Starvation deaths in Gaza: Over 1,000 shot since end-May while seeking food

Israel blames Hamas for not allowing food and aid to reach the Gaza Strip. UN agencies blame Israel for killing 1,054 Palestinians since 27 May as they sought food from sites demarcated for distribution by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The UN also said 766 more were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 while trying to reach aid convoys up to Monday, 21 July.

The GHF uses private security contractors to distribute aid from sites in Israeli military zones. Israel and the US have defended this system of distribution and asserted that this was necessary to prevent Hamas from stealing the food.

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) briefed Israeli media to claim that soldiers had been firing on aid-seekers because of the unmanageable surge of people and the fear that armed Hamas fighters could be among them. It seemed that they suggested that it was genuine fear that was driving the IDF from killing aid-seekers.

Not only has the UN rubbished such claims, stating that there is no evidence offered by Israel of Hamas systematically diverting aid for itself, but video evidence has shown that Israeli forces were using drones to hunt and murder aid-seekers, including a child and a woman, as they searched for food and water in Gaza City.

Figures released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday showed a sharp increase in hunger in the Gaza Strip. A screening conducted by the UN and other organisations in the first two weeks of July found that among 56,440 children from different areas of Gaza, almost 5,000 were suffering from acute malnutrition and 838 from extreme malnutrition.

Israeli newspaper Times of Israel reported on Wednesday, that 20 children had starved to death in Gaza in the preceding 48 hours compared to 88 in the last 21 months.

Israel claims to control 75 per cent of the Gaza Strip and insists that its military had no role to play in the distribution of aid and food. However, the IDF is being used to secure access to distribution points for the GHF in Gaza and untrained soldiers, not equipped with non-lethal weapons designed to control crowds, are opening fire at the first ‘sense’ of trouble and fear.

The reservists, comprising the bulk of the IDF in Gaza, have been found to be ill-equipped to handle the situation, but with Israeli politicians determined to ‘annex’ Gaza and turn Palestine into an integral part of Israel, no end to the stalemate is in sight.

Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz are opposed to a ceasefire even as talks continue in Doha. The Netanyahu government is still following the hard line that every Palestinian is a terrorist, that children in Gaza are not innocent, and that there is no alternative to relocating Palestinians from Gaza to other Arab countries.

The stalemate continues even as there is growing awareness of the dire situation in Gaza. The number of deaths due to starvation and shortage of water has begun to rise alarmingly amidst a growing clamour for an immediate ceasefire and deployment of UN peacekeepers and agencies in the Gaza Strip.