While the international community engages in a row over the Palestinian state, the crisis of hunger in Gaza continues to deteriorate – and starving Palestinians say they have trouble surviving.
Reports of the hunger in the enclave will continue to exist despite an increase in assistance to help through the controversial supported by the US Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and Air Drops by Jordan, Germany and France. These efforts, Palestinians say, do not change anything on the spot.
“This is not a life,” says Asmaa Abu Diya, a 46-year-old mother of eight, The independent. “We do not lead a worthy life. The state we have reached is difficult to describe in words. There is no life.”
American envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Wartorn Strip (Reuters) on Friday
The challenge of finding food and help has become known as the “Death Journey,” says Mrs. Diya, a journey that her son regularly takes. “Or they bring us something and return safely, or they come back to death.
“My son was going to get American help, and a quadcopter dropped a bomb on them and killed people straight in front of his eyes. Four people were cut into pieces. My son was struck by grenade shards in his chest, and it stays there to this day,” she adds.
“If our children don't die, we won't eat.”
On Thursday, the UN Humanitarian Office (UNHCR) said that at least 1,373 Palestinians were killed while they tried to achieve help since the GHF took over the help distribution of the help in May. At least 859 of these murders have been near GHF locations, the most because of the Israeli army, says it.
Mourners at the funeral of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire while trying to receive help on Thursday (Reuters)
The GHF denies that the murders are the result of his auxiliary distribution practices, which Hamas accused of “spreading disinformation” by “falsely attributing” to the agency. The agency, together with Israel and the US, says that systematic theft of help by Hamas is the reason that there is hunger in the comic. Israeli military officials and the US government analysis have made doubts about such claims.
Another 91 Palestinians were killed on Thursday at auxiliary locations, said the Health Minister of Gaza. Nevertheless, the American ambassador in Israel Mike Huckabee greeted the “incredible” course of the GHF, after a visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday next to Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The visit occurred on the expected unveiling of a new humanitarian aid plan for Gaza recommended by Mr Trump during a visit to Scotland earlier in the week, in which the US would set up new food centers.
Shortly after Mr. Trump's departure on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was engaged in a diplomatic row by threatening to recognize the state of Palestine in September, unless Israel dramatically changed the course of his actions in Gaza. France had recently become the first G7 state to recognize Palestine, and Canada has sworn the same ever since.
A woman collects flower from the ground while Palestinians receive auxiliary supplies from the USA supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) (Reuters)
For Gazanen, however, diplomatic attitude makes little difference in their desperate pursuit of food and resources.
“We don't just want political explanations; we want real action on the spot,” says Umm Odary Nassar, 45, who has two children. “We want them to recognize ourselves on the ground and in a realistic way. Not in a way that feels insensitive. Recognition is meaningless if there is no change on the ground.”
Regarding Mr. Trump's promise of new food centers, Mrs. Nassar said that she does not consider a positive sounding statements as the effort “unless they are implemented on the spot and real change is achieved”.
The levels of hunger in the Gaza Strip is the “work of Netanyahu and Israel, with full support from Trump,” said Mrs. Nassar – and despite an assumed increase in assistance, the people of Gaza say they don't notice any significant change.
Palestinians struggle to get donated food in a community kitchen in Gaza City, Northern Gaza Strip (AP)
“The help so far has only been symbolic because the amount is very small in relation to the number of people and is not sufficient for the needs of all people, and the types of help are not enough for everyone,” says Mrs. Nassar.
“We have been living on canned food for two years. Our children have become dwarfs because of the lack of food and food. Everyone has Brosse bones and health and psychological problems.”
Recent air drops through France, Germany, the VAE and Jordan – an initiative with which the UK wants to participate, Sir Keir said little to alleviate a growing hunger crisis, residents say.
Mrs. Nassar describes them as a “theatrical performance” that only benefits Israel.
Palestinians are hurrying to collect humanitarian aid that are evicted by parachutes in Zawaida in the Central Gaza Strip (AP)
“As the world sees them, they are airdrops and they allow help. But I have not really heard of a segment of society that they have benefited from them,” she says. “The majority of this help is dropped in forbidden areas, forbidden to come in and to enter them, is considered suicide.”
Mrs. Diya says that the air is falling “no more than five truck loads”. She adds: “This is all death. For me and others we consider it a smoke curtain for the world. Even when they come and bring help, it is not enough.”
Mrs. Nassar adds: “We have reached the point where there is no life, we have reached the peak of hunger. The story of bread has become a tragedy. We are now in an era in which a mother divides a livelihood to her children.”
