Oslo peace accords with Israel in 1993, and that rules the Palestinian territories in the West Bank (Areas A and B) is putting pressure on Hamas. The President of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, who has expressed some support for Hamas since October 7th 2023, is now calling for their capitulation. Abbas demands now that "Hamas must hand over their weapons to the PA and international forces, must "immediately" release all Israeli hostages and prisoners (around 20 of them still alive) and that "Hamas will no longer rule Gaza". Until 2006, the PA also ruled Gaza, but after a mostly democratic election in that year, Hamas won the political control of the Strip, and later killed many of the opposition candidates from the Palestinian Authority, imposing with this a brutal dictatorship since then.

Both the Israeli government and Trump have expressed that a solution to end the war in Gaza requires: the release of the remaining hostages, the demilitarization of Hamas, and the assurance that Hamas will never rule Gaza again. In that sense, the Palestinian Authority is a key component of a possible cease-fire deal, and it is the reason why they call on Hamas to surrender.

Starvation is now a reality in Gaza, as 90% of its population is eating just 1 meal per day according to the United Nations, 40 people have died of hunger in the last three days, and 1 kg of flour costs 30 dollars. Additionally, in April of this year, Israel cut the last electricity supply to the Strip, and telephone connection is only possible via satellite using solar panels.

As a response to the the criticism coming from NGOs, the U.N. and many western countries for the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel blamed the “lack of cooperation from the international community”, arguing it had opened up more crossing points and was allowing more aid to enter Gaza under a deal struck with the European Union.

The problem, according to spokespersons from Netanyahu's government, is that the U.N. is failing to distribute more than 900 truckloads of aid parked in a fenced-off area near the Kerem Shalom crossing point in the Gaza Strip. Israel constantly accuses Hamas of stealing aid food and killing Palestinian civilians who try to get close to the trucks and distribution centers. However, all evidence from locals and foreign agencies point to the opposite.

To feed and give medical care to the population of Gaza, around 600 trucks of international aid are needed to pass the border every day. Currently only 28 are coming into the Strip.