Attack on workers slows flow of aid to Gaza
A deadly Israeli strike on an aid convoy run by
World Central Kitchen in the Gaza Strip is already setting back attempts to address a hunger crisis in the territory, with aid agencies saying they are being more cautious about making deliveries and at least two suspending operations.
In the wake of the attack that killed seven of its workers, World Central Kitchen stopped its work in Gaza and sent three ships with hundreds of tons of food back to port in Cyprus. The food was meant to be unloaded at a makeshift jetty in northern Gaza that was built by the group, which says it has provided 43 million meals to people in Gaza since the start of the war.
Gaza faces what United Nations officials say is a human-made humanitarian crisis, as the war and Israeli restrictions on aid have caused severe hunger that experts say is approaching famine. The most dire shortages are in northern Gaza, and aid groups say that, in the short term at least, the killing of the aid workers will make things worse there.
“Humanitarian aid organizations are unable to carry out their work safely,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday.
Another aid group, American Near East Refugee Aid, or Anera, which said it had operated in the Palestinian territories for more than 55 years, also announced that it was suspending its work in Gaza. But groups that are continuing to work there, including the World Food Program and UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that supports Palestinians, have long said that they face unacceptable hurdles in delivering aid, including Israeli restrictions on deliveries and lawlessness in northern Gaza.
“Our staff have guided our work, and they, themselves, feel like there’s a target on their backs,” Sandra Rasheed, Anera’s country director in Gaza and the West Bank, told the Al Jazeera network.
Michael Capponi, the founder of Global Empowerment Mission, a nonprofit aid group, said he was reconsidering his plans to travel to Gaza next week. Some staff members “basically want to pack up and go home now,” he said.
Ordinary Palestinians bear the brunt of the deprivation.
“No aid or anything comes down to us,” said Rawan al-Khoudary, who lived in northern Gaza. She lost a baby, Anwar, a few weeks ago from what doctors said was a combination of meningitis and malnutrition, she said.
In recent weeks, the United States, other countries and aid groups have increased pressure on
Israel to allow more aid to enter Gaza, a territory of more than 2 million people. Israel, which announced a siege of Gaza at the start of the war, says it places no limits on the amount of aid that can go into the territory.