‘Dying in fight for food’
PALESTINE’S 4.9 million people are hurtling towards famine as humanitarian aid struggles to get to war-torn Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
About a dozen countries, including Australia, the US and the UK, have suspended funding to the United Nation’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) after allegations that several of its staff participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel.
More than 1100 people were killed, 250 hostages taken and mass rapes reported in the devastating terror attacks by Hamas. Israel’s response has been a full-scale war that is now in its 117th day, with at least 25,000 dead.
‘Dying in fight for food’: Aid worker’s harrowing account One Gaza City-based aid worker for Mercy Corps said he had “witnessed two people suffocating to death from the overcrowding” after a food delivery reached northern Gaza.
“Gazans must wait for aid trucks in a place near the tanks to find something to eat,” the aid worker, who chose to remain anonymous, said.
“Every day people go hoping to get some assistance and tanks shoot at them, resulting in casualties. Personally, from the beginning of the war until today, my family hasn’t received any kind of assistance. We now eat only once a day and say it’s enough.
“The aid trucks reaching the north are very few and because there is no one responsible for the distribution process, it’s extremely chaotic. People often intercept these trucks and directly take items from them because they know they won’t get anything otherwise.
“Recently, I went to observe the aid distribution and it was very distressing. Thousands of people were waiting by the seaside in the hope that aid trucks would enter and after waiting for hours, only two trucks entered — for thousands of hungry people. People crowded around them so intensely that I witnessed two people suffocating to death from the overcrowding.
“Most people are not getting any assistance either because they are not willing to risk going to places where there’s a high chance of being targeted or because they cannot compete with so many people trying to get aid.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was unable to deliver food to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza because the supplies were taken by hungry people in the streets.
“Due to delays around the checkpoint, the crowds took food being delivered, and once again it did not reach Nasser”, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
“This underscores the utter desperation of people in Gaza, who live in hellish conditions, including severe hunger. We continue to seek permission to deliver the fuel to the hospital.”