Aid workers say the risk of famine and deaths from preventable conditions in Gaza is “getting worse by the day” as critical aid shortages lead to malnutrition and deaths among the Palestinian population as it faces some of its “darkest phases.”
The Israeli army has come under heavy criticism where rocket fire has increased since October 6 this year, trapping thousands of civilians afraid to travel to the enclave’s busy south.
The military says the aim of the attack is to destroy the operational capabilities Hamas is trying to rebuild in the north.
As an already deadly situation continues to deteriorate, of treatable wounds and denied medical evacuation to Egypt, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in Geneva on October 21.
He told the story of Mazyona, a twelve-year-old girl in Gaza.
‘When two rockets hit her house, she was thought dead. Mazyona had no pulse. Both of her siblings, Hala, 13, and Mohamed, 10, were killed,” Elder said.
Elder said Mazyona suffered serious injuries to her facial structure, her face was almost torn off and she required urgent medical attention for specialized care and bone surgery.
“Mazyona also still has shrapnel in her neck. Naturally, she is in tremendous pain and her condition is deteriorating. The platinum surgically used to rebuild her face is coming out, and doctors have said she will need surgery outside Gaza to save her. life,” said Elder.
Elder said Israeli authorities had denied Mazyona medical evacuation four times.
UNICEF estimates that 2,500 children in Gaza need urgent medical care. It says they are being evacuated at a rate of less than one per day.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – which controls access to Gaza – denied withholding medical evacuations for children from Gaza.
In a statement to SBS News, COGAT said it is “proactively facilitating the departure of patients and injured persons with complex injuries to receive medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip, including in Egypt, pending host country approval and completion of security checks ”.
COGAT said it has so far evacuated twelve groups of patients and attendants through the sovereign territory of Israel and “will continue to work to facilitate the provision of a humanitarian response in all its aspects for the residents of the Gaza Strip, with a particular emphasis on medical assistance”.
According to the COGAT statement, approximately 4,013 patients and 1,879 escorts have left Gaza through various border crossings so far.
This year, an average of 296 children were medically evacuated every month from January 1 to May 7. But since May 7, when closed due to Israel’s ground offensive there, the number of medically evacuated children has fallen to just 22 per month or 127 children in total, a drop of about 90 percent, UNICEF says.
Many of these children suffer from head trauma, amputations, burns, cancer and severe malnutrition.
Elder told SBS News that conditions in northern Gaza are “getting worse by the day” as so little food, water and medical supplies enter the region, and more than 37 schools and shelters have been affected since early October.
He said Israeli forces have created a “virtual blockade” around the Jabalia refugee camp, where thousands are sheltering, and that the number of trucks coming in is an “absolute trickle” compared to what is needed, meaning the risk of famine is “escalating rapidly.” ”.
Jasser, a seven-year-old boy from Gaza, looks out through a hole in a tent. Credit: Eyad El Baba/UNICEF
“It’s been a year since we lobbied so hard to even get aid to the north, which was under heavy bombardment,” he said.
“Here we are again a year later, when people’s psychological and physical capacities have been destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed, while most family members have lost a mother, a daughter or a brother.”
Elder said he has been to Gaza four times with UNICEF in the past year and has seen “far too many children writhing in pain” because hospitals cannot get basic services.
He said: “These soft whimpers and cries of children lie in hospital beds with wounds that no parent can imagine their child seeing. And in hospitals, for example, that simply don’t have the basic burn creams to treat them.”
But he said families are stuck in the north because they know that being displaced again and moving south “pushes them from one place of suffering to another.”
“Now we are in some of the darkest phases for those families up north.”
On Friday, health officials said Israeli forces had done so one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said two children had died in the hospital’s intensive care unit after Israeli fire hit oxygen equipment and knocked out the hospital’s generators. The Israeli military said it was not aware of any attacks in the area.
Gaza’s aid crisis
The UN chief has described the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza as “unsustainable” and called on Israel to allow crucial aid to the besieged enclave.
“The destruction and deprivation caused by Israel’s military operations in northern Gaza are making living conditions for the Palestinian population there untenable,” António Guterres wrote on X on Monday.
Israel is under international pressure to allow more aid to Gaza.
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel must do more to ensure adequate humanitarian aid reaches people living in dire conditions. .
Lisa Scharinger from Oxfam spoke to SBS News from Gaza.
She said food shortages are much worse than earlier this year, and people in southern Gaza have no meat and very few fresh vegetables, which are exorbitantly expensive.
“When I was here in March and April, it was very heavy in terms of bombing and destruction and in terms of freedom of movement there were a lot of restrictions, but at least commercial trucks were coming in and people could buy food, even though it was too expensive. she said.
“(Earlier in the year) it was Ramadan, there was meat, there was even fruit, there were fresh vegetables. At the moment there is hardly anything fresh.”
Scharinger said continued bombing will save it to drive trucks to the affected areas.
“Even the most seasoned first responders who have been working in this industry for many, many years have never seen anything like this. It’s really horrible.
“It looks like an earthquake has happened, but it’s not an earthquake – it’s all man-made destruction.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that during the first 20 days of October, only four of the 66 planned humanitarian missions through the Israeli checkpoint from southern to northern Gaza were facilitated by Israeli authorities.
OCHA staff in Gaza City say there is almost no humanitarian aid entering the Jabalia refugee camp, and telecommunications have been severely disrupted by ongoing airstrikes, shelling and fighting in northern Gaza.
The fuel needed to keep water supplies running has run out, OCHA says, and people are risking their lives to find drinking water and consume water from unsafe sources.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 42,800 people have been killed in the enclave since Israel’s attack on Gaza.
This was triggered in the aftermath of the October 7 attack on southern Israel last year, carried out by militants led by Hamas – the militant rulers of Gaza.
Militants have killed 1,200 people in Israel, including more than 250 hostage.