Starvation engineering in Gaza

International and UN organizations and institutions are sounding the alarm due to the starvation affecting every part of the sector from its north to its center to its south. Children are starving, seeking food, and mothers feel sorrow as they watch their children wither from hunger. The head of the household in Gaza stands helpless, unable to help his children to save them from death that is rapidly approaching the youngest, who are the most vulnerable group in society. The government media office in Gaza calls for urgent action to open crossings and bring in humanitarian, food, and medical aid to the hungry, sick, and injured who are collapsing day by day.

Many lives will be awaiting death if aid is not extended to them and they are not helped to provide sufficient food such as meat, dairy, and milk for children, as well as vegetables and fruits. Even doctors have begun to feel extreme fatigue and their bodies are collapsing as they treat the wounded and sick from all groups. Hunger gnaws at their intestines; they are hungry treating the hungry. It is rare to find a person in Gaza whose body has not been ravaged by hunger and who does not await the unknown. The question confronting us is: how long will the situation in Gaza remain as it is, from bad to worse? International institutions and bodies remain helpless, lacking the means and not knowing how to save the hungry. Images of children with their frail bodies and protruding bones have spread in the global media. There is no mechanism suitable for the military situation imposed by the Israeli army through the closure and control of border crossings. The need to bring in humanitarian aid is urgent and strong before the matter slips out of the hands of these international institutions and bodies.

How astonishing!! The world cannot bring in a single grain of rice, a box of milk, or a pill?! This is a deliberate starvation policy practiced against the innocent in the Gaza Strip, which prevents the opening of new and safe routes for humanitarian aid and the protection of the people of Gaza. Yet, the world is content with statements that neither satisfy nor alleviate hunger. The humanitarian scene in Gaza is tragic, and the morsel is soaked in blood to obtain a bag of flour or a box of milk. Humanity is torn apart there, and the disaster intensifies as the starving fall dead in front of aid distribution centers searching for a loaf of bread and to get a carton of aid to return to their families and feed their children. They may not return, as a bullet may suddenly pierce their head or chest, ending their life.

According to government reports issued from the Gaza Strip, more than 130 innocent people have fallen victim to hunger, most of them children—a generation doomed to weakness and illness if the situation continues to deteriorate without effective international action, depriving Gaza’s residents of food, drink, and medicine. What is saddening is that when humanitarian aid does enter, it is seized by thieves or subjected to organized attacks by settlers stationed at the crossings towards the West Bank, who damage the humanitarian aid or prevent it from reaching the hungry.

The people of Gaza are starving, and no person, entity, or government can find justification for preventing food from reaching weak people exhausted by hunger, illness, and displacement. Has the infant become a fighter carrying a weapon to be deprived of a box of milk that nourishes his frail body?! It is something sad, shameful, irrational, and rejected by sound reason.

Khawla Kamel Al-Kurdi.