“What will arrive in the next few days (A Gaza) is a bit of flour for bakeries and for public kitchens that give a daily ration of cooked food. Civilians will receive a pita bread and a plate of food. That’s all.” This is how the ultra -rightist Minister of Finance Israeli, Bezalel Smotrich, described the food that the population of Gaza will receive in the next few days. What his governing partner, Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu, had already described the eve as “a basic amount” of food by announcing his decision to give the borders of the strip to avoid the risk of famine that had been denying for weeks. If that “red line” was crossed, Netanyahu warned, Israel’s partners could withdraw their support for the new invasion that their army launched on Saturday in the already razed Palestinian enclave. That that humanitarian aid will be lean and include the flour are two of the few things that are known about what will enter in the next few days in the Palestinian territory invaded, if Israel fulfills its commitment. Its executive not only has not specified what other foods will be distributed these days, but also who will take care of it, or in what amount. Less is still known when that food will arrive regularly to Gaza, or if the limited relief of the total blocking at aid entry will include medicines and other vital supplies that are cruelly missing in Gaza. The Israeli government has only assured that on Monday they were authorized to enter the enclave five trucks with “food and medicines for children.” The UN raised that number to nine. On the 12th, UNICEF warned that, in Gaza, there were already 71,000 children who were going to need urgent treatment to avoid acute malnutrition. Half of the population of the territory, 2.1 million, are lower. Those trucks are “a drop of water in a necessity ocean,” says Bushra Khalidi, responsible for incidence of the International Oxfam NGO. Before the war, every day they entered the territory between 500 and 600 vehicles of large tonnage, but, in addition, the needs are now much larger. “Immense,” describes Khalidi, after 19 months of attacks that have killed at least 53,500 people and injured more than 120,000, and hundreds of thousands of homes, cultivation fields, farms and infrastructure of drinking water and destroyed sanitation. Gaza’s humanitarian situation, catastrophic even during the top fire with Hamas that Israel broke on March 18, became unsustainable when the Israeli army resumed the bombing that day so as not to have to negotiate the end of the war. However, he had already begun to worsen on March 2, when Netanyahu closed the border at the entrance of food, medicines, fuel and any type of humanitarian aid. That situation lasts eleven weeks. The last day 12, the nutrition reference index that the UN uses the UN warned that, if Israel did not allow the entry of food in Gaza before September, the entire town of the enclave could suffer by then “acute food insecurity.” Of those two million long Palestinians, half a million look directly to the famine. That situation will not change now because Israel accepts that some “symbolic convoys” enter the territory with food, criticizes the Oxfam cooperator. “What Gaza needs is that access to humanitarian aid is completely restored, which we are allowed to work on international organizations and that a fire is reached,” says Khalidi. Then remember that the population of Gaza, “in addition to being hungry, is being bombed.” A “real humanitarian response”, continues, “cannot be reduced to distribute flour. We are not talking about survival, but of dignity. It is about having hospitals working, having medicines and other medical supplies, materials to repair infrastructure, of shelters for displaced people,” adds Khalidi. The cooperative is echoed an accusation defended by numerous humanitarian organizations: That Israel uses hunger as a gun of war. For example, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), whose general commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, reiterated that accusation on April 22. He also assured that this country uses humanitarian aid as “currency.” A statement signed on Monday by 26 great international humanitarian donors – among them the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain – urges Israel to allow the resumption of the delivery of aid by the United Nations and international NGOs “to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity”. Also 30 Israeli pacifist organizations have influenced the same arguments in a manifesto: “Israel must immediately stop their attacks, end their famine policy, open the border crossings for the entry of help to Gaza and allow the organizations to help in the strip carry out their work,” says the document.The UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, Tom Fletcher, Tom Fletcher, that Bushra Khalidi: “A drop in an ocean of necessity.” In his text, confirmed another of the few aspects that are known about the resumption of food entry in Gaza: which will last a few days. Those late by the Netanyahu government in launching a controversial plan whose design israeli responsible attribute to the United States, but they support. This was confirmed on Monday at a press conference in Jerusalem Eden Bar Tal, director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. A “surplus” of Fuentese Plan is to attribute to an opaque organization based in Geneva (Switzerland) -the Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza (GHF in its acronym in English) -, the responsibility of distributing humanitarian aid. The cast will occur in several distribution centers that are already being built in the south and center of the territory, showed satellite images revealed by the BBC chain. There the food will begin to be delivered in June, according to the calculations of the Israeli government. Israel’s decision to allow a small amount of foods in the strip to also aim to gain time to open those facilities and reducing the international pressure in the meantime. Since the beginning of the Israeli block in Gaza, at least 57 children have died from malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization. To do this, Israel will cross the territory to “dozen of trucks,” said Bar Tal. Without specifying their number or their content, he said they will be “enough” to meet the needs of the Gazatí population in the missing days for those centers to begin to work. The UN agencies and international NGOs have already communicated to Israel that they will not participate in that project. Only the previous step that provides for the mass displacement by military order of the population of Gaza to the south – could constitute a war crime. The preparations for this alleged American and Israeli humanitarian plan run to the military operation cars of Gideon, which Israel unleashed last weekend. They also serve their purposes, according to some humanitarian organizations. For example, when anticipating that displaced people are concentrated in surrounding areas to the distribution points whose “perimeter” – the director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed – will be guarded by the country’s troops. Inside these areas, American private security companies will be; That is, mercenaries, who will “guarantee security,” said the official. Eden Bar would elude Monday to answer the questions about what these private companies will be. Nor did he want to respond to how the GHF is financed. For Bushra Khalidi, what Israel is starting are not a help distribution sites, “but military control areas, where beneficiaries will become prisoners.” While Netanyahu and his ally Smotrich recognized on Monday to have given green light to the entry of food in Gaza so that their allies allow them to continue their war, the director of the Foreign Ministry recovered the official discourse of their country until this Sunday: deny hunger. Bar Tal said that, thanks to the “25,000 trucks with help” that, according to Israel, entered Gaza in just over 40 days during the top fire, the Gazati enjoyed a “surplus” of food. (Tagstotranslate) War
